Formula One’s frenetic return
Owing to the coronavirus, the new Formula One season “will exist in a diminished form”, said John Westerby in The Times. There will be fewer races – potentially as few as eight, rather than the usual 21 – and, for now at least, no spectators. But the good news is that the opening race, Sunday’s Austrian Grand Prix, provided enough drama to “fill a season’s worth of highlight reels”.
There were “multiple mechanical failures” and a series of collisions; on the
55th lap, a tyre detached itself from Kimi Räikkönen’s car and bounced “wildly across the track”. Just 11 of the 20 drivers who started the race crossed the finishing line: Valtteri Bottas crossed it first, having led throughout. His Mercedes teammate, Lewis Hamilton, came fourth: his fivesecond penalty, for a collision, cost him “a place on the podium”.
This race confirmed that Hamilton’s quest to win a seventh world title – equalling Michael Schumacher – “will not be the procession that many had expected”. During the months F1 was under lockdown, Hamilton emerged as “a leader”, said Giles Richards in The Observer. The sport’s only black driver, he was the sole voice to speak out in support of Black Lives Matter – and criticised his colleagues for their silence. And his interventions have clearly had an effect: before the race on Sunday, all but six of his fellow drivers joined him in taking a knee. Now the season has begun, however, the focus will surely shift to his “extraordinary” driving.
“Mercedes look to be without rival,” said Luke Slater in The Daily Telegraph, since at this point, it seems the only driver who can stop Hamilton is Bottas. The German team has won the last six Constructors’ Championships, and not one of those has been close. In the last three seasons, Ferrari posed the biggest threat to Mercedes – but on Sunday they were only the fifth quickest team, and appeared to have “fallen back”. For a sport that requires at least some competition to remain exciting, Mercedes’ dominance is “extremely worrying”.