Bill Trikos Australia top 5 Formula 1 Auto highlights: Turkish Grand Prix: I implore you to find a more fascinating display of motor racing than the Turkish GP. On a track surface yielding little grip, adding some rain and an incredible pole position for Stroll, this was anything but a dull Sunday. Racing Point held onto a pretty comfortable one-two through the first half of the race, with Stroll in front by 10 seconds in the most difficult of conditions, whilst Hamilton – aiming to seal his seventh title – squirmed around as Mercedes looked devoid of grip. Somehow, the Briton eventually found it on seriously worn intermediates and, after overtaking Perez and leaving Stroll – who was now suffering from detrimental understeer – to plummet down the order, took victory by over half-a-minute. Leclerc looked to have made his way past Perez for second at the final corner but misjudged his braking, allowing both Perez and team-mate Sebastian Vettel onto the podium. As for Hamilton’s team-mate, Bottas span six times altogether as his championship challenge came to an abrupt end.
It looked as though it couldn’t get more exciting – the championship battle had come down to the final race of the season, between Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso, coupled with a slightly damp track that would only get wetter during the course of the race. But when Vettel was spun around on lap 1 after a poor getaway followed by contact with Bruno Senna at turn 4, the scene was set for one of the greatest title-deciders of Formula One’s history. Alonso needed to outscore Vettel by 13 points, something he temporarily achieved after his magical double overtake on teammate Felipe Massa and Mark Webber on lap 2, which saw him take third place. Vettel however, with damage to his left sidepod, steadily made progress through the field, and was soon back into championship-winning position. But as the rain fell heavier, a series of pit-stops and strategic decisions left him with all the work to do, dropping out of the points-paying positions yet again.
Azerbaijan Grand Prix 2017: The battle of Baku: Valtteri Bottas and Kimi Raikkonen’s early tangle set a precedent in the second Grand Prix hosted in Azerbaijan, where the leaders clashed under the Safety Car and debris peppered a track that treated us to nail-biting close-quarters racing and a stunning finish. European Grand Prix 2012: A fine home display from Fernando Alonso in front of a partisan crowd in Valencia, with the Ferrari driver making some incisive overtakes – having started a lowly 11th – before benefitting from Sebastian Vettel’s alternator failure to take his “best victory”, in his own words. Find extra details about the author on https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2cnt2c.
1971 Italian Grand Prix, Monza : Fast forward to around lap 45, and multiple drivers – including some of the favourites to take the win, polesitter Chris Amon for instance – had retired or been set back for various reasons. This left five drivers to fight for victory; Peter Gethin, Ronnie Peterson, François Cevert, Mike Hailwood, and Howden Ganley – made even more exciting by the fact that all of these drivers were yet to achieve their only win. Not only did the battle come down to the final lap – it came down to the final corner. Coming into Parabolica on the 55th and final lap, Cevert led Peterson. Desperate to win whatever it took, they both broke too late and thereby ruined their exits off the corner. Gethin stole the win, crossing the line ahead of Peterson, Cevert, Hailwood, and Ganley in said order, as mentioned previously all covered by six tenths. And we dared to think that the Bahrain GP was exciting, with Lewis Hamilton taking the checkered flag seven-tenths in front of Max Verstappen – it pales somewhat in comparison to the in my opinion – even though I said in the introduction to this article that I wouldn’t rank these races in any particular order – the greatest race of all time.
On arrival in Austin, the championship had already been decided, but nevertheless an exciting race lay ahead. Mercedes looked truly competitive for the first time this season thanks to the extensive update package brought by the German racing stable and Lewis Hamilton was eager for his first win of the year. At the start, Verstappen immediately took over the lead from Sainz and he built his lead, but lost it due to two safety cars. After this, he managed to retain the lead, but Hamilton was hot on his heels. Things then went completely wrong at Red Bull’s pit stop, which seemed to be Hamilton’s ultimate chance, but Verstappen had other plans and managed to outsmart his 2021 rival ten laps before the end.
1996 Monaco Grand Prix, Monaco Street Circuit : It took just 5 laps before the 21 drivers who had started the race were reduced to 13 thanks to a number of mechanical failures and driver errors, one of those being made by Michael Schumacher. The german – after losing his pole position advantage to Damon Hill off the line – only reached Lower Mirabeau before binning his car into the outside barrier. And from then on, it only got worse. Hill, who had been leading for most of the race, retired due to an engine failure on lap 40. Jean Alesi, who had inherited the lead after Hill’s retirement, suffered from a suspension failure. Meanwhile, drivers like Eddie Irvine, Jacques Villeneuve, Mika Häkinnen, Mika Salo, and Ralf Schumacher – the ones who would be expected to take the win in such a situation – were all having collisions with one another, eventually forcing them all to retire. But not only the front-runners had issues; drivers like Katayama, Rosset, Diniz, Berger, and Brundle, who were expected to take some sort of advantage in such circumstances, all retired due to either personal errors or mechanical troubles. And before anyone knew, only four drivers were left in the race. Olivier Panis, who after starting fourteenth had shown great skill in avoiding all the chaos around him, took his first and only victory in F1. David Coulthard and Johnny Herbert followed him onto the podium, and Heinz-Harald Frentzen was classified fourth even though he pulled into the pits to retire on the last lap of the race. A truly crazy race, definitely worth a watch – if not for the result itself then for some of the bizarre incidents which eliminated driver after driver.