Dreadful race for Hamilton, nearly 22 seconds behind LeClerc.and 17 seconds behind Norris even though Norris has only just stopped.
He’s definitely slowed up a bit, but this narrative really ignores the fact that CLC is really, really good. The people expecting Lewis to waltz in and make Ferrari ‘his’ really made me laugh. He’ll improve, but he’s up against someone strangely underrated. Both CLC and Max extracted the absolute maximum from their cars today.
Well, if Piastri gave himself a Mountain to climb after Australia, he’s proven himself very good at mountaineering even if his mate has left him some provisions along the way. Miami next up, the scene of Norris’ first win and I think more of a Norris track, hopefully he can use that to turn it around or there’s a good chance this Championship does start to drift away from him. One consequence of them trading blows is that both Max and George have a decent chance of still being in the fight when the rules reset arrives for Barcelona - if it makes a difference - Charles I think will be out of it by then unless it catapults him to the front of the field and drops the McLarens into the pack. Hard to judge if RedBull have made progress there was some evidence that Verstappen raced at a similar pace to Piastri throughout, although with the looming penalty he may just have been doing what was required and no more. Miami won’t suit them and I’d expect Russell to be the closest challenger there. You could make Driver of the day arguments for Piastri - great start, super controlled, but also a fabulous overtake on Hamilton that should he win the Championship is the sort of snippet that will define it; but I’d probably go with Leclerc for being only 10s behind the hard charging leaders and finishing perhaps 2 places above “par”. Not too much excitement further back, but some good team play from Williams to deny Hadjar, who continues to impress me.
One other thing I should have noted was Alonso’s control during the Bortoleto incident. I said a few weeks back that I was noticing mistakes creeping in - that it might be confirmation bias based on his age - but I had the impression that his ultimately ability was declining. Only fair to note an example that suggest he’s still very much as sharp as ever.
