I Dont Know How Many 'next Week Is Our Week's I Have Left Ricnation

10 milliseconds off of Q3… Lowkey devastating but we do what we can 🫠

Yeah so he just retired 👍

So far:

- RB didn't pit Ricciardo during the safety car

- Stroll slams into the back of Ricciardo (who hit the breaks to avoid a collision with Piastri)

- Ricciardo reports floor damage

max has the opportunity to do the funniest thing with lando’s trophy

tomorrow they will be strangers again. but this is now.

Drive to Survive will pay for convincing people through one heavily edited race that Yuki was "thoroughly outperformed" by Liam and Liam had his heart broken in Suzuka when the literal facts are

-Liam was told he would not be getting the seat before Singapore. This was literally said by him and also Yuki's manager. The rumor that Honda intervened in Suzuka to renew Yuki is blatantly false and nothing like what DTS showed.

-Yuki won the qualifying head-to-head 4-1. The one quali that Liam beat him at (Singapore) Yuki was impeded by Max in Q2 and looking at his Q1 time, he would have easily made it to Q3. Fair play to Liam though, he performed well in Singapore across the whole weekend.

-Monza and Singapore we weren't able to compare because Yuki didn't get to complete a single lap due to a DNS and DNF from Perez ramming into him. In races they both completed, Yuki placed ahead in Zandvoort (before a post-race penalty) and in Qatar after Liam crashed out. In Suzuka he finished one place behind because despite lapping faster, he was told to hold position and Alphatauri were coaching Liam to defend against him. So it's a mixed bag but Yuki comes out ahead.

Yes, Liam was the only one to score points in their 5 shared races. Fantastic work by him and something the team desperately needed. But in the 3 races where the AT had the best chances of scoring points (Zandvoort,Singapore and Monza), Yuki was not even able to start at the latter two and had some bizarre strategy in the first where he was kept on softs for 28 laps till he inevitably fell out of the points

-Yuki was the faster driver in terms of pace across all 3 races they shared.

Now let's be clear here: Liam did a fantastic job for someone who had to jump in at very short notice. He absolutely deserves a spot in F1. However, it's not Yuki who "stole his spot" by any metric. Look at the results of the four AT drivers last year. Yuki's points haul would have singlehandedly kept the team ahead of Alfa Romeo in the constructors. Not to mention he scored points and dragged the car to P11 multiple times at the beginning of the season when it was at its worst. He earned his renewal solely on merit.

Some of you are either a) so eager to discredit Yuki or b) so bored with current F1 that you need to artificially create narratives. Let Liam develop like a normal rookie instead of expecting him to beat an experienced teammate and then inevitably shitting on him when he doesn't. Has no one learned anything from the whole saga of "Nyck is gonna be team leader at Alphatauri and destroy Yuki". He is not the easy target y'all think he is.

Monaco24 - Qualifying

P20-15: Zhou, Bottas, Perez, Sergeant, Alonso

P15-11: Magnussen, Stroll, Ricciardo, Hulkenberg, Ocon

P10-1: Gasly, Albon, Tsunoda, Hamilton, Verstappen, Russell, Norris, Sainz, Piastri, Leclerc

Verstappen hits the wall on his final lap, goes slower on all sectors

Albon gets William's first Q3 entry of the season

Logan Sargeant outqualifies Perez in the Red Bull without upgrades 🔥🔥

Oscar Piastri to start P2 after losing his front row position in Imola (penalty for impeding)

So much traffic in Q1-2...

List of impeding incidents being investigated after the session:

Hulkenberg on Ocon

Albon on Sainz

Zhou, Bottas on Ricciardo

You’re laughing, George swore and now Pirelli are going to execute him and you’re LAUGHING

Super excited for the Chinese GP since it’s been gone for so long… hoping Sauber gets their shit together bc I really want Zhou to score points 😭😭

But also, they’re giving the drivers ONE HOUR to get used to the track before sprint shootout starts, which is insane for a circuit that hasn’t been on the calendar since 2019. Hell, some of the grid haven’t even been on the circuit before. What a decision.

QUALI RECAP: Chinese GP 2024

Ft. Nico Rosberg quotes because he's commentating again (scroll to the bottom bit)

Out in Q1

P20: Logan Sargeant, who spun out and caused a yellow flag

P19: Yuki Tsunoda, whose DRS wasn't working until the last 6 minutes of Q1

"I mean, there's definitely something going on, I can't be fucking 19. Honestly, the lap was pretty good." - Yuki Tsunoda, Team radio

P18: Lewis Hamilton goes too aggressively in his final lap and exits Q1 for the first time since Jeddah 2022

"When I was making the set-up changes I was like, it can't get any worse surely- and it did." - Lewis Hamilton

P17: Kevin Magnussen

P16: Zhou Guanyu, who placed an impressive P9 for the sprint, gets knocked down and out by Charles Leclerc, to the frustration of his home city

Out in Q2

P15: Pierre Gasly, who makes it into Q2 for the first time this year

P14: Alex Albon, who has exited Q2 in every race this season

P13: Esteban Ocon

P12: Daniel Ricciardo made it into Q2, out-qualifying Tsunoda for the first time this year. He had a minor setback when he reported smoke coming from his breaks in Q1, and wasn't able to advance to Q3

P11: Lance Stroll

Q3 results

P10: Valterri Bottas, who is on an absolute roll with his pace in China, qualifying P9 during the sprint

P9: Nico Hulkenberg, also managing to pull the HAAS to decent results

P8: George Russell

P7: Carlos Sainz, who crashed in Q2 (red flag) but came back on track in time to place third fastest, apparently struggling in Q3

P6: Charles Leclerc, who struggled a bit as well during Q3

P5: Oscar Piastri

P4: Lando Norris, who got pole for the sprint only to finish an unfortunate P6

P3: Fernando Alonso, oversteering a little in his final lap and just getting knocked down by Perez

P2: Checo Perez, making yet another front row lock-out for Red Bull

P1: Max Verstappen, taking Red Bull's 100th pole position, his first pole in China, and becoming the first driver to qualify P1 in all 5 starting races of the calender since Mika Hakkinen.

Bonus Nico Rosberg Commentary

"It's a super difficult one isn't it, for Mercedes. Lewis has put them into quite the difficult position there." (About what Mercedes will do after Lewis leaves)

"Lewis, you know, the 7 time world champion. That's a mistake probably that should be avoidable."

"Lewis tends to say we have so different set-ups and such a big car difference and that's kind of his excuse this year…and he's gone again for that"

"I'm happy to appear on a statistic. I don't appear much very often anymore 'cause it's so long ago." (The statistic being previous poles in Shanghai)

"I know that because he [Fernando Alonso]'s my rival in those statistics. That's why I know his numbers."

Oscar: We were on the same flight

Alex: Did you travel together? Sleep together?

Oscar: We were in the same row actually