Excited to finally have a race again. The lack of crowds doesn't look as weird as I thought it would be. If anything it makes you focus on the cars and the beauty of the surrounding scenery more 👍
Anyway, my random thoughts after quali:
- Can PorridgeOS 3.0 finally beat Darth Lewis this year?
- Will Merc's all black car came back to bite them in the high temperatures?
- Ferrari oh Ferrari. Someone mentioned that Leclerc could be doomed to Alesi's fate at this rate and I wouldn't be surprised if it became true. Vettel must be laughing right now. And Sainz crying.
- However, we all laughed at Ferrari's incompetence last year until their upgrade package made them suddenly dominant. Same thing could happen this year too. Probably not as big a jump though considering they can't "cheat" anymore.
- Red Bull is always there, nipping at the heels of Merc. Albon needs to get closer to Max still if he wants his seat completely safe.
- Midfield's best of the rest battle is looking very tasty. I'd say Pink Merc and McLaren is level with Renault slightly behind.
- Given the tight midfield margins, it makes it very obvious which drivers are rusty and which have been keeping sharp over lockdown. Would be interesting to see if the gap between teammates get closer over the season.
- Alpha Tauri are in a bit of doldrums at the moment. At least they have a good livery.
- Williams seems to have made a massive improvement (though it's not hard to do given how bad they are last year). Again I wonder how much of that is down to Russell outperforming the car or a genuine improvement. Latifi is off pace but given he's a rookie, I'll give him a break.
- Alfa and Haas seems to suffer from Ferrari's weakened engine. Absolutely nowhere. I can't see Kimi hanging around beyond this year if they don't get their act together to be honest.
Roll on 2020