It wasn’t the best of F1 races, it wasn’t the worst of F1 races. I’ll once again defend it for the fans who bought the tickets and came out in force to support their fave drivers/teams.

The so-called #Race1000 could’ve been held at a different venue, like Monaco or – more appropriately – Silverstone, just let F1 spin doctors do their job and anything is possible; chop here, add there and voilà. It’s all about history man! Even Damon Hill’s demo run in his father’s Lotus 49B didn’t lift the spirits of the F1 hoi polloi. We were expecting a Ferrari win but were presented with a Mercedes shocker instead.

Starting grid for the 2019 Chinese Grand Prix weekend: the pecking order.
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Photo taken by me – GDPHOTOS.COM.AU
Sunday 14 April 19
Canon EOS 6D Mark II
EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM @ 100mm
1/800 sec @ f10 800 ISO
Please credit if sharing
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Well, at least we can tweet they’re doing a good job (Merc that is) and got all creative on this occasion with Toto’s double-stack double no trouble at all for the Merc pit crew pit stop. Dang! This season is seriously lacking something: it’s called competition.

Positive note for Daniel Ricciardo’s scoring his first points for Renault. Just what the doctor ordered.

In the end, the race had its moments: from Verstappen’s cockneyisms in Q3 to Kvyat’s torpedoing of both McLarens, thus resulting in Lando posting some colourful and imaginative tweets. Lando’s da man when it comes to tweeting in 2019. Not to mention George Darwent’s cool pics featured below, the Chinese GP was totally worth it.

Kimi is soldiering on at fake Alfa (I still call it Sauber anyway), he’s cool, as ever. Poor Gasly is doing DC 1996, not great for zë Francheman despite that extra point for the pointless fastest lap.

What I think is missing from Formula One circa 2019 is it’s got no defined shape, it’s a lump, it’s a bit of an amoeba, even in the way the cars look. It needs a bit of sorting out. It’s not an entity as it used to be, it’s not uniform.

I’ll end with Jacques Villeneuve’s quote on the current state of F1 which he gave to Tony last weekend.

Formula One has to be different. It has to be Formula One. It is supposed to be extreme to a point where it is not human and it has gone away from that and that is the issue. Formula One shouldn’t be about 3 engines a season it used to be a race engine per weekend. That’s an issue. They are really trying hard to create a show and it just becomes artificial and the fans don’t like that. I’m sure a lot of fans think it was better in the past, that’s what I think.