Fake F1: Azerbaijan GP 2019

And we’re back to an appropriately messy (for Baku) race week update! Welcome to the 1001st GP!

Hope you all had a nice Easter holiday last weekend. Here in Australia (not a particularly devout country as far as I have experienced) we had both Good Friday and ‘Easter Monday’ off and the timing of Easter this year meant that ANZAC day (remembering Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, kind of like veteran’s day) also fell during this past week. So I’ve had sort of a broken up couple of weeks, really couldn’t get much going on at all. That includes regular prep for race weekend! Apologies again!

 

Quick check in on the NOTY bracket as we’re down to the Elite Eight:

Only one (1) seed left in the bracket in Jizyah Shorts (this bracket would be pretty hard to seed in my opinion, the organizers tried their best but really it is a pretty open field this year). The Deadspin’s editors choice of Pope Thrower has been looking pretty good down there in the Sithole Regional. Since my choice to win, General Booty, is out in the Sweet 16, I think I’m going to throw my support behind Storm Duck up from the Bulltron Regional. (Reminder if you’re the online poll voting sort, you can still do that here)

In other more traditional sports, there is apparently baseball on? I dunno, maybe it is exciting. I read a nice article on how the ‘unwritten rules’ of baseball are kind of based on the fact that early professional baseball players were all drunk and really violent. Seems strange that it would be okay for someone to basically have a rock and chuck it 100 miles an hour into your back and that’s fine. Then there is a series of retaliations cause each team sees each other like a bunch during the season. You embarrassed me by slow-trotting a home run two weeks ago? I’m going to plunk you and then the benches are going to clear and we’re all going to shove each other for a few minutes and make this game even longer.*

*One of my low-key favourite things about bench clearing brawls in baseball is when the camera cuts to the bullpen waaaay in the outfield and those guys just sort of jogging in to join the fray, knowing full well they’re not going to make much of a difference and the fracas will be mostly sorted by the time they get there. It is a very perfunctory action, like crossing the road when the light is flashing and someone is waiting to turn and you do that little half jog step for the last couple of feet. Hilarious.

Apparently I was wrong to poo-poo the NHL playoffs, there were a number of upsets in the first round including a sweep of what was the best team during the regular season. Highlights were fun to watch on that one.

Over in hoops, the juicy second round matchups are about to begin though we’re still waiting on the conclusion of the very entertaining Denver/San Antonio series where you scratch your head and wonder where in the heck Pop found production out of some guy called ‘Bryn Forbes’? Good luck to you Colorado-ians, there is an equally entertaining matchup waiting for you in Portland in what I’d like to imagine in the most hipster matchup possible.

 

Anyway, enough of all that let’s look at a quick recap of F1:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Race Review: China GP

Position	Team	Points
1	My Dad Bought This Team	157
2	RIP Charlie	151
3	Too Many Hamilton Hats	137
4	Daigle	130
5	Team Shoey	124
6	Big Broseph	115
7	Doyagao	114
8	Teflon Dons	114
9	A Little Bit Lauda Now	113
10	Daniel Avocado Racing	107
11	Ronnie Bowman (NAME CHANGE) Team last place	102
12	Green eggs and Hamilton	90
13	TEAM RAUSCH KICKS ALLISON	90
14	DunkNuggs	72

So Mercedes again, huh? I do think they got a bit fortunate this race and Lewis is right saying, there’s a lot of work to do but Toto has got to be pleased to take max points to start the season.

If that looks familiar, that is the copy paste of the race before. Unbelievable. I even had the next couple sentences talking about how Ferrari have seem to injected a bit of drama with a young gun to join Vettel. How true and now we get the dreaded team orders drama again. I think that’s always going to go Vettel’s way, especially as Ferrari continue to struggle. Let’s see how if all the resources can bounce back.

Further down the track, Red Bull are there but don’t look quite as sharp at this point of the season but they certainly seem like they have some pace. Ricciardo finally scoring some points with the Renault and Kimi still scoring points which keeps Alfa Romeo tightly in the middle of the best of the rest race (where it was assured that Haas, Renault, and Racing Point would separate in their own race). Gotta wonder if anyone has odds on Williams scoring a point this season or if they’re truly so far behind the curve they will struggle to make any impact at all. We’ll see, maybe they’ll get lucky. I’m going to say, they’ll score a point innnnn France before midseason. Maybe.

Congrats to Dr. Shattuck for taking the win in China, first podium this season after threatening last week. Andrew continuing his podium streak and Shawna taking the bronze. Andrea and Heather separate themselves from a mid-table grouping with four teams within two points of each other. Newly minted ‘Team last place’ avoids the wooden spoon hat trick, congrats Ronnie! The wooden spoon this week goes to newcomer Carl, you’re a bum Carl! (We’ll see if Carl can return to form this race as sources tell me he is in Cancun).

Kim-ster Award : (Race Winner)

 

T.R.K.A Wooden Spoon : (Lowest Score)

(not pictured) (yet)

DunkNuggs/HotCarl

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wooden Paddle : (Special Distinction)

Not a good start to your season McLaren.

Current Overall Standings

Position	Team	Points	Change
1	RIP Charlie	478	–
2	Big Broseph	422	–
3	My Dad Bought This Team	420	+1
4	Too Many Hamilton Hats	419	-1
5	Team Shoey	379	–
6	Daniel Avocado Racing	359	–
7	Teflon Dons	359	+1
8	Daigle	342	+4
9	A Little Bit Lauda Now	336	+1
10	TEAM RAUSCH KICKS ALLISON	336	-3
11	Doyagao	334	–
12	DunkNuggs	304	-3
13	Green eggs and Hamilton	298	–
14	Team last place	273	–

 

*If you want to follow along in spreadsheet form, I try and keep it updated here.

Going to be a lot of fluctuation in the first couple of races. Andrew holds a stunning 56 point advantage early in the season. Daigle has the largest jump this week up to eighth. Team last place holding firm on the bottom of the table for now.

Up Next: Azerbaijan GP

Fun fact about Azerbaijan: Did you know that former FIDE Chess World Champion, Garry Kasparov was born in Baku? Did you think he was Russian? Cause I sure did.

Baku City course! For the casuals (like me) at home, this is the track with that crazy small alleyway S-curve and the sort of absurd straightaway that the Red Bulls crashed on last season. Where a team outside of Mercedes, Ferrari, and Red Bull made the podium (Sergio Perez in Force India).

Anyway, should be fun, check out this excellently put together poster from the F1 social media team:

A couple of takeaways for the less comic book movie savvy readers. Toto is the scary bad guy in the upper left for Thanos (had a good chuckle on that one). Vettel Iron man, Hamilton Captain America, Ricciardo Hawkeye, Verstappen Captain Marvel. Too much good stuff there.*

*This is already much too long for what I was planning on writing today. But it feels like people can’t wait for a week before spoilers come out. GoT or Avengers or whatnot, I get the hype, (for the record, I did go and see the Avengers already.) But really you couldn’t go anywhere online without someone making a tongue in cheek reference to what happened in the latest pop culture whatever, ANNOYING! Lots and lots of people spent countless hours putting together this great thing for someone to ruin with thier youtube ‘reaction’ video all titled, THE CRAZIEST THING ABOUT X or REASONS WHY THE BIG REVEAL IN Y IS THE BEST THING EVERRR! Just trying to hitch a ride on the next thing rocketing into the human consciousness. Enjoy the things you enjoy, don’t be gross about it. NO SPOILERS*

 

*Okay quick Avengers spoiler: It is a GREAT superhero movie.

What the track looks like:

Bic Lighter?

***If you have any ideas for what the track looks like for future races, let me know! You may see your ideas badly recreated by yours truly. Next race : Spain

(2018)

 

 

 

 

Track conditions:

Nice and cool in the city by the water. Ideal weather for racing through the city!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tyre/Pit strategy:

Thinking they’ll run soft to mediums during the race, seems like teams are still adjusting to the new compounds and playing it pretty standard. Interesting that the Ferraris taking the most mediums.

Odds:

Leclerc favourited since he was more than half a second ahead in FP2. The new Ferrari aero package they meant to have brought to Baku to improve the car and it looks pretty sharp. We’ll see. It is telling that the rest of the field is so far back after Mercs, Ferrari, and Verstappen. Anyway, if you’re reading this Saturday morning you’re going to have just a very short window to hit qualifying so I hope you made your picks already.

Good Luck!

2018 Results:

Pole: Sebastian Vettel

Fastest Lap: Valtteri Bottas

1st: Lewis Hamilton

2nd: Kimi Raikkonen

3rd: Sergio Perez

2018 Fake Racing Results:

1st: think of something clever later (William)

2nd: Doyagao (Bryan)

3rd: Daigle (Andrea)

Wooden Spoon: Team Shoey (Heather)

Fake F1: Mexico GP

We’re back to back! Off the Mexico to see if Hamilton and Mercedes can finally ink in the title.

The sun’s out here in Sydney (finally) and it is warming significantly. We just had the x-games through and it still amazes me some of the stunts people try and pull off. I think is one thing for skateboarders to do a double kickflip, twisty thing off a set of stairs or something (very cool) but then a whole different set of skaters launch themselves through the air in what looks like a mix between skiing alpine jumping* ramp into what is a huge halfpipe. BUT WITH NO SNOW! I mean look at this silliness. :BEGIN DAD-JOKE: Good on those thrill-seekers, different strokes for different folks but I would definitely have a literal stroke if I tried to do that. :END DAD-JOKE:

*Speaking of ski jumping, if you’re looking for a winter-y movie as it cools down in North America, you could do worse than watching 2016’s Eddie the Eagle, retelling the delightful true underdog story of Eddie Edwards and his ambition to go to the Olympics. It has Kingsman’s star Taron Egerton (delightful) and Hugh Jackman (also delightful). One line review: Don’t necessarily flip the channel if it happens to come on.

 

PSA of the week: Don’t go and watch Venom. Not worth it, if you’re a big Venom fan, it is probably worth a rental. I like Tom Hardy (who plays Eddie Brock) and I really like Riz Ahmed (of Nightcrawler fame) but they weren’t given much to work with. I will freely volunteer that I have never worked on a major movie production or have data regarding trends or knowledge of what is the most efficient movie-making process. Having said that, there was this scene right towards the beginning of the film where there is the standard conversation but over the course of four or five sentences, they cut something like eight times. It was so unsettling but not in an intentional way which just was a terrible omen for the jumble the rest of the film will be.

Also, I wish these action films, especially this glut of superhero films would stop making the primary antagonist just a dark version of the superhero with the same powers. (Most accurate description). Oh is that Venom? His antithesis is other symbiote thing. Ironman? How about a guy who is also wearing an ironman suit. Even the trailer for the new Aquaman movie is like, watch Aquaman fight this other super water power guy. I get it, want to have the protagonist learn a thing and overcome the bad side of something him or herself so it makes everyone feel good, subtle message about you being your own biggest obstacle but you don’t have to ALL USE THE EXACT SAME TROPE. Mix it up a little, have our protagonist go against someone totally opposite and play off that difference. Say, put a young, fresh, future face of the NFL (Patrick Mahomes) against the aged husk (Case Keenum) and his evil withering team (Denver Ponies) and let the good guys just triumph. That sounds fun right? IT SOUNDS DELIGHTFUL.

Anyway, let’s get into the racing.

US GP

Results Roundup:

Position	Team	Points
1	A Little Bit Lauda Now	176
2	Chase Careys Mustache Racing Team	169
3	think of something clever later	149
4	TEAM RAUSCH KICKS ALLISON	138
5	Anderson13yu73467bnefyhjyhjdf	123
6	Doyagao	117
7	Too Many Hamilton Hats	114
8	Green eggs and Hamilton	108
9	Daigle	90
10	Team Shoey	83

KIMI!!!!

Imagine my disappointment after my bold wish in last week’s update when I saw Kimi win and they DID NOT have oversized Pirelli cowboy hats for the winners. I was GUTTED. This didn’t take away too much shine from what was certainly one of the more fun races this season. Hamilton and Mercedes made to wait as Max stormed up to the podium again and Kimi and Ferrari put together a strong performance over the weekend. Did seem like Mercedes went more into damage control after the differing strategies were exposed but they should still have the championship in the bag, just made to wait. Well done to Kimi for setting the record for longest wait between wins and celebrated in very Kimi style by clowning Hamilton immediately after.

Well done for Renault scoring both cars (notably Hulkenberg finishing the race) and our favourite Kiwi-son Hartley trying to cement his place in F1 by outperforming his teammate Gasly in the Toro Rosso. DNF for the other Red Bull (due to again, some sort of electrical problem) has got to be a frustrating way to end a partnership for Ricciardo as it seems pretty clear if there was more technical consistency, Red Bull might be challenging for the constructors instead of being 160 points back of Ferrari. So it goes.

In Fake F1, BACK TO BACK BAYYYYYBEEEE. I gotta celebrate when I can, I am still a solid 130 points back from a podium spot with three races remaining so that gap is far too big to make up. But hey! A couple of wins in the bag is great and gives me an outside shot at accumulating the most wins this season.

Podium		Wins
Doyagao	7	3
Chase Careys Mustache Racing Team	9	3
think of something clever later	13	4
Too Many Hamilton Hats	5	2
Team Shoey	4	0
A Little Bit Lauda Now	7	3
Anderson13yu73467bnefyhjyhjdf	2	1
Green eggs and Hamilton	1	0
TEAM RAUSCH KICKS ALLISON	1	0
Daigle	5	2

Andrew has now finished each of the last three races in second (dunno what to call that, maybe a ‘cap’ trick since it isn’t a full hat?). Heather picks up her third wooden spoon of the competition while our Spoon hero Anthony picks up a big score and finished 4th. With another podium for William, it will be very difficult for Andrew or Bryan to catch him for the overall Championship.

Kim-ster Award : (Race Winner)

(Look at that happy blog-boy)

Wooden Spoon: (Lowest Score)

Wooden Paddle: (Special Distinction)

 

Looks awfully similar to Max in FP2 in Mexico. Something for Red Bull to try and address in the offseason for sure.

Current Overall Standings

Position	Team	Total Points	Change
1	think of something clever later	2505	–
2	Chase Careys Mustache Racing Team	2431	+1
3	Doyagao	2427	-1
4	A Little Bit Lauda Now	2297	+1
5	Too Many Hamilton Hats	2240	-1
6	Team Shoey	2163	–
7	Anderson13yu73467bnefyhjyhjdf	2122	–
8	Green eggs and Hamilton	1966	–
9	Daigle	1939	–
10	TEAM RAUSCH KICKS ALLISON	1718	–

Big jump for me up to 4. Andrew passes Bryan for 2nd.

Up next: Mexico GP!

Lots of chatter about Mercedes sudden lack of speed and confidence. It feels a bit more like bluster to me given the time of year but it is true, the Red Bulls and Ferrari look strong so far. Red Bulls have targeted this as the last race on the calendar where they can push for the win in the conditions (and perhaps a bit of rain this weekend will help!)

I haven’t read all the finer points, but Ferrari reverting back a few of their engine ‘upgrades’ has made the car perform noticeably stronger. I’m curious what that means for the ‘engine parts policies’ as the parts aren’t new but are being swapped if that doesn’t mean that they will suffer any consequences there. If that is the case, if someone was really confident in their work for the first half of the season say, why not ‘burn’ a bunch of engine parts and suffer for a couple of races and then feel pretty free to swap around during the rest of the season? DISRUPTION!

All jokes aside, I hope this means a sprinkling of chaos in the remaining few races and some more entertainment.

What the track looks like:

 

2018:

Following the Halloween spirit (and since I’m running late) Candy Corn!

I like candy corn as an idea and for like three pieces. Or seven pieces if you count the four I’ll use to make fake candy fangs. Halloween is not as big here but that hasn’t stopped me from buying a frankly unhealthy amount of chocolate. If you think I’m handing it out to children, you’re DEAD WRONG. This delicious Cadbury Coconut Crunch is going directly to my chubby thighs THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

*I usually don’t add too much about the actual track, but look at these grandstands! That would be a very, very cool race to visit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Track conditions:

RAIN! Let’s get a rainy race in there before the end of the season. The qualifying dry v wet mix should make for some nervous decision making which makes for a more compelling weekend I think.

Tyre/Pit strategy:

(Credit formula1.com)

(Credit pirelli)

ALL THE ULTRASOFTS. Looking at probably running Ultras in a two stop strategy but with the Ferraris taking more Supersofts perhaps they will try and run Ultra to Super? And Red Bull maybe rolling into the Softs for a very long stint. But hopefully all of that doesn’t matter if it pours down!

Odds:

(courtesy ladbrokes.com.au)

After FP results so far, the Red Bulls seem far superior and are duly favoured to win the race here. Max seems like he is on a hot streak at the moment and has won here before. Vettel edging out Hamilton at this point. Interesting to see the Renaults performing here so far and that separates them from the not top six drives.

Don’t forget to put in your predictions! (Link)

2017 Results:

Winner: Max Verstappen

2nd: Valtteri Bottas

3rd: Kimi Raikkonen

Pole: Sebastian Vettel

Fastest Lap: Sebastian Vettel