A petition for more Alex Jacques content

This week we were transported back in time to 1950, and not because it was the 70th Anniversary grand prix, but because Peter Windsor was in the commentary box. Who doesn’t prefer historical anecdotes over racing that’s actually happening right here, right now? What a treat!

Practice: Understatement of the season, by Alex Jacques

It was early on in the first session of the weekend when we had a new contender for understatement of the season, courtesy of commentator Alex Jacques who reminded us that last week was a bad round for championship leader Robert Shwartzman (he scored nothing and had his lead cut from 18 points to only 8). He would be hoping that 70th Anniversary grand prix Silverstone would be kinder to him than British grand prix Silverstone was. 

Luckily for all the drivers (except Alesi who spun), the track was much less slippery this week, although that didn’t stop Sato having problems. His car burst into flames, enabling him to show his excellent survival skills as he jumped out and ran away as fast as he could. After the resulting red flag and then the green flag, the rest of session went smoothly, with Piquet courteously waiting until after it was all over before spinning himself around the wrong way and parking in the middle of the track. 

At the end of the practice session, it was Schumacher who was fastest, with Delétraz in second and Ticktum in third. 

Qualifying: Kerb repair watch, with Alex Jacques

The start of qualifying was delayed while the marshals fixed a kerb that someone had messed up during the F1 practice. Thanks F1, it’s not like anyone has anything better to do on a Friday night anyway. Alex J in particular sounded delighted that he would have to fill for an extra 15 minutes, I’m sure it was his dream to commentate “kerb repair”. 

As it was Silverstone, there was an ever-present 40% chance of rain (despite also being incredibly hot), so once everything was fixed everyone headed out to get some laps on track, except Daruvala and Gelael who did some driving off the track instead. 

By the time everyone had done their first runs, Lundgaard was on provisional pole, Aitken was resurgent in second place, and Ghiotto was reminding everyone that he still exists in third. 

In the final runs, Lundgaard still looked mighty, but Ilott was mightier, flying into provisional pole. Not to be outdone, Lundgaard declared, “I promise you this is going to be a good one.” It was, but not enough to beat Ilott, and so Lundgaard remained in second place, all broken promises, disappointment and apologies to his team. 

There was also much disappointment for anyone else who wanted to challenge Ilott for pole, as Gelael spun, bringing out the yellow flags and a halt to all flying laps. Shwartzman in particular must have been feeling the pain, as his Silverstone woes continued, qualifying all the way down in 11th place. 

Behind Ilott on pole were Lundgaard and Aitken. During the press conference we learned that Ilott had changed something and it had worked, although he declined to share what that change was with Aitken despite him politely asking, and Lundgaard had written his race predictions on his leg. The corona-lockdown finally starting to take its toll on Christian it would seem. 

Feature Race: Life advice, by Alex Jacques

Ahead of the Feature Race we found out that Gelael had got a five-place grid penalty (from 15th to 20th) because he, and I quote, “did not have the correct number of tyres”. I’m just going to assume that’s not as ridiculous as it sounds and move on. 

Expectations among the top-three drivers varied, with Aitken just happy to be there and Ilott just hoping for a good start, while Lundgaard had his sights on the end-game, saying he would hopefully finish “P-one-position-better”. Well he wrote it on his leg so it must become a reality, right? It’s a well-known ancient Danish divination technique. 

At the front, Ilott did manage a good start, keeping his place in the lead, while Ticktum made a great start, flying by both Aitken and Lundgaard up into second place, and taking the fight to Ilott. Lundgaard also made it past Aitken for third. Mid-field there was lots of exciting overtaking happening, with Delétraz looking particularly impressive, having passed a load of people in unlikely spots. At the back, Samaia went into the gravel, although he just managed to avoid hitting the wall, and Piquet didn’t even get to start. 

Ticktum’s charge for the lead was, however, cut short when he made a mistake and went a lot wide, allowing Lundgaard and Aitken to pass him. By now, those doing the alternative strategy had also managed to warm their hard tyres up and were starting to make moves, which led to more upset for Ticktum, as he was passed by Schumacher and Mazepin. Clearly struggling with his own tyres as well, it wasn’t long before Delétraz (despite being on the same tyre strategy) overtook Ticktum, resulting in him going from second to sixth in just a few laps, and still needing to defend hard against Shwartzman and Zhou who were coming up behind him.

At the first opportunity, Lundgaard and Aitken took their mandatory pit stops, with Ilott coming in a lap later. However, it wasn’t long before Lundgaard was already on the radio complaining about how much he hated his tyres, again, and again, and again. Delétraz, on the other hand, was loving his new tyres, and carried on with his run of impressive overtakes, passing Ticktum (again), in a move that prompted some classic racing-driver shouting on the radio from Ticktum and an ensuing social media storm, including much analysis into how angry Dan Ticktum is allowed to be before it is deemed to be too angry. 

By now, Delétraz had made his way up to fourth and was looking like he might threaten the podium places, prompting Lundgaard’s engineer to tell him to push, “What do you think I’m doing!?” was his not-at-all-annoyed reply. He then perhaps pushed too hard, as he went wide, but luckily still had enough of a gap to Aitken behind to maintain second place. 

On the last lap, Delétraz’s luck seemed to have run out, as he was suddenly struggling and had Mazepin bearing down on him. As much as Delétraz was not having any of it, Mazepin did manage to get past, before Tsunoda also came along fancying an extra place and some more points. A combination of last-lap panic and Delétraz determination, however, led to Tsunoda going wide while trying to make his move, leaving Delétraz secure in fifth place. 

Ahead of Delétraz and Mazepin, Aitken crossed the line in third, waving to the marshals as he went by. Lovely. Lundgaard managed to hold onto second, despite his tyre vibrations giving him F1 flashbacks, while Ilott made his victory look easy, and with it took the lead in the championship from Ferrari Driver Academy rival Robert Shwartzman, who finished in eighth, aka reverse grid pole for the Sprint Race. Exciting. 

Down in 15th, Ticktum was refusing to be passed on the line by Alesi, just managing to stay ahead to keep the place. Alex J helpfully suggested Ticktum just put the day in a box and move forward tomorrow. This is my kind of life advice. Lock away the bad memories like they never happened, that always works. I’d like to lobby for Alex to write a book of daily quotes or life coaching tips, or maybe I’ll just put that together for him during the off-season… Please submit your favourite Alex Jacques life advice quotes to me via Twitter.

Anyway, the podium celebrations were particularly excellent, just purely for hearing Alex J shouting “butter fingers!” at the UNI-Virtuosi guy who managed to drop his champagne bottle. This is why the team representative never used to even get their own champagne in the old days, they clearly haven’t done the podium health and safety training like the drivers do. 

We had the same three drivers in the press conference as the day before, sitting in the same places, and Ilott was still lamenting his failure to maximise his opportunities during the previous weekend. The only thing that had changed was that no one was interrogating Lundgaard over why he doesn’t like Silverstone anymore. Focus had instead turned to his leg predictions, which he reportedly no longer had as he had taken a shower. 

Sprint Race: Life advice, not by Alex Jacques

Shwartzman was on pole for the Sprint Race and said he was hoping to get as many points as possible, while Schumacher behind him was hoping to get a good start, and third-place Tsunoda was hoping to manage the tyre degradation. The optimism was palpable. Meanwhile, Gelael, who was supposed to be starting last, didn’t even get that luxury, as he was in to retire at the end of the formation lap. What a great weekend he had. 

Shwartzman kept the lead at the start, while Aitken jumped from sixth to fourth, past Mazepin and Delétraz. After a few corners of battling, Lundgaard also managed to get past Delétraz and almost made it past Aitken at the same time, but couldn’t quite pull it off. 

Up front, Schumacher dived at teammate Shwartzman, in a move that could be described as somewhat rash, but it didn’t work out for him and the pair carried on their battle up the road, pulling out a 2.5 second gap ahead of third-place Tsunoda and the rest. Tense faces on the Prema pitwall. I’m sure Schumacher learnt his lesson there about being careful when trying to overtake his teammate.

At the back of the pack, Nissany was having a pretty standard race for him, getting involved in an incident with Piquet, who spun, complaining that “he pushed me in the kerb and I hit the red thing.” That’s probably what Leclerc said after hitting Vettel in Styria. Valid F1 excuse for crashing. 

Meanwhile, in the fight for the lead, Schumacher had now dropped back a bit from Shwartzman, after having a bit of a slidey moment. Yesterday’s podium gang were also having struggles: “Mate, I’m struggling,” said Lundgaard, before he went off track, letting Delétraz past, and then Zhou not too long after. Ilott was in his own battle for eighth, trying to pass Mazepin, who he eventually just barged into as he made the overtake, “What an idiot,” Ilott remarked. Ticktum, behind them, also took advantage of the situation, getting past as Mazepin tried to recover himself, “My tyres are fucked,” Mazepin concluded. However, no one was struggling as much as Lundgaard, who eventually went full Bottas when his tyre just fell apart, leaving him to trundle back to the pits. 

With just three laps to go, Schumacher and Tsunoda were right behind Shwartzman, and Schumacher decided to go for it (the lead, the win and the glory that is). Disaster. The teammates collided, Shwartzman’s front wing was damaged and there was no hope of glory for Schumacher, rather frantic calls to the pits from both drivers, “What is he doing!?” Shwartzman screamed, “Why would he do that!?” Schumacher asked. So many questions that I’m sure would be answered in painstaking detail over many hours in the team debrief. Tsunoda, though, saw his lucky chance and drove by both of them to take the lead of the race, Schumacher behind him and Shwartzman dropping down the field, his broken front wing flapping all the way to the end, which was ultimately in 13th place. 

For the last lap, all that could be heard on the Prema team radio was muffled apologies from Mick, “I’m so terribly sorry…” He could at least console himself by downing his bottle of champagne. That’s always the best way to solve problems, I’m sure Alex J would say that. Let’s just pretend he did. 

Aitken came in third place, again, and even made a little joke about it in the press conference as he took his familiar chair, “I’m not sure who these guys are, I thought it would be Callum and Christian.” Tsunoda also joked about how, before the weekend, his aim had been to just keep his front wing, and that this week was a big step forward in that regard. Schumacher, however, with his mask pulled up as far as it would go and his cap pulled low, was not in the mood for such hilarity. No jokes allowed today.

Championship standings: Bonus points for Alex Jacques

Alex Jacques gets special commentator bonus points every time he steers his co-commentators away from anecdotes about the 1970s, and after this weekend is now riding high at the top of the championship with 10,000 points. 

Down below, in the Drivers’ Championship, with yet another terrible weekend for Robert Shwartzman, he has now dropped from first to third (85 points), with Ilott and Lundgaard’s success boosting them to first (106 points) and second (87 points) respectively. Mazepin is in fourth (71 points) and Delétraz in fifth (64 points).