To be fair, as I live in Japan, the race start was at 2:10 AM and I stayed awake to watch the race. Around one hour later I could figure that the race had its interesting moments already, but I noticed my eyes really wanted to close. I said to myself "I will stay awake until the chequered flag". However, from the moment when Bottas' engine gave up and the Safety Car was deployed my eyes were suddenly so awake! Everyone was close again!
For some reason I saw the contact between the Ferrari coming. After Leclerc went passed into Turn 1, Vettel repassed again on the backstraight, however both cars were close on the right side of the track. Vettel moved early to the left and slightly hit Leclerc. The sad thing is that it was just a minor contact and had huge consequences. You can argue that Vettel tends move to early when his car is only half way through. As Webber once said something like: "the end of his helmet his not the end of his car". The whole situation also a bit reminiscent to Turkey 2010.
Nevertheless, the situation caused another Safety Car with having 3 of the 6 top cars out of the race. A situation where the midfield teams smell points. And then Hamilton goes to the pits and gets fresh tyres temporarily creating a Honda 1-2-3 during the final SC.
As Verstappen moved away Hamilton who got past Gasly collided with Albon. Another unfortunate collision, the rookie driver in the Red Bull maybe left the door a bit wide open giving Lewis the chance for an attempt on the inside but there was no room.
This put Gasly in P2 and Hamilton got a slightly damaged front wing and bit more than one lap to go to get P2 back. From the last corner to the finish straight we got an epic side-by-side battle with Gasly keeping his Honda-powered car in front of the Mercedes in a close finish.
After all what Gasly has been through this year: His bad performance and pressure at Red Bull Racing with the subsequent demotion in the summer break and the loss of his childhood friend Hubert during the weekend in Spa-Francorchamps... He achieved for what is it fighting for, he made it to the podium.
And Sainz even had to wait longer: F1 debut in 2015, three years in Toro Rosso, switch to Renault, now found his home at McLaren. So many strong and consistent results this season but it was never enough, until today:
Starting from the back on the grid, finishing 4th on the line, waiting for the Hamilton penalty and finally getting a podium finish! Even though he had to celebrate it after the official ceremony but all the team went up the later as it was the first for McLaren since Australia 2014!
All in all, fantastic race ending, a lot of drama and nice to see midfield teams getting lots of points when not everything goes well for the top 3 teams. Even Alfa Romeo got 4th and 5th position.
Crazy to watch, so unexpected, but that's why F1 fans wake up in the night!
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