From the sandy shores of Miami, to the grassy fields of southern England, I W Wootten picks one dramatic event from each race and puts it under the microscope. We go to red lights, green and we are off!
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This was a very eventful race, but the event I have decided to cover is the controversial crash between the two Mercedes drivers: George Russel and Lewis Hamilton.
This happened on Lap 1, Turn 1. As Lewis turned right, Russel had overtaken the McLaren driven by Piastri. George pressured his teammate, showing that he was ready to overtake. Hamilton might have not seen him but the fact that he took out his teammate even though his race engineer, Toto Wolff was telling him to submit and let George pass. They collided wheels and spun out onto the gravel trap. Lewis came out and said it was “100 per cent my fault”. To sum up, this event had few repercussions in the Mercedes garage.
Singapore
I had to pick Logan Sargeant’s unfortunate wall crash at a laughably slow speed of 63 MPH. He was battling for 12th when he crashed on Turn 8, Lap 19, ripping off his front wing in the process. He actually managed to get back to the pits, but had lost a lot of places. That is quite a feat, but why did it happen?
Some blame the rookie driver, claiming that he is not fit for F1, others blame the car and its reliability on low-speed corners and a few say that Williams itself is at fault. I personally think it was the car. Logan has been pretty good this season in a sub-par car. We often wish to compare him to McLaren and Ferrari, but they have better engines and simply have more money. Williams as a team are trying their best with what they have.
Britain
I had to pick Zhou Guanyu's terrifying flip at the Silverstone G.P. This occurred when George Russel's Mercedes clipped Zhou's back wheels. He flipped over and slid through the gravel at 120MPH and contacted the barrier. This very dangerous crash certainly would have been enough to kill or seriously hurt him if the halo (a large head guard on the car) was not there. This crash was certainly controversial as many people took to Twitter (or X) to voice their opinions. George Russel faced a lot of backlash as people claimed he meant to cause the crash, which is very serious. Zhou tweeted “Halo saved me today. Thanks everyone for your kind messages!” It is reassuring as Silverstone responded by changing the gravel trap to a strip of asphalt.
Monaco
Let's move away from the wild world of F1 crashes and shift our attention to some outstanding defensive manoeuvres at one of F1's most renowned tracks, Monaco. Ocon's defending here was exceptional in a car that had been under-performing all season. Sainz in his Ferrari tried desperately to pass Ocon and rear ended him, destroying his front wing and almost putting himself out of the race. Large amounts of confusion followed this, as many thought it had been a mechanical failure and only a few eagle-eyed fans saw this. Both Alpine and Ferrari fans blamed the other driver, saying that Sainz was too aggressive and others demanded that Ocon was being too defensive. I think that Sainz is probably at fault for this one though.
Miami
To finish we have a classic Max Verstappen moment as he was stuck between the two Haas cars until he reached the DRS (Drag reduction system) part of the track and flew past both of them. It was an insane overtake and many speculate that Verstappen just was the better driver. Haas the team has really struggled with consistency especially on a high speed track like Miami. This was definitely a blow as they are low on funds and support at the moment. The work of art that is Red Bull’s new car definitely helped here as it is almost certain that he would have not managed this in a Mercedes or Ferrari.
In conclusion, I think that no matter which team we support or which driver is our favourite, I think we can all agree that the world of motorsport is an exciting, fast-paced action sport and we can all enjoy it.
Photo: F1.com
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