I won't lie, that pleasantly surprised me. The early battle between George and Charles was fun. I think the race would have been more exciting had Max not crashed in quali.

I'll admit I found the race much better than I imagined especially with all the doom and gloom.

I feel that the drivers who are being most vocal are the ones who are less adaptive at the current time.

I get Max is not enjoying it, but he's on over $50 million to race, and he's arguably the best fucking racing driver of all time so get good.

I just find the whining of people a bit much when they get to live a life how they do.

Glad I didn't wake up in the middle of the night to watch that. Overtakes just felt artificial, the only interesting battle was Gasly v Ocon, and we saw barely any of that because the coverage seems somehow even worse than last year.

I think that's what's making me lose interest more than the new rules. We saw basically nothing of cars lower than 6th place other than stupid picture in picture, if I wanted a screen that small I'd watch the whole thing on my phone. There was minimal graphics and even less talk about strategy with the new rules, where and why battery is being deployed etc. We're watching cars breeze past each other as the commentator screams about how exciting this is and keeps banging on about sweets. (This is Sky coverage, so idk if it's better elsewhere, but I assume everyone has the same images at least.)

FIA fucked up again. Once again, cars are getting stuck behind each other because of dirty air and the only passes are because of battery power. It looks like racing, it's fake, and with Oscar Pastrami, dangerous when the electric motor kicks in.

Once all teams learn to harvest and use the battery power the same way, we will go back to the processions of two formulas ago and slot car racing.

Outside of the early Russell and Leclerc fighting. It was your basic boring race.

I enjoyed the race. Those Ferrari starts are something and will definitetly spice up the next few races. No doubt the other teams will figure something out with the starts as the season progresses.

Poor Oscar, what is it with Aussies having such shit luck at their home race? Lindblad looked decent, hopefully it's not just a one-off like we sometimes see.

Racing has evolved. I most definitely approve of the added strategy elements in how to plan overtakes now. The Swedish Viaplay commentators likened it to Indycar oval racing and I agree.

I wonder how the race would have gone if Ferrari did not fuck up their strategy and instead chose to pit at least one of their drivers during the first VSC.