First F1 race of the year was terrible, second race pretty good

[tlmiller]

I don't see it happening. I think Alonso should just go to IndyCar (yeah, I know the rumor is he is) and win the Indy 500 so he can have his triple crown.

[crosscourt]

Crazy qualifying in the wet, and we ended up with Hamilton winning the pole ahead of Vettel and Ocon in third.

[tlmiller]

The craziest thing was Ocon in 3rd and Perez in 4th. Force India lockout of the 2nd row!!!

[crosscourt]

Crazy start to the race, with Hulkenberg plowing into Alonso and throwing him into the air hitting LeClerc. Riccardo nicked Raikkonen and popped one of his tires. Then Hamilton gets passed up the hill by Vettel with the two Force India cars trying to pass on the outside. After that not much happened as the first three spots stayed the same. Bottas came from 17th to 4th but the only action was in the mid-field.
The huge speed advantage of Ferrari was impressive and wondering what will happen at Monza. On a side note, I hope Ocon will find a drive after the buyout of Force India. The Toro Rosso Honda cars ran very well.

[tlmiller]

Basically yeah, exciting start, mostly for the WRONG reasons, but after that, it was rather dull with the only passing being quicker cars that were obviously out of position. Too bad for Raikonen, Alonso and Leclerc.

[crosscourt]

It was amazing watching all that orange that showed up for Verstappen. Vettel even commented on it there was more orange than red.
Belgium has been a good race for Hamilton so it was odd to see him humbled by Vettel. Monza will be interesting and one comment Vettel made I found interesting, about the thinner rear air foil.

[tlmiller]

At this track, in the dry, it just seemed that the Mercedes had NOTHING to compete with the Ferrari. Vettel drove past Hamilton like Hamilton was in a go-kart and Vettel was in a top fuel dragster, and then he just kept pulling away the entire race. No, it wasn't by HUGE amounts, but at no point was Hamilton even CLOSE to being within DRS distance. Bodes well for Ferrari at Monza since it's a similar track in terms of the downforce and speed.

Huge result for the "new" Force India.

[crosscourt]

Mercedes had many traction issues and blistering on their tires which is interesting. If you cant the power to the ground youre going to be slow and it appears they need to make some changes in their rear wing. At Monza it will be affected by the weather conditions that could favor someone other than Ferrari whos had some issues at really hot tracks.

[crosscourt]

Monza qualifying was interesting as Hamilton appears to have figured some things out and matched Ferrari thru Q2 but Raikkonen edged out Vettel and Hamilton ended up third. Race day its going to come down to track conditions as heat issues could warp the results a bit. Vettel appears to have had some issues and if this happens in the race it will work to Hamiltons advantage. Even if Raikkonen won the race, Hamilton want to stay close to Vettel.

[tlmiller]

Yeah, interesting qualifying. When Hamilton set that first of his 2 laps at the end of Q3, I thought there was NO CHANCE Vettel or Raikonen would be able to beat it, it was just too good. Guess I was rather wrong on that. Assuming there's no inclement weather and they don't do something stupid, I see the race going Ferrari's way. On what little data was available, the race pace of the Ferrari looked MUCH better (when compared to single lap pace) than the race pace of the Mercedes on Friday testing.