LEWIS HAMILTON (2), SEBASTIAN VETTEL (1) AND VALTTERI BOTTAS (3)
2017, my sixtieth year following Formula One. Almost as long as Ferrari has been in it. Finally their season begins. New cars, new driver movement, new paint, no reining champion, new stories to tell and no Bernie Ecclestone. So, the season is starting pretty much where it left off last year. I was hoping that we would get some front end changes....new blood in the leadership. Again, it was not to be. The venue at Albert Park is usually an exciting race, a decent track and fans excited it have a new racing season under way. Unfortunately, this race lacked the action I was hoping for. Sebastian Vettel did pull off the win and I was fairly happy with that...even though I hated it when he was winning race after race. Lewis Hamilton came in second and his new teammate Valtteri Bottas came in third. Bottas moved from the Williams team to replace champion Nico Rosberg after his untimely retirement.
Bernie Ecclestone is still in the 'building,' so to speak, but he is not running the show anymore, after 40 years. He is always a little shady, but I don't think anyone can run Formula One like he did. He kept it together and the teams in line. Formula One paid him back very well making him the fourth richest man in the United Kingdom. At 87 we may not see much more of him, but maybe we will, he has already out-lasted all of the people involved with Formula One.
The cars are better looking this year, lower looking, tires are 25% wider, much faster with strange paint jobs. Worst is the pink paint for Force India. Maybe it will make sense, but for the moment they look like a couple of Avon ladies out selling their wares. Kimi Raikkonen set the fastest lap with 1'26.538, but short of the record set by Michael Schumacher in 2004. Some records take a long time to break.
Still liking my underdog favorites, Nico Hulkenburg has moved from Force India to Renault and Felipe Massa came out of retirement to return to Williams. Hopefully it is a decent year for both of them. This race.....Hulkenburg 12th and Massa 6th. Both cars for the Haas Team failed to finish.
FRIENDS AGAIN?
photo credit: © 2017 gpupdate.net
