Delighted for Hulkenberg, far too good a driver to not have a podium, probably also a race win. I think Sauber is reaping the benefits of staffing up ready for Audi times, along with the leadership of Binotto/Wheatley, there are a lot of mid grid or better elements to the team now.
Slamming on the breaks like that with a field that was struggling with visibility seems totally worthy of a penalty to me. If anything he's lucky that there wasn't a massive pile up otherwise the outcome could have been far worse. I get he needs to get heat in to the brakes and tyres, but it was incredibly irresponsible. Own it, learn from it and move on!
Happy to see Lando take his first home win, but I was really annoyed how Lando and Piastri basically ignored Hulk on the podium. They should have drenched him.
When I saw it through first time, my thoughts were that Max had gone past him obviously surprised/caught out, but that the rest of the pack had closed in, but also looked well under control and therefore that he couldn’t have braked that hard; so maybe that the lead two had got totally out of phase, combined with some hard, but not excessive braking from Oscar. Now some details have come out it seems there was an element of bad luck in that Oscar had accelerated as the safety car lights went out and then braked relatively hard, both to warm brakes and tyres, but also to start making a gap. As he’d become the pack leader during that period/manouvre, the obligation not to drive erratically, when controlling the pack was in force. In raw data he braked with about 2x the pressure George did in Canada, but in the wet. I’m not going to say the penalty was unfair, I can see the arguments for it. I do think there was mitigation in the circumstances, such that the stewards probably should really have been considering the range of 5s to no penalty, rather than handing out the standard. Having said that, 5s probably wouldn’t have changed the result as Oscar would probably have lost track position anyway. One to learn from but not necessarily feel bad about I guess.
He is spectacularly unlucky, but (and I say this as a big Leclerc fan), that was a very poor weekend from him. He was incredibly quick in the FPs, but then (like Lewis) didn't put it together for qualifying. The initial strategy was a gamble that didn't work (and as soon as they went around Stowe on the formation lap, I was really hoping they wouldn't pit, as it was clearly too wet), and the Ferrari is clearly a dog in the wet, but he drove really poorly for his level. Saying all that, the last person that needs telling that will be him (the most self-critical driver on the grid). In mitigation, those weekends happen. I just hope it's dry at Spa....
