Alright boys! Tomorrow is the big kick off! Do we se AM at the top of the time sheets on the practice runs? Will Merc take the sandbags off? Will George "He just turned into me" Russell out qualify his teammate?
My heart is palpitating with excitement.

Yeah, until the race weekend I think it's that way.

I did take Max of course. But like I said to rollnloop last year, just take whoever you want, regardless of what others may have done. If we all had the same team as each other every week it would be bad for the drama, but yeah, just pick who you think gives you the best chance of scoring points every week.

George is primed for an epic season as top villain I think. The radio rules were changed again this year and I didn't catch what they were. Probably restricting what the team can tell the driver. So we should still get full commentary from George, and that's good stuff.

We should learn a lot tomorrow. Looking forward to it. F1 is back.

FP1 is over and the Alonso hype train is chugging at full steam! Ferrari and merc didnt look very good but you never no. Landos times were up there in a maclaren so everyone's engine modes are probably tuned down. FP2 should give us better race simulation runs.

Yeah, it's on now.

I might have been too high on Williams, and it's looking like it from FP1 results. Let's see how it shakes out over the rest of the weekend.

Merc were worse than I expected.

Alonso looking very quick, and the Aston Martin hype looks real

This is shaping up to be a good season.

That's practice done and dusted and now. The business end has arrived. Good luck to all.

Aston Martin is for real. I was too high on Williams and they've settled back down to the bottom of the order. The rest is a fantastic mash up. I expect a dramatic qualifying and an epic battle in the grand prix. The top of the order has been shuffled a bit and the midfield is compressed. Even the back markers are closer now than this time a year ago.

Finalize your fantasy team. Lights out and away we go!

Eight minutes to go. So hyped for this.

Pretty strange quali, with so many pilots doing only one lap in Q3 ?

Anyway, can't wait for tomorrow, quali is one thing, but only sunday counts unless there's a sprint.

Well done to the Bulls. A one-two in qualifying is exactly what they would have been targeting, so job done there.

Merc were much more threatening in qually than I expected, even if they ended up about where I suspected they would. This grid is so tight that it comes down to the smallest margins. Just one second covered the grid in Q1 which is unheard of in the hybrid era I think.

Fernando and AM didn't put up the fight I thought they would. But they have the car to do it, and should be strong in the race. AM and Red Bull are my two constructors in fantasy, so that side is looking good.

Bad showing for Gasly who would have hoped to not start last. I picked him too. At least he can only gain positions in the race, can't lose any.

Lando proving his worth, taking that McLaren nearly in to Q3.

Hulk will be disappointed not to set a Q3 time, but will be happy to reach it I think. He was an excellent fantasy value, and I suspect his price will rise for next week. Same with the Aston martin drivers I reckon.
My opening lineup

Red Bull and Aston Martin

Max
Checo
Fernando
Hulk
Gasly

Apologies to Sintax because we have identical teams for the opening weekend. I didn't plan on copying him, but I felt this lineup was the best one considering the opening prices. It's like flattery, yeah.


Looking forward to the race!

Man after that the feels at Mclaren must be rough

I invited a friend to join, he's a Hulk fan, hope it's OK with you guys ?

Yeah, that's fine rollnloop. Welcome to your friend.

Thanks a bunch

What happened to the new guy? Didn't lock in his lineup in time?

He is following in your footsteps with the first week a washout eh?

I don't show he scored during qualifying.

I originally had Leclerc because he is good, and he is fast. But then I started worrying about tire deg on the Ferrari. I wonder about their long run pace, and I bet Fernando does too. Having drivers in the lineup going backwards is bad for the scoring.

Bahrain's nearly always a two-stopper. The track is abrasive to counter the sand, and even at night it can have a pretty hot track surface. But then we have new tires again, so maybe we'll have to see how they hold up. Could Ferrari be saving those Q3 tires in case they need a three-stop?

I can't recall a season when I felt that so much was up for grabs up and down the order heading in to it. A level of parity we don't see. New regs, cost cap, paying off I think. Second season and the teams have had their chance to copy the best ideas and refine their own. Except Merc.

Hoping for a great race. Good luck gentlemen.

Yeah he indeed was late, and will have some kind of penalty.

I got him his invite while we were discussing quali results.

I'm hyped as never on this first race, even if I must brace for Max ending 40secs to 1mn ahead of n°2, can't help hoping.

Ahh, too bad, but it's good to have another entrant.

Not long now boys.

Not the best race, but having Alonso in a fast car is so spicy and that made it better. What a great drive and after Stroll strolled him at the start. Aston Martin off to a dream start. Stroll takes some stick sometimes, but you think back to a race like Turkey 2020 when he was the best driver in those monsoon conditions and he's better than we often give him credit for. I think he'll make some noise in this car. And it must have been difficult to run that race with his injuries. So credit where it is due.

Red Bull off to an even dreamier start. Double one-two for the first time since 2013. Max nailed his start, and I was worried about that. And then drove lights out. Checo did the gunner job and yeah, perfect start. Going soft-soft when everyone else put on the hards was a great call. It let both Bulls easily pull out of pitstop range since everyone knew it would be a two-stop. So they could go hard to finish it out and most teams did that anyway so had no real tire advantage.

Ferrari were a mixed bag. From an organizational standpoint they had a better race than it feels like they've had in a long time, which is encouraging. Leclerc's DNF is a killer though, and they'll hope it's a one-off. But both drivers ran well, the car is quick. It felt like Sainz was going to be swallowed up in the final few laps, but he held on. They do seem to have worse deg than those around them, but maybe not as bad as I thought.

Merc lack pace, but it feels like they are in a better place than one year ago. George had me laughing out loud with his "Is he managing or is he just slow?" comment. All year we get treated to this. Gold.

Haas disappointed and had a lousy race. I think their car is much better than that. They need to get it together. Hulk was a big drag on my fantasy. But I think they'll come good and be right in the mix.

Am I to assume the mantle of F1 Guru? Williams seemed bang on where I said they'd be. Really good result for them. Scored and Sargent should be proud of that performance. It should give him a big boost that rookies always need.

McLaren. What a disaster. We knew it wasn't going to be pretty, but that was as bad as it could be really.

I voted for Alonso driver of the day. Good fantasy week. Hulk let me down, but Gasly had a great recovery drive and gained a lot of positions. Overall, pretty good.

I wasn`t able to watch , only parts.

Except for Alonso, it was rather boring wasn`t it?

I did pretty bad in Fantacy, but I was hoping for some positive surprises.

Well done guys.

It wasn't boring, except there wasn't any contest for the first place, and RB's strat sealed 2nd pretty quick too.

3 to 13 was quite spicy at times, many nice moves to watch.

Hulk let me down bad, pretty disappointing, and Ocon had a nightmare race for centimeters and 10ths of seconds worth, hope he and Alpine learned and never do this again, they looked very unprofessional. OTOH Gasly raced great, and his scraps with Albon were very nice.

You sound like a good candidate for F1 TV Pro. You could watch the race any time.

It's only the first race, and you have all season to hit back at us, But yeah, that was a good fantasy week for me. And for Sintax since we had the same lineup.

Ocon had a race for the ages. Does he pick up any license points for their Keystone Cops impression yesterday?