There were a lot of things we expected as we returned to Interlagos for the penultimate race of the 2018 season - would the most significant technical component of the weekend be your bathroom scales? Would Dana White sue Liberty Media for stealing UFC’s brand? Would Sergey Sirotkin actually look like a genuine driver?
Actually, precisely nobody expected these things, but hey, it’s F1. #DealWithIt
Join Rian McDonnell and F1 novice Joe Molloy as they stumble and joke their way through each round of the Formula 1 World Championship.
Kicking things off with the big news from last week, here’s a definitely-not-phallic picture of the definitely-not-phallic Vietnam track that the FIA, who may or may not be phallic, announced for 2020.
Elsewhere, the F1 ESports Pro Series had its second race event, with Brendon Leigh maintaining his dominance in two of the three races. In the world of people who take video games extremely seriously but still play in their socks for some reason, he truly is a master.
It was a close fight for Tweet of the Weekend, but since that’s not a real award and we don’t actually have any reason to pick a winner, here’s two - we mentioned them both on the podcast.
Not deterred by losing out on the Driver’s Championship last week, Sebastian Vettel showed up in good spirits and immediately turned his attention to his true passion - telling Charlie Whiting exactly where he can shove it. This weekend, his innocent victims were the scales of the weighbridge and the pensioners who operate them. Cracking stuff.
Once the FIA came to terms with the emotional and financial trauma of Vettel’s unfettered violence, the race was allowed to continue as planned. There must have been something in the water, though, as it wasn’t long before Fernando Alonso was exploding at his engineer over the radio. It’s a pretty fantastic clip - one of Alonso’s best - so we’re going to just leave it here. Feel free to listen to it on repeat during the winter break, we will.
No offence to the rest of the field, but only one thing really mattered this race, so here it is - Max & Esteban’s ‘coming together,’ and of course, their heartwarming reunion in the pit lane. We might be talking about this one for a while…
Finally, a word from our favourite Aussie - Daniel Ricciardo finally finished a race this weekend. A solid performance on the track left him just short of the podium in P4, but his best performance was for the Mercedes social media accounts, stealing the phone before the driver’s parade.
So that’s it - both 2018 championships are now wrapped up, and we go to Abu Dhabi in 2 week’s time with only pride on the line. Though, in some cases, that ship sailed some time ago… #HiFive, everybody. Hope you enjoy looking at the… eh… questionable shade of green Merc landed on for their championship t-shirts. We have a feeling they’re not going to be subtle about wearing them.