FLN Report: 2016 Bahrain GP
The following opinions in this write up are completely serious. Totally genuine and the basis of my world view. If you don’t agree with them you’re a sell out and in the pocket of the new world order. 200% serious.
Let me just start by saying I’m not going to talk about qualifying because, kinda like the fact that we have to work for a living, everyone knows it sucks but nothing’s gonna change. The race itself was fantastic! By Fantastic I mean P1 and P2 were never in doubt and P3 was in play for about 1/4th of the race but for the entirety of the race we got to see good fights from P4 on down to end of the field. In other words, Formula 1 from 2014–2016. Here’s how every race this year is going to go down, P1 will be one of the silver cars 85% of the time. P2 will be a red car 85% of the time. P3 will either be Red or Silver 90% of the time. Let’s get used to it folks. Today’s race ended with Nico Rosberg winning, Kimi Raikkonen 2nd, and Lewis Hamilton 3rd. Missing from this picture was Jeansman himself Sebastian Vettel whose engine blew up on the formation lap and thus forced the Finn to tear it up and get on the podium for some of that sweet Rose water so that Ferrari’s weekend wouldn’t be totally ruined. One can’t help but wonder if the fact that Seb didn’t don his signature jeans in Q3 and instead went out for a second run placed the engine under excess stress.
With this win Rosberg has won 5 races in a row going counting 3 from last year. In one way this was unexpected as Hamilton had just ran the fastest lap ever in Bahrain the day before. He was oozing confidence minutes prior to the start of the race he had celebrated Bahrain’s culture by donning a white robe and paired it with a Jesus piece. No doubt King Hamad and the rest of the Kingdom of Bahrain appreciated this melding of religions. The win was not meant to be though as Hamilton tragically suffered a first lap collision with Valtteri Bottas who callously took the racing line and didn’t get out of the way for SkyF1's noble hero and was rightfully punished with a drive through penalty about 12 laps later. Truth be told rather than punished Bottas should be rewarded as this provided some entertainment as we got to see not only how Lewis rushed up the field but also got to see just how many carbon fiber parts can fall off a speeding race car before the Stewards decide to do something about it. The answer? ALL OF THEM. Seriously the cars suffered so much damage this race you’d confuse them for Alonso’s ribcage. They received more punishment than Johnny Herbert getting called out by Alonso.
Elsewhere on the grid, Williams were getting overtaken about three times every lap. I don’t even know how it’s possible but it really happened. Stoffel Vandoorne scored the first points for McLaren, while Pascal Werhlein had another great race for Manor. Force India became Sauber, and we might have witnessed Sauber’s last race this year. Sad if true, but especially sad ford Felipe Nasr whose only appearance in the telecast was to say “This car is terrible” Imagine if that’s the last thing you said about your team before it died, later Nasr overtook a Williams. Max Verstappen had a great race even overtaking Daniil Kvyat which has many on the paddock saying that means Max will probably replace him at RBR next year. In order to show he’s no pushover Kvyat overtook both Williams…..right after the Manor did…and Marcus Ericsson did too probably. The true hero of the race was Romain Grosjean who put the Hass-Ferrari in 5th place overtaking Williams a record 18 times in the process. I hope this continues and gone are the days when new teams in the sport are running GP2 times. Also Renault was there…they were about as relevant to the race excitement as Nico Rosberg was though. No wait that’s unfair, they contributed way more to the excitement.
FLN Power Rankings
- Battles for 5th place
- Carbon Fiber dangling off cars at 100+mph
- Saying “Woffel” instead of “Stoffel”
- Rosewater
- 1st lap collisions and by extension First Lap Nutcases
- Ending up a commentator because you’re not a world champion
- Medium Compound tire
- Force India
- Jean Todt reading “pages of social media”
- Telling you how far someone is behind you every 4 laps
FLN presents: Hot Take of the race
In this new section of the FLN Report we’ll feature a “Hot Take” by an F1 fan during the race. This week’s Hot Take is by @56cheffy who in response to a tweet of a picture of Hamilton in a robe said the following:
If you would like to tweet your Hot Take at us or send us your favorite F1 related one tweet us at @1stlapnutcase
