Blame Alpine. Why on earth they decided to give Ocon a three-year deal in the early part of this season is beyond me. Who were they bidding against?

Stroll was an average of 7 tenths slower than Massa in qualifying, and just for reference: this wasn’t exactly peak-Massa (he’d effectively retired before being thrown back into the Williams due to Bottas’ unexpected departure).

I think Ross Brawn and Rory Byrne may have had something to with that, too.

That’s not entirely accurate. After Sainz’ so-so season at Renault, he wasn’t such a hot commodity, and had Alonso not retired it’s likely he would’ve been back at Toro Rosso or even out of F1 entirely.

...though surely Mazepin also would’ve liked the opportunity to dig himself out of 21st place, a strange place to be in a 20-driver championship.

The exact same thing applies to Latifi, only it took him way longer to finally get his SL.

No mention that Yuki - like Max - changed to the soft tire during the SC, while Valtteri didn’t have that luxury? If you’re talking about the ‘mess’ at the front, then why praise someone who profited from the very same call?

This is an easy question: it is, and always has been, an engineering one.

I agree that DRS has long outstayed its welcome, but that doesn’t mean it has affected F1's sporting credentials. Because of DRS, it’s just changed from a sprint series to an endurance/multiclass style racing series.

Correct, but for some reason this wasn’t really covered anywhere. It’s almost as if some have an agenda.

I really, really don’t like Jurassic World. It has these really dumb and unlikeable characters being chased by a made-up ‘generic monster-movie dinosaur’. But the key for me is that 95% of the film takes place in daylight.

Ominously enough: his old ICE. The Brazil one is going back in for Saudi Arabia, according to Toto.

The lesson: don’t sign with Alpine.

This is funny… Stroll has never beaten a teammate in the qualy battle, and he’s only beaten one teammate overall (Sirotkin). And even that was a close battle. He got killed by Perez over the last two seasons, just in case you forgot. Currently, I’d only pick him over Latifi, and Mazepin, and maybe Tsunoda and the two…

Zhou brings speed and fresh ambition to Alfa

Yes, he’s a pay-driver. He’s not reckless, but he’s also not (by F1 standards) fast. He’s in his third season of F2, and the list of drivers who stuck (based on talent) in F1 the last 10 years after more than two years at the second level is nonexistent. Latifi is currently the only one, but he’s a pay-driver too.

The stewards are, of course, different at every race

Your entire rant is somehat disproven by the fact that the FIA has already issued three directives this season; two of which (the ones that came as a result of a Mercedes inquiry) have directly hampered Red Bull.

I think you’re being nice here - Masi has been a disaster so far. We’ve already had several major safety issues because of his (in)decisions; and he has also verifiably been untruthful on more than one occasion.

A new ICE means they are able to run it on a custom engine map. I think they’re running a map that’s pushing all the horsies out of that thing, reliability risks be damned.