My Recap + Review from the 2016 European Grand Prix

It's been a busy week for F1. Just a week agp the Canadian Grand Prix had been wrapped up, and after that, nothing less than a long journey towards Baku, in Azerbaijan, for the first European Grand Prix since 2012, and the inaugural race for the Land of Fire. 

Just a small fact, last time the European GP had taken place, it was also on a street circuit (Valencia).

During the first two (and also on the third one) days of on-track activities, the circuit provided us with several amazing views of the cars racing through the city. 

A mixture of the old and modern architecture that Baku has to offer, and the speed and vibes of the cars cruising through it.

You can check some of those pictures on my post from Saturday, by clicking here.

Despite the aesthetic value of the venue, this was the least thing fans cared about, as the addition to the calendar of 'another boring street circuit' was not well received, particularly because of the sort of race one circuit like this could produce.

Passing on to other topic, we get to this race weekend with the championship bout between Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton as tight as it has been this year, only 9 points of advantage in favor of the German.

Hamilton arrives into this race after two wins in a row, combined with two unfortunate races for Rosberg, where he was unable to get into the podium.

Both drivers have a huge motivation to take maximum points in this race, the leader of the championship looking to get back in the form which helped him seize the lead early on, and the other looking to carry on with the same kind of pace that he has had in the last two races, to carry on in setting up a threat to his teammate Rosberg.

Meanwhile, third-placed Sebastian Vettel is looking at another opportunity to finally convert his efforts and attempts at winning his first race of the year, after one clear chance missed in last week's race.

Major part of Hamilton's chances of beating Rosberg in this race were ruined right after qualifying, as a minor crash early on Q3 caused him to start from 10th place, while Rosberg went on to grab pole position.

Right behind Nico in qualifying, was Sergio Perez with a brilliant performance in qualifying, a great result for him and the team after they had to make quick reparations on the car after the crash in FP3 to have the car ready for Qualy.

However, he would be demoted back to P7, due to a five-place grid penalty for a gearbox change.

The penalty brought Daniel Ricciardo,  Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Räikkönen up to complete the starting two rows.

With the low overtaking opportunities this circuit offers, Hamilton would need something unusual to happen to gain some points on Rosberg to continue cutting the gap in the championship.

Lights out. Although Daniel Ricciardo was on the inside of the track while starting, pole sitter Rosberg had a better start and thus the Aussie had no chance at slipping into the lead.

Behind them, both Ferraris remained in the starting order after the first corners, while Perez positioned himself behind them only a couple corners later after a great start in which he passed Daniil Kvyät and Felipe Massa.

Further back down, Hamilton was unable to make a decent start and was still on tenth place after two laps, trying to pass Valtteri Bottas for ninth, but eventually not being able to as the Finn breezed past eighth placed Kvyät.

Still, Hamilton did not lose track of Bottas, as he quickly passed Kvyät and followed him during the next few laps, managing to get past Max Verstappen in the process. 

Upon reaching Bottas, Hamilton's progress of 2 positions gained came to a stop as he was unable to get ahead of the Williams driver.

With Rosberg on a race of his own, on lap 8, Vettel took over control of second place by using the slipstream in the long start/finish straight to overtake Ricciardo, Räikkönen was set to follow with his own move on the Red Bull driver but the latter pitted in at the end of the lap, making the switch to soft tyres, following a very similar strategy to the one of his teammate Verstappen, who had pitted a lap earlier.

Only a few laps later, Kimi Räikkönen was brought in to make his switch to the soft compound, rejoining still inside the top 10 but the Finn receiving a 5-second penalty for crossing the white line at the pit entry, a small mistake which could prove costly later.

Because of Red Bull's unusual early stop, Ferrari suspected that they were trying to undercut Vettel, which was working at the time as Ricciardo had a rather quick progress after his stop, despite having Räikkönen glued to his rear wing for most of that time period. 

Therefore, the German's pit crew called him to the box only a few laps after Räikkönen's, to which Vettel responded that he was still on a good pace, feeling good with the tyres so the stop was unnecessary.

Eventually Vettel would put until lap 21, one of the last drivers to do so, and even then he was able to hold his position from Ricciardo, the Aussie proving to have issues with the tyres' performance later on, but nonetheless losing second place to teammate Räikkönen, who had charged past and away from Ricciardo easily after his early stop.

A few laps before that, both Sergio Perez and Lewis Hamilton did their own stop. Having reached fourth place after getting past Valtteri Bottas, and having closed in on Perez in third, Lewis reported vibration on his tyres and therefore pitted on lap 15, to which Force India responded by stopping only two laps later, which would be enough for him to come out ahead of Lewis, but just barely as the Briton's quick out laps helped him get into DRS range of Perez.

The pair adapted well and quickly to the tyres, getting past Daniel Ricciardo to be fourth (Perez) and fifth (Hamilton) easily, thus confirming Red Bull's struggles with the tyres.

The Austrian team would eventually have to bring both of their drivers into the pits for a switch to used mediums.

While all of this happened behind him, Nico Rosberg had an easy day out there, having built a sizable lead from the start, he completed his first and only pit stop without having to lose any positions. Only a misfortune could strip him off this win.

Regardless, Ferrari still believed in the possible win, and decided to take action by swapping their drivers positions to aid a faster Vettel in order for him to have clean air, hoping to put something of a threat on Rosberg later in the race.

Back on to Hamilton's attempts at losing the least amount of points to his teammate, one would've thought his Mercedes would quickly outperform Perez's Force India and the pass on the Mexican would be no tough task and with Räikkönen's penalty, a podium spot was almost guaranteed for the defending champion.

As it happened, Hamilton's bad luck this weekend continued, as he found himself unable to get the best from his car, as he was on the wrong setting. But it didn't stop there, as the team was not allowed to help him solve the issues in the car by changing the set up in the steering wheel, as the FIA regulations did not allow it, also the team advised him not to move anything in the settings as it could turn the situation even worse.

Ahead of him, Räikkönen experimented similar woes, only that in his case the team was not allowed to tell Kimi if the problems in the car were the same as the ones he had in the last race, or not. 

On lap 44 some 12 laps after Lewis' problem began, it was reported by Mercedes that their driver had been able to solve the problem and was now racing at the fullest, but the damage was done, Lewis' lack of pace at an important point in the race, when he was on almost new tyres, helped Sergio escape easily from the Merc driver, forming a healthy gap between Hamilton and the fourth place, that would last until the end of the race.

Ferrari's switch of positions initially looked to be the key move the squad needed to cut big chunks off Nico Rosberg's lead, as Sebastian Vettel charged from the first moment, setting a few fast laps and taking advantage of a few mistakes from Nico to decrease the lead down to 14 seconds, but later on Rosberg recovered for such mishaps and went on to wrap up the win which was almost guaranteed for him from the first 20 laps of the race onwards.

Behind the leading pair, Checo Perez's far fresher tyres helped him to reach Kimi Räikkönen, and despite being aware of the penalty the Finn had to serve after the race, he still gave his best to try and win the last podium position on track, reaching that goal only one laps before the end.

At the end, the penalty which Räikkönen would later criticized had no effects on the final standings as he was far enough from a disappointed Hamilton who had to settle for fifth position.

Rosberg seals a dream weekend for him, sure it could've started in a better way, as Lewis proved to be quick during Friday practices, but it could've not ended in a better way, taking his fifth win of the year, after three winless races, increasing his lead by no less than 15 points and capitalizing on the opportunity to take advantage of Hamilton's misfortunes.

Just as it happened with Hamilton after the Monaco win, this victory could give Nico the confidence he lacked in the last two races, the confidence necessary to come close to recovering the amazing form he started the year on, I say only 'to come close' because a form like that is honestly difficult to match.

Meanwhile, Hamilton can play a role in avoiding that to happen unless he runs into problems in the following races, he needs to stay cool, he need to comprehend that the gap is still close at 24 points, he needs to understand that there's still time to compensate for whatever mistakes or problems he's made or run into, he needs to take things one race at a time. Otherwise he can easily become his own biggest enemy.

Nico made a good job in bouncing back from that pair of terrible weekends to win with such a dominance today, regardless of whatever problems Lewis had in the race, now it's Hamilton's turn to mirror his opponent and bounce back in two weeks, after this disappointing weekend for him.

The task for him will be harder, as we will arrive to the Austrian Grand Prix, a race which has been won in the two occasions since its return to the calendar by none other than Rosberg.

It'll be an interesting weekend to watch.

Ferrari are once again there, on the second step of the podium, still lacking that extra bit they need to reach their first win this year.

This time they have not suffered from any mistakes of their own, but from Rosberg and Mercedes' pace in this circuit, which was hard for anyone to match. No strategies or alternative plans could've stopped Nico from the win today.

Thinking about the constructors championship, one could think that the penalty caused the team to miss out on a double podium finish but it's worth remembering that Kimi lost the position on track, regardless of the penalty.

It'll have to be on another occasion for the Scuderia, they were close back in Canada, but they ruined their chances. The only things they need to do is get themselves on the position to have an opportunity to beat the Silver Arrows and to take the correct decisions, knowing that they can count on a driver that does not need any different strategies to win a race from the lead.

What was an inspiring performance from both his mechanical crew and Sergio Perez on Saturday, rushing to fix the car after the incident in FP3 and managing to put the car out, for Checo to take it to P2 in qualifying, opaqued by the grid penalty which saw him fall back to seventh in the starting grid, turned into the second of Perez and Force India's successes this season, taking an expected but not yet guaranteed podium spot, the second for both the team and the driver in only three races.

Sergio made a fantastic first lap, in which he jumped all the way up to P5, from where he calmly cruised to P5 after Ricciardo and Räikkönen's stops.

The team had him on a conventional 'supersoft to soft' strategy, but Sergio made something better out of it as he managed to get to the final 10 laps of the race with his tyres fresh enough for him to give himself the luxury of beating Räikkönen on the track, while the team's call of pitting two laps after Hamilton to cover from the Briton, hit the target.

With this podium Sergio is on route to achieving the best season of his career in terms of points, as he has taken eighth place in the standings from Felipe Massa, as well as in terms of podiums, as he only needs another one to match his best (3, in 2012) with plenty of races to go.

As this is his fourth podium with Force India, he has now officially finished more times on the top three with the Indian team than he did with Sauber.

Another fact, with his fourth podium since the start of 2014, Perez has now collected two times the amount of podium finishes his former team McLaren have in the same time period.

Back on ninth place and recovering from a qualifying in which he narrowly missed Q3, Nico Hulkenberg has sealed another strong weeks from the team, adding 2 points to Perez's harvest of 15 for a total of 17, 8 more than what Williams got in the race, closing the gap for fourth place in the constructors championship to 31 points. A fantastic job for a team that was only scoring its first points of the season on the Spanish Grand Prix.

Hulkenberg is still yet to get to grips with the car to achieve a good result in qualifying and in the race, but once him and his crew crack through the issues he's experimenting now, this team can give Williams a serious run for their money.

It was not the kind of day Williams planned on having today, Bottas and Massa qualified 6th and 8th respectively, while Valtteri might've done a good job in fending off Hamilton for several laps, he couldn't stay close enough to then fourth places Räikkönen as to try to follow his fellow Finn's pace and therefore was unable to do much progress in that part of the race.

As for Massa, his first laps did not go too well, as he could not put any resistance to Perez's, his own teammate's, Kvyät's (who would later retire), Verstappen's and later on also Hamilton's attacks, which prompted that the Brazilian would have to battle it out for the last point scoring places.

Behind Hamilton and Bottas, came Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen, whose late charge on used mediums proved successful enough to gather 10 points in the race, still not what they probably expected after the results in qualifying, but it was enough to remain safely in the third place of the constructors championship.

However they need to start capitalizing on their chances, as both Williams and Force India are expected to improve.

It was a busy day down in the second half of the field for both Sauber and McLaren, constantly fighting it out with the Renault's and the Haas.

Their effort was not rewarded as Button (P11) and Nasr (P12) finished on the doorsteps of the points.

With Kvyät starting the race in eighth, Toro Rosso had a good chance of scoring points, unfortunately, the Russian would have to get his car into the boxes to retire after a small progress made by him after the start.

The team's only hope left, Sainz Jr. would retire some laps later due to a suspension problem, pretty bad day for the Faenza based team. 

That's it for this race's review! Hope you enjoyed it.

Thanks a lot for the reads, visits and support, and if you liked this post make sure to hit that +1 button and leave a comment if you wanna discuss the race.

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I'll be unable to watch the Austrian GP next week so, therefore there will be no post next week, but I'll see you in four weeks for the British Grand Prix!

The most stunning shots from Baku, so far.

The addition of the Baku City Circuit to the 2016 calendar was highly rejected by fans because of the kind of race that a circuit of that type would produce, because of the fact that it's most likely set to be another race without much actions, without much overtaking chances, in fewer words, a race similar to those in Valencia, the former venue for the European Grand Prix.

While we are yet to see if such claims are correct or not, there's one thing we cannot deny and that's the fact that this street circuit has given us some amazing views of the cars racing through the city, and has produced a decent amount of amazing photos of the cars on track in the first day of actions in Azerbaijan. Here are a few of the best shots from Friday:

2016 Canadian Grand Prix, My Recap and Review

We arrive into Montreal for the Canadian Grand Prix at an exiting stage of the championship, coming from the Monaco Grand Prix where Lewis Hamilton took his first win of the year while teammate Nico Rosberg struggles behind, bringing the point difference between them in the standings to only 24 points.

As it has been for the last two years, the British driver took pole position on Saturday, with his fellow Merc driver by his side on second place of the grid and as if things could've not gotten promising enough yet, Sebastian Vettel, fourth in the championship, starts on third place, just behind Hamilton, desperate for a first win in 2016 to kickstart his season after a tough beginning to the year.

Right beside Vettel, we have wunderkind Max Verstappen, the youngest winner of history, whose aggressive driving style could add up to this competition.

Lights out and just as it has happened in a few races this year, both Mercedes have stalled at the start, paving the way for Sebastian to move past Hamilton on the short straight to grab the lead.

As the second and third place arrive to the first turn, they have a small contact which forces Rosberg of the track. The German, having to cut through turn two in its entirety, loses a lot of places due to the initial contact, quickly falling in the standings all the way to tenth place at the end of the first lap.

In the sequence below you will notice more clearly how easy it was for Sebastian Vettel to swerve past Lewis Hamilton to arrive first at turn one.

While Rosberg struggles once again, Hamilton settles down on second place, safe from Red Bull's Verstappen and Ricciardo, most likely unaware of what that bump caused to his teammate.

Rosberg cutting through Turn One and a few laps later defending P10 from Button

Still, despite the nature of the move and the fact that Rosberg was already ahead arriving to turn one, the incident is not investigated by race direction. Interesting. I will discuss this with more details later on.

Although the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve is characterized by its narrowness and its numerous chicanes and fast, tight corners, the first lap goes on with out any retirements caused by collisions, only a few minor touches and almost no major collisions, with the exception being Sauber's Felipe Nasr, who was caused to spin on the turn 3-4 chicane by contact with Renault's Kevin Magnussen.

Vettel seizes the lead right from that point and while Rosberg gives all of his efforts to recover from the first lap touch with Hamilton, slipping all the way up to eighth in that time period, the pack at the front stays almost untouched, despite Hamilton's attempts at cutting Vettel's gap.

Top: Nico Rosberg at the back of the pack. Bottom: Vettel's early lead on Hamilton.

That, until lap 11, when Jenson Button's McLaren's engine blew up on the straight before the chicane, causing the deployment of a Virtual Safety Car. 

Reacting quickly to the situation, Ferrari decides to call Sebastian Vettel to the pits for a switch from the set of ultra softs he started on, to a set of fresh new super softs.

Only a few seconds later, the Italian squad calls Kimi Räikkönen in, making the same switch.

The Scuderia aiming for a similar strategy for both of their drivers, a very questionable move to have both drivers pit during a Virtual Safety Car, so early in the race, prompting both drivers to have one more stop, as the soft compound is mandatory for this race. A move which effects we were to see in the rest of the race.

Speaking about unusual strategies, as of lap 28, Force India's Sergio Perez and Renault's Kevin Magnussen remain as the only drivers to have not stopped yet, as they both started the race on soft tyres. The earlier hoping to use this strategy for a one-stop strategy to slip into point scoring positions and the latter one looking to recover from starting in last position due to his absence in qualifying.

Initially, the early pit stops did not hamper neither Sebastian nor Kimi's opportunities of advancing through the field. They fell to P4 and P13 respectively, Vettel was right on the edge after his stop, looking to reach second place as soon as possible to avoid losing time to Hamilton, which he accomplished in less than 10 laps, overtaking Ricciardo with a brilliant move on the hairpin on lap 18 and Verstappen on the long straight on lap 20.

On the other hand, Räikkönen did not have so much of a notable progress as Vettel but managed to make up enough positions to reach P9 in lap 20, which later helped him to advance all the way to fifth after most of the field pitted.

With him and Räikkönen setting fastest laps in various consecutive laps, not only Vettel was able to reach second place rather quickly but he was also able to cut Hamilton's lead down to 5.8 seconds.

Then came Hamilton's switch from ultra softs to softs on lap 24, which put him a mere 13.5 seconds behind Vettel in second, but with the realistic possibility of having to do one less stop than the leader, as Vettel still had to make the switch to softs later on, whilst Hamilton's only task was to make that set of softs last 46 laps to avoid an extra stop. An easy task given the weather condition, which was not warm enough for the heat to cause the tyres to wear off quicker, but a hard one considering the hard braking zones that the circuit has.

Behind them, Verstappen held on to third place with a safe gap but behind him it was Kimi Räikkönen on fourth, trying to hold off both Daniel Ricciardo and Valtteri Bottas, both on fresher tyres, later on Nico Rosberg joined in the fight for fourth.

Räikkönen's set of super softs's lifetime having come to an end, the Finn was called into the pits for his final pit stop on lap 35, fitting a set of softs which would take him to the end. 

Vettel followed suit and pitted from the lead only four laps later, coming out in second some 9-ish seconds behind Hamilton. 

With the same compound as Hamilton but with far fresher tyres, could Vettel complete the fantastic feat of winning on a two-stop strategy?

Would Hamilton's tyres take him to the end without experimenting any performance decrease?

At the beginning, Vettel was quick to bring the gap down to 6.6 seconds, but Hamilton responded by putting it back on seven seconds. 

But Vettel would not let this one go just like that, by lap 49 he had cut the gap down to 5.8 seconds and 5.2 only two laps later.

At the back, the last podium place remained contested. After Verstappen's last pit stop, Bottas inherited the third place but was followed closely by Nico Rosberg, looking to apply damage limitation, then on lap 53, he was forced to make an unnecessary second stop due to a small puncture.

However this move turned out better than expected, as the newer tyres helped him to sweep past Ricciardo and Räikkönen rather quickly, in order not to let Max Verstappen and Bottas to get away.

Even though Rosberg tried his best to get past the Dutchman, the young Red Bull driver put on a fierce defense to hold on to fourth, while Bottas himself had a few issues fending off an aggressive Verstappen before Rosberg reached them.

Back at the front, Vettel was on course to cut Hamilton's gap to at least two seconds or more before the end, we were still to see if Hamilton's tyres were to have a performance drop, it all eventually ended on lap 58, after cutting a big part of the initial gap, Sebastian made a mistake which cost him the small chance he stood at beating Hamilton to the win. He locked up at the final chicane and had to cut the corner, losing almost two seconds there.

Even though there were still 11 laps to go, this mistake proved to be the knockout for the German driver, as he was not able to recover the sort of pace that he had been working on in the last stint, he also committed some minor mistakes in the subsequent laps, which further enlarged the distance to Lewis, furthermore, Lewis himself was able to put on much quicker times to those of Vettel.

Despite Hamilton taking the win in the end, Sebastian did what he could to avoid that, cutting the gap down to 5 seconds in the end.

Behind them, Valtteri Bottas came out victorious from the battle for third place, achieving his first podium since the Mexican Grand Prix last year, Williams' first rostrum of the season.

With this win, Hamilton cements himself as the man of the moment in the championship, his second victory in succession, tilting the psychological battle on his side and giving a hard blow to Nico Rosberg's once healthy championship lead, reducing it to no more than 9 points.

Rosberg, having made a hell of race to recover from a first lap shunt which he held no responsibility for, but which price he paid, was rightfully frustrated and disappointed to see his championship lead suffering through no fault of his own.

I would've initially said that Hamilton had once again won in a questionable way, due to the way in which he pushed Rosberg out of the track on turn one, without receiving any penalty, which at the moment seemed unfair, but after hearing from him after the race and reviewing the start a few times, Lewis' explanation to the contact, saying he had understeered arriving at turn one, leaving him unable to avoid the other car really makes sense.

I was very surprised not to see at least race direction investigating the incident, given the fact that Hamilton had a lot of room on his left to not be able to avoid the crash, but I had honestly not considered that he had understeered.

Anyways, this race leaves the championship situation incredibly tight with plenty of racing to be done in the year, 14 races to be precise.

Hamilton knows his work isn't yet finished, he has to stay in the zone, in the form in which he's at right now, because as we've seen earlier in the year, the smallest of setbacks can turn this all around against him, as it's been before for him with one problem being followed by another and so on.

Rosberg on the other hand, knows the clearest chance at the championship that he's ever had is slipping through his hands and he shall be more determined than ever to get back in the form in which he began the year.

This really makes you think what did that clash in the Spanish Grand Prix have to be such a changing point in the season so far, after that race which cut Rosberg's winning streak, is when his struggles started, he has not been able to even get into the podium after that.

Somehow and unintentionally, Hamilton gave a twist to the things that weekend.

The Canadian Grand Prix represented one of Ferrari's biggest shot at taking the win, after the one they had in Spain.

As things look right now, this season is set to turn into more of a three way battle, rather than a Merc-Ferrari dogfight as in 2015, with Red Bull being considerably faster in the last few races.

As opposed to 2015, in 2016 it was the Austrian team that was the first non-Mercedes team to take a win at the 2016 Spanish GP.

Back then, it was a lack of pace combined with Verstappen's excellent job at holding on to the lead that took the win from Ferrari, this time out they suffered because of their own decisions.

The risky move they applied of pitting both drivers during the Virtual Safety Car ended up ruining their drivers chances at doing a normal one-stop strategy like almost everyone else. But of course, even though they were going to have to do an additional pit stop, there was still some chances of gaining advantages from the strategy as they would end the race on fresher tyres, unfortunately it wouldn't work as they expected.

It was a precipitated decision by Ferrari and considering Sebastian Vettel was leading at the time, it was not necessary to take such a gamble instead of focusing on a more conventional strategy. The move ended up causing both Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Räikkönen not to gain any positions during the race, except for the spot Seb advanced after Nico fell to the back of the pack.

While Red Bull might've missed the podium for the first time after being in it in the last two races, both their drivers were in the fight for it for most of the race, with Ricciardo spending most of the first half of the race on P4 and Verstappen on P3, and later on fiercely following Valtteri Bottas to try to catch him to regain the podium position.

Despite his efforts during the race, Ricciardo could not hold off Rosberg's and Räikkönen's charges late in the race and therefore, fell from fifth to seventh place in which he finished.

Valtteri Bottas' podium pushed Williams forward in the constructors championship to position themselves in fourth only 49 points behind Red Bull, but Felipe Massa's first retirement (and first non-point scoring finish) of the season and Red Bull having collected a total of 18 points in this race, the latter conceded no points to their closest rival in this race, which is important if they wanna start to focus on posing a threat to Ferrari, who are only 17 points away.

Huge weekend for Valtteri Bottas and Williams, both of them getting their first podium finish of a year, a much needed one for both driver and team.

Not only this is Valtteri's first podium since the Mexican Grand Prix but his best result of the year, after being fourth at the race in Sochi.

We do not exactly know what is it that has been holding the team back from making the jump to join the front runners this season, finding themselves some point between third placed Red Bull and fifth placed Force India, but it is certain that this podium will give them the confidence they needed, the proof that they are capable of battling at the front with the other two front runners.

They are worthy of keeping an eye on in the next few races. Let's see if they are successful in continuing in this form.

8th and tenth respectively, Nico Hulkenberg and Sergio Perez completed Force India's second consecutive double points finish, after Sergio Perez's brilliant podium in Monaco, combined with a decent sixth place from Hulk.

While Hulkenberg did a two-stop strategy from P9, using one stint of ultra softs and two of softs, Sergio Perez, known for his tyre-saving skills was aiming at a one-stop strategy, starting the race on a new set of softs, but such set lasted only 31 laps which was not enough so the Mexican had to do another stop, switching to a set of used super softs first and a set of used softs in his final stint.

The harvest of five points in the race is not comparable to the result in Monaco but it was good enough to to stay 10 points clear of their competitors Toro Rosso, who scored only scored two points, as Carlos Sainz Jr. made a fantastic race from sixteenth place to finish ninth. Opposite from his teammate Kvyät, who could not have much progress during the race and finished at the door step of the points.

Though Fernando Alonso finished the race at eleventh place and despite McLaren having already scored 24 points this season, it is clear that the team's issues are not over just yet. While Jenson Button's race ended early on with an engine failure, showing reliability problems, Fernando Alonso lacked enough straight line speed to hold off drivers who attached him.

Their woes might not be over yet but it is clear that they have done progress from last year's terrible performances, specifically taking into account Alonso's entrance to Q3 this weekend.

As for Haas F1, once again they have not been able to convert decent qualifying positions into points in the race. 

This time, Esteban Gutierrez and Romain Grosjean started in P14 and P15 respectively and were only able to progress one position in the race, finishing 13th and 14th. 

While the team is looking for its first points since the Russian Grand Prix, Esteban is still on the mission of getting his first points of the season.

That is it for this race's review, hope you enjoyed it!

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See you in less then a week, when F1 visits the Caucasus for the very first time for the European Grand Prix in the Baku Street Circuit in Azerbaijan!