Man, Vettel is having a rough weekend. I don't get it with him. He wins four championships, and comes close a few times with Ferrari, but now he can't even hold off Stroll (who admittedly might be better than we thought). At this point I wonder if Aston are better off putting Hulkenberg in the car. It would be sad, but Vettel isn't getting it done. It's still early, but combined with last year's form it's not a pretty picture.
Right now Sainz is fourth, and remember what a good run he had here last year leading the opening laps. Of course the conditions were slippery, so he's got to be hoping for rain. It's just practice, and he's only about a tenth ahead of LeClerc. but it's still a good sign he's fitting in with the team well and has good speed.
I'm going to be delighted when Carlos wins his first race, and Lando too. Just Imagine what a Carlos/Lando podium would look like.
Checo had a good weekend going and then muffed FP2, but let's hope he can put it on the front row again and this time get a result. Then again, Max is running an improved floor, so some of the gap between them might be coming from that. There's no word yet on if Red Bull has another floor available.
It also looks like Merc is now fully in the fight instead of on their back foot. Hamilton won against a better combination in Bahrain, but let's not put too much importance on Imola where Hamilton got shoved off and damaged the car on the first lap. I'm guessing if he had a healthy car it wouldn't have been so easy for Max.
Sunday is going to be a different story, unless, that is, max shoves him off again. Then whatever feud Lewis had with Nico is going to look tame. Remember, Lewis had to play nice with his teammate, and still got the better of him in every one of their shoving matches shoving matches. Hamilton doesn't play that game unless he's forced to, and then he's as good as anybody. If max wants to play rough, no one at Mercedes is going to tell him to back down. It's not how you want to race, but if the other guy wants to play like that it cuts both ways.
This is a great track and the TV hides how much elevation change there is, and that goes for other tracks too. A lot of these corners have a blind entry, and come are even decreasing radius and blind. It's an extremely tricky track and I am glad F1 is there. Now I hope they keep coming back after the pandemic is history.