The Spice Boy doth protest too much: US GP – Goin' up, goin' down

Getting rebuffed by Brad, waiting for the FIA archive to load, and Spice Boy losing his cool

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When three become one

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The 2022 US GP was this year’s F1 season in a microcosm.

Ferrari driver fluffs it from pole, Max sails through but then has an issue, Mercedes looks like it might nab a victory but Red Bull wins anyway.

Meanwhile all the rest crash into each other and the FIA takes an age to come to a verdict on the world’s poshest destruction derby, upsetting everyone in the process.

Many fans often moan that now-quite good F1 isn’t as good as it used to be back in the really ‘good old days’ – well they’ve got it now, we’re in full Balestre throwback mode!

Nonsensical decisions made far too late for it to be worth drivers, marshals and spectators risking their lives for the sport we love – you can feel the nostalgia dripping down the ‘Pitt Wall’.

Here’s what was going up and down Austin’s undulations.

 

Going down

The Spice Boy doth protest too much

Zak Brown and Christian Horner going down

No-one is going to mistake Zak Brown and Christian Horner for the best of friends

Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images

The announcement of Dietrich Mateschitz’s passing was indeed deeply saddening, the Austrian entrepreneur being a force of nature who helped save not only Team Milton Keynes but also Formula Faenza, as well as bringing many talented drivers through the sport – all funded by, as Danica Patrick so artfully put it, his initiation of “an entire culture of energy drinks”.

However, this doesn’t change the reality of F1’s newly crowned constructors’ champions – that it appears to have spent a few too many of Mateschitz’s mega-caffeinated millions in clinching the title, blatantly breaking the rules.

Cue hilarity from Christian ‘Rogue Marshal’ Horner accusing Zak Brown of affecting Red Bull employees’ mental health by suggesting – on fairly solid evidence – that the champion team had been “cheating”.

The Spice Boy has gone on record before as being proudly “straight talking” himself, but can anyone else do it? No way!

 

Wailing at the Pitt Wall

Brad Pitt going down

The awkward smiles grid pursuit

Alex Bierens de Haan/Getty Images

Brad Pitt signed a deal earlier this year with Apple TV to make F1’s own version of Driven with Lewis Hamilton as an executive producer, and was in Austin to get to work on his first ‘research’.

The Hollywood mega-ego was milling about with the great and not-so-good of F1 throughout the weekend, but then proceeded to have his own Megan Thee Stallion-moment on the starting grid, basically brushing St Martin Brundle aside when our-hallowed-man-with-a-microphone asked for a quick word.

As IndyCar racer, commentator and one-time Milton Keynes tester Townsend Bell put it, if you’re ignoring the ‘Voice of F1’, then you probably haven’t done much research up to this point.

Have a word Lewis – oh wait, he doesn’t do grid interviews with Martin either.

 

Driving etiquette

Sainz crash going down

The greatest drivers in the world. Some were even pointing in the right direction AND stayed on track

Grand Prix Photo

On-track standards were once again under the spotlight in Austin, with Carlos Sainz swinging back in front of George Russell (who had admittedly locked up), Lance Stroll giving Fernando Alonso a face full of derriere and several drivers barging into each other.

Best drivers in the world? Erm…

 

Farcical Internet Archive

The FIA has announced it will be digitising its archive for public use, but this facility is apparently already being used by the governing body itself, so long is it taking to make decisions on race incidents.

Hours after the GP had finished, the stewards had to delve back into the dust-covered scrolls of lap 22 to review Fernando Alonso’s loose right front wing mirror, initially dislodged by his own touching tribute to Red Bull’s many aerial acrobatic displays through the years.

The Spaniard was demoted back to 15th retrospectively after he had heroically fought back to finish seventh with his Alpine held together by a thread, once the stewards had reset their password and remembered which email it been sent to.

They meanwhile did nothing about Sergio Perez, whose disintegrating front wing went through the same emergency ejection process as Alonso’s mirror. Disappointed, but not – by this point – even slightly surprised.

 

Under-cooked

Honourable mention to possibly the worst F1 chequered flag-waver of all time, Apple CEO Tim Cook.

At least managed to give it a wiggle, some haven’t even done that.

 

Goin’ up

Buzzin’ Hornets (sorry, bees)

Vettel goin up

Pitstop error may have cost Vettel a podium, but then we’d have missed his final lap heroics

Aston Martin

Sebastian Vettel’s pet bees would have been proud of his daring buzz around the outside of Kevin Magnussen on the very last lap.

The old boy’s getting his kicks in while he can.

 

Pod Racer

Lando Norris goin up

Less weight, more speed: Lando’s missing left wheel aero deflector seemed to have little effect

McLaren

Lando Norris negotiated the ensuing shower of debris from the Stroll/Alonso crashed like a Star Wars X-Wing fighter pilot, his front left wheel cover being smashed off by a heavy impact.

Norris then highlighted the dubious nature of some aerodynamic devices by putting in a brilliant fightback to take sixth.

The best (sigh) bit of this year’s championship, the battle for fourth in the constructors’ between Alpine and McLaren, rages on.

 

Andretti rolls back the years

Who doesn’t love an 82-year-old all-time racing legend getting behind the wheel of a (kind of) modern F1 car?

As a driver, who has already driven nearly everything there is to drive, described to Motor Sport after his Laguna Seca warm-up, “no-one will ever understand how much I love driving a racing car”. Top stuff.

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