Inside The Box

             It was a weird ending to the Saudi Arabia GP. While Verstappen, Sergio and Alonso were dousing themselves with champagne, George Russell was on his way to take the third place trophy that he was just recently notified was his.     Alonso had a 5 second grid penalty that we all thought was successfully served during his first pitstop. Apparently, that was not the case. The back jack has touching the car before they were allowed to work on the car. No advantage was gained but as per the letter of the rules, this was in violation of the rule of "working on the car". It was around the last lap when the broadcast said that Alonso could be hit with another penalty because of these actions.     It turns out that the pit crew was in the wrong and they were hit with a 10 second penalty which dropped Alonso off the podium. Tough but fair, Russel takes the last spot on the podium, we'll see you in two weeks in Austr...

          Don't get me wrong, just making it to F1 means you an amazing driver. However, there are so many extremely talented drivers that won't even get a whiff of being able to drive in F1. With that being said, there are clearly different levels of greatness in the small subset of athletes that get to call themselves an F1 racecar driver.     There are a lot of stats in other sports, especially in North American sports, that can help determine how good a player is. In the NBA, the main definer of greatness is Rings, how many championships did you win? But there are gall of famers, all time greats (Barkley, Dominique, Nash), who do not have a ring. For those players that don't have a handful of rings there are a number of stats you can point to to determine how good they are. Points, Rebounds, Assist, Field Goal percentage, 3 point percentage, blocks, steals, usage rate, PER..etc.      With F1, there aren't too many things you can...

Jeddah doesn't have a long history but the 2 races that we have seen have both been extremely entertaining. There was the insanity of Hamilton/Verstappen battling each other in 2021 with the drivers championship on the line, and there was a great Verstappen/ Leclerc fight for the win last season with Max taking it. A qualifying session yesterday that knocked Verstappen to 15 and a grid penalty landing Leclerc in P12 to start the race. The stage was set for a fantastic Saudi Arabian GP Alonso got of to a great start, taking 1st place by the first turn, unfortunately, he got a 5 second penalty for improper starting position, he was too far to the left in his grid slot. Perez rebounded from his slow start and took back first place from Alonso on lap 4. Alonso had another great race and finished with his 100th Podium taking home 3rd. Piastri made contact with Gasly at the start and needed to pit at the end of the first lap to change his front wing. Lance Stroll caused a yellow flag on ...

          I love F1 night races, seeing the sparks fly under the lights is beautiful. This is the 3rd time F1 has raced at this track in Jeddah and the previous 2 times have been eventful and entertaining. I like this track, it's a fast street circuit that allows for overtakes, what else can you ask for.  Q1       Q1 was ugly for a few drivers. De Vries and Alonso both spun out on their first attempt at a time. Alonso was able to get a lap together to get into Q2 but De Vries was knocked out. Logan Sargeant caused a brief yellow flag after losing a time for exceeding track limits. Logan ultimately stopped on track with his last attempt for a time and was knocked out of qualifying. Norris failed to get out of Q1 after hitting the wall on turn 27 and couldn't get back out on track to get another lap in. Piastri made it out of Q1 for the first time in his young rookie season after missing in Bahrain.  Q2      T...