Prateek's Musings

First Exposure to F1

I started following Formula 1 for a brief period in my childhood during the final years of Michael Schumacher's championship streak, only to get back during the pandemic when the topic came up while speaking to a close friend. Thanks to a reasonably priced Hotstar subscription, decent internet connection and a new-ish TV at home, I followed the sport through the COVID-19 stricken 2020, controversial 2021 and one-sided 2022 seasons. Then life happened, I moved to another city for work and lost access to all of these, only to be limited to highlights on YouTube.

While OTT subscriptions and binge watching took a back seat, I started watching movies on the big screen more frequently. From not watching a film in theatres for years together as a child, I now watch at least one movie a month on average in theatres. So when I saw my current and previous pastimes come together, I knew I was in for something special.

Synopsis and Credits

F1 is the story of Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt), a former Formula 1 driver who is forced to leave the sport thirty years ago after a horrific crash, post which he spends a decade on gambling and failed relationships before embarking on a journey of making one-off appearances in different types of car racing events across the United States. After one such appearance, Sonny is approached by an old friend and former F1 driver Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem), who has bought a team named APX GP. After failing to score points for two and a half seasons and the imminent risk of a fire sale; Ruben offers Sonny a seat to save the team and fulfill his long lost dream of winning an F1 race.

The movie is directed by Joseph Kosinski, who last made Top Gun: Maverick in 2022, the sequel to the 1986 film Top Gun starring Tom Cruise. Joseph co-wrote the story with Ehren Kruger who wrote the screenplay. Kosinski also served as producer alongside Jerry Bruckheimer, Brad Pitt and seven-time F1 world champion Sir Lewis Hamilton among others. Hans Zimmer provided the soundtrack, while Kosinski's regular collaborator Claudio Miranda is the cinematographer.

Watching in IMAX

For the uninitiated, IMAX is a specialised projection standard with one of its key features being a taller aspect ratio (1.43:1 or 1.90:1) than the usual scope aspect ratio (2.39:1). F1 has been filmed for IMAX, hence it only made sense to watch the film on an IMAX screen.

Thankfully, the Mumbai metropolitan region has 6 theatres equipped with IMAX screens, spread pretty well geographically. Each screen has different projection and audio configurations, which results in a slight difference in their overall quality. Kaustubh Debnath aka KDCloudy has a Google sheet with the specifications of all the IMAX screens in India, which informed me that PVR ICON at Phoenix Palladium in Lower Parel could provide the best experience, with its Commercial Laser projector and 12 channel audio.

This wasn't my first time watching a film in IMAX, but I had started very recently. It started in December last year, when I watched Pushpa: The Rule at the newly reopened Miraj Cinemas at Wadala. Later in February this year I caught the re-release of the iconic Interstellar at the equally iconic EROS Cinemas in Churchgate, and later returned to Miraj Cinemas to watch Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning. While the audio-visual experience at both venues was amazing, it couldn't match the experience at the Phoenix Palladium PVR.

Thoughts About The Movie

I went in with high expectations in terms of watching the cars on track, and pretty low expectations with respect to nuanced story telling and character development, and I was not disappointed one bit. It is the perfect popcorn entertainer to be experienced on the big screen, and kept me engaged from the first frame to the last. The film has the expected sports drama trope of redemption, but it doesn't resort to melodrama and sticks to tension.

The visuals of the races were breathtaking to say the least. Although it's unfair to compare the technical standards of Indian films with tentpole Hollywood films produced by the big studios, I was pleased by how realistically they were able to blend the APX GP drivers battling it out on track with the real world F1 drivers. The soundtrack is rousing, the theme especially is fairly simple but extremely catchy, and so were some other tracks.

Brad Pitt as Sonny Hayes really stole the show amongst all the actors. His character has a lot of baggage - a massive crash that all but ended his career at his prime, a gambling addiction that manifests itself with his racing tactics, multiple failed relationships that reflect in his professional choices. But Pitt stays true to the genre and channels the swag and passion for driving for the most part, only showing glimpses of vulnerability here and there.

Damson Idris gives an earnest performance as Joshua Pearce, Hayes' younger teammate who is talented but inexperienced, and also pretty scared about the possibility of losing his place on the F1 grid if his team sinks. Kerry Condon plays technical director Kate McKenna, whose character is pretty important in the whole scheme of things, but is unfortunately subjected to some of the commercial cinema tropes. No complaints though.

Coming back to the racing, it is pretty accurate for the most part. There are obvious cinematic liberties, and a couple of them are pretty outrageous for ardent F1 fans. There is an incident that happens in one of the races that could end very differently in real life. In an earlier race, the tactics employed by a driver result in a very light penalty than what would be meted out in the actual sport. But these act as plot devices and keep you at the edge of your seat rather than take you out of the film.

Final Thoughts

If it's not become obvious by now, I highly recommend watching this film watching this movie on the big screen, especially on a 4K LASER IMAX screen for the best theatrical experience. If you are an F1 fan, you will get the rare experience of watching these machines on the big screen. If you don't follow F1, you still get a thoroughly engaging commercial movie experience.

I stopped following F1 after the 2022 season due to a couple of reasons - moving to another city for a new job and not being willing to buy the expensive F1 TV subscription when Disney+ Hotstar gave up the broadcasting rights. The 2023 season was pretty much dominated by two-time defending world champion Max Verstappen and Red Bull Racing, so I believe there isn't much I missed. But the 2024 season has been springing up a lot of surprises both on and off the track. I am just going to rely on the highlights of the qualifying sessions and races, but there's enough exciting news to be covered.

It's Not So Bullish Anymore

After securing his maiden title in the last laps of the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix in a controversial manner, Max Verstappen dominated the 2022 and 2023 seasons securing 15 and 19 victories in 22 and 23 full-length feature races respectively. This season began in a similar fashion as Super Max secured seven feature race wins in the first ten races. However, other teams' car upgrades seem to be doing much better than Red Bull, and that has led to Max not even getting on to the podium in the last four race weekends. His radio messages during the Hungarian Grand Prix made his frustration pretty evident.

On the other side of the garage, Mexican driver Sergio "Checo" Perez has seen a downturn in his fortunes especially after Miami. He has been out-qualified multiple times by Williams driver Logan Sergeant, who will be leaving the team at the end of the season after failing to make an impression in his season and a half with the team. He is currently seventh in the drivers' standings behind the McLaren and Ferrari and Lewis Hamilton, and could have even been surpassed by George Russell if not for his disqualification in the Belgian Grand Prix. While his contract extension until the end of 2025 season was announced earlier, there were wild speculations of him being replaced by veteran Daniel Ricciardo or Red Bull junior Liam Lawson.

Max is still 78 points clear at the top of the table, and he might still be able to win his fourth straight title in a less comfortable manner even without winning all races. But Sergio needs to reinforce the trust placed in him by the Red Bull team management who announced that he will stay with the team, and step up his performance to ensure that the team secures their third successive Constructors' title ahead of the rising McLaren team.

Papayas With A Purpose

F1 fans would remember Fernando Alonso's famous radio message "GP2 engine!" as a McLaren driver. Under the leadership of Zak Brown, the British team has seen a change of fortunes with their initial resurgence led by Carlos Sainz and Lando Norris. Their bet on Daniel Ricciardo didn't pay off, but the "Honey Badger" was replaced by a young compatriot - F2 and F3 champion Oscar Piastri in the 2023 season. In his debut season, Oscar secured consecutive podiums in Japan and Qatar and ended up at the 9th position in the drivers' standings. His experienced teammate Lando Norris had a rocky start to the 2023 season, but bounced back with seven podium finishes out of which only one was at the third place. However, a race win still remained a dream for the British driver in his fifth season in Formula 1.

This season has been at least half a meteoric rise for the papaya team as both drivers secured their first feature race wins, with Lando climbing up the top step at the Miami Grand Prix and Oscar tasting victory at the Hungaroring thanks to a better race start than his teammate who started the race at the front of the grid. Lando has had mixed luck with a combination of some poor race starts, racing incidents like the crash with Max at the Red Bull Ring and some team mistakes like the slow pit stop at Silverstone which cost him the lead. Oscar has stepped up and worked on his tyre management woes from past season, and already secured four podium place finishes including his race victory, half as much as Lando's eight podiums in 14 race weekends.

Lando would really wish to give his best friend Max a good run for his money in the race for the drivers' title, while Oscar could be the dark horse in the Constructors' championship if Sergio Perez doesn't effect a major turnaround of his fortunes.

The Appalling Alpines

The F1 outfit of the French automobile manufacturer has been through a lot of flux in the recent season with changes in driver lineup and management, but their success has almost completely faded away this season. Despite having two race-winning French drivers at the wheel in the form of Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon, this has been a season to forget with the car lacking any form of competitiveness. In fourteen race weekends including a few sprint races sprinkled in between, both drivers combined have managed to secure only ten points and the eighth position in the constructors' standings ahead of Williams who has scored four points and Kick Sauber on zero.

Last year, Bruno Famin replaced Otmar Szafnauer as the Alpine team principal mid-season; and this year the 36 year-old F2 team Hitech GP owner Oliver Oakes has been handed the mantle mid-season. On the driver front, Esteban Ocon has announced his departure from the team at the end of the season as he joins Haas which will have a completely new driver line-up with both their drivers departing. I wonder if Pierre will also seek to abandon this currently sinking ship and move to another team like his teammate. On the other hand, there has been talk that Alpine is contemplating replacing the Renault engine with a Mercedes engine. Will these changes happem? Considering their recent track record, even more changes might be afoot!

Not-So-Smooth Operation

The word "underrated" has become extremely overused, but I believe it best describes one driver currently on the Formula 1 grid - Carlos Sainz. Sainz has driven for four teams so far - Toro Rosso (now called Visa Cash App RB), Renault (now called Alpine), McLaren and now Ferrari; and almost everywhere he has surpassed his teammate and helped his teammates and teams become more competitive.

After Lewis Hamilton announced that he had decided to leave Mercedes to join Ferrari, Carlos had to look for another seat on the grid. The push for relaxation of age regulations seems to indicate that Mercedes are eager to bring F2 rookie and academy driver Kimi Antonelli alongside George Russell for next year, hence that door was closed. Mattia Binotto replacing former McLaren team principal Andreas Seidl as the leader of the Audi Formula 1 project probably made the team a less viable option. Sainz finally ended up signing up with Williams, which many fans including me see as a massive downgrade compared to a competitive team like Ferrari. But Sainz's history in F1 shows that he has mostly been at teams who have struggled and helped them past those struggles, and James Vowles would hope for nothing different from the "Smooth Operator".

Rising From The Ashes

After dominating the sport for close to a decade and winning several drivers' and constructors' titles along the way, the last couple of seasons haven't been exactly rosy for Toto Wolff's team. Fortunately, unlike smaller teams they have had two less problems - the drivers. Sir Lewis Hamilton is a modern-day legend in the world of motorsport and has taken the car across the chequered flag on three wheels at Silverstone in 2020. Young driver George Russell also cut his teeth at Williams as he managed to get a pole and score points with a car which on occasions felt under-engineered to even be fielded in a race. But Lewis Hamilton couldn't win a single race in the entire 2022 and 2023 seasons, and George secured his first and only win in the two seasons at Interlagos in 2022.

Both drivers secured points in the first two races, but the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix was one to forget for the team. Both drivers DNFed, but so did Max Verstappen as Carlos Sainz became a race winner. They got back to scoring points, but really got into the groove in Montreal where Russell secured the team's first podium finish of the season right ahead of Hamilton. The order got reversed in Spain, and George Russell finally secured his first win of the season at the Red Bull Ring, partly thanks to Max and Lando's crash which damaged the former's car and sent the latter out of the race.

George followed up the race win with a pole position at Silverstone ahead of Lewis, and both drivers valiantly fought off a formidable attack from McLaren drivers Norris and Piastri until a slow pit stop from Norris put him out of contention and eased the way for Lewis Hamilton to secure his 104th race win almost a thousand days after his 103th. The papaya drivers did fight back with a 1-2 in Hungary including a maiden victory for Piastri, but Merc came right back with an on track 1-2 for George and Lewis, only for George getting disqualified due to his car being underweight and losing the victory to Lewis. This surge in performance has really set up a good farewell for Lewis before he dons the red Ferrari overalls next season, and a great opportunity for Russell to step into the #1 driver role for next (and even this) season.

Predictions For The Remaining Season and Post-Season

Max Verstappen will successfully secure his fourth straight Drivers' title with Red Bull Racing, and might even get the team across the line in the race for the Constructors' championship irrespective of how his teammate does in the remaining races. The contest for the next five positions in the standings is going to be tastier, but Lando Norris might emerge ahead of teammate Oscar Piastri. Lewis Hamilton could also potentially pip the guy he replaces at Ferrari as Mercedes' return to form continues.

In the drivers' market, Kimi Antonelli joining Mercedes alongside George Russell is all but confirmed. At Alpine, the only viable option to replace Ocon seems to be academy recruit Jack Doohan. Could Sauber sign another German driver alongside Nico Hulkenberg in the form of Mick Schumacher to prepare for their transition to Audi in 2026? The Red Bull sisters team situation also has a lot of scenarios - Perez doing well and keeping his seat for 2025, Perez failing and losing his seat to Ricciardo while Liam Lawson joins Yuki Tsunoda at VCARB, Yuki getting promoted to Red Bull and Ricciardo deciding to move on from F1 to pave the way for a brand new line up at VCARB - anything seems possible at this point. So expect the unexpected until Formula 1 returns!

The biggest ever season of the sport yet concluded last month at Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi. Red Bull's Max Verstappen who had already confirmed his second consecutive title in Japan saw the chequered flag first, notching up a record fifteenth win of the season. Ferrari's Charles Leclerc finished second in the race and the championship ahead of Red Bull driver Sergio Perez.

A major technical regulation change promised a lot of action on track, but drivers and teams provided even more action off track. Everything has been discussed extensively in the media, so I will stick to talking about the things that made me take notice.

Champions and Challengers

The earlier stages of the season seemed to indicate that Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc will have a close fight for the Drivers' Championship, and their respective teams will lock horns in the Constructors' Championship. However, a mix of strategy mistakes, reliability issues and damage control to prevent a budget cap breach led to this title challenge ending a lot sooner than expected.

In his first season for Mercedes, George Russell finished in top five in eighteen races and even secured his maiden win at Brazil; a race Sergio Perez would like to forget. Checo did build up a substantial enough gap, but would have hoped for more success to avoid being treated as a support for Max.

Middling Midfield

Alpine and McLaren engaged in a close midfield fight as expected, but both teams were plagued with different issues and therefore ended up quite far from the top three teams. 42 year old "rookie" Fernando Alonso was at the top of his game in a performant Alpine, but ended up with six DNFs thanks to its reliability issues. McLaren's marketing team did a better job than their engineering team, but Lando Norris outdrove the car while overcoming multiple bouts of illness to get the team's only podium finish.

Esteban Ocon's performances didn't stand out much, but somewhat better luck helped him finish ahead of his teammate. On the other hand, Daniel Ricciardo had his worst ever season since replacing Mark Webber at Red Bull in 2014; culminating in him returning to his original team with a fat payout from McLaren for a premature contract termination.

Surprise Switcheroos

Sebastian Vettel's retirement announcement triggered a series of driver transfers for the next season. Fernando Alonso took up Vettel's seat at Aston Martin, and Alpine immediately announced Oscar Piastri as their new driver. However, Oscar publicly denied this move in one of the most famous tweets associated with F1 and decided to replace fellow Australian Daniel Ricciardo.

I understand that, without my agreement, Alpine F1 have put out a press release late this afternoon that I am driving for them next year. This is wrong and I have not signed a contract with Alpine for 2023. I will not be driving for Alpine next year.

— Oscar Piastri (@OscarPiastri) August 2, 2022

Alpine finally signed French driver Pierre Gasly from AlphaTauri ending a long-term association with the Red Bull Academy, and AlphaTauri signed Mercedes reserve driver Nyck de Vries who scored points in his first F1 race filling in for Red Bull Academy graduate Alexander Albon, who decided to stay with Williams for the next season.

While Nicholas Latifi losing his Williams seat to American driver Logan Sergeant after three seasons came as no surprise, Haas shocked some people with their decision to replace Mick Schumacher with Nico Hulkenberg, whose last full season in Formula 1 was in the Renault car in 2019.

Management Mishaps

F1's sporting regulations were already under the scanner due to the sequence of events that happened towards the end of the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. Despite this there were noticeable slip-ups in stewarding across the season. It seemed that track limits were not tracked uniformly across circuits, and stewards also ended up giving judgements on a few racing incidents after the race ended, thus preventing drivers and teams from reacting to these incidents.

However, nothing could beat the deployment of a tractor for recovering Carlos Sainz's crashed Ferrari on track, as Pierre Gasly approached at a fast pace unaware of its presence. The memories of the accident in the 2014 Japanese Grand Prix which ended the life of Jules Bianchi are still fresh, and the sport can do a lot better at enforcing protocols which ensure the safety of both the drivers and the marshals.

Cash Crunch

The budget cap became a point of contention for all teams, and the news of Red Bull and Aston Martin breaching it in different ways led to strong reactions throughout the grid. Ferrari apparently had to turn down the engine in the later stages of the season and compromise performance to preserve engines and prevent a potential breach.

I believe budget caps are also being thought of in a similar fashion as restrictions on number of engines, powertrains and other components; which might lead to more teams allowing small breaches instead of trading off performance. Whether imposing budget caps really brings all the teams on a level-playing field is a tough question to answer, but hopefully the structure of these restrictions will become more robust with passing time.

Looking Ahead

The numbers for 2023 represent a bigger follow-up to an already massive season. Next year, the sport will travel to 23 venues across the world including the debut of Las Vegas as the third Grand Prix in USA. The number of sprint races has been increased from three to six. Six teams will field a new driver alongside an existing driver, including two debutants and one veteran. Four teams will undergo leadership change, and teams will learn from the positives and negatives of 2022 to improve their cars with FIA providing some relief for the porpoising issues. The increasing scope of logistics seems to go against the net zero goals of the sport, at least on the surface; but the growing popularity of the sport especially outside Europe is encouraging for a stronger top line and bottom line.

Farewell Sebastian Vettel

Before I start rambling, I have to speak about four-time World Champion Sebastian Vettel, who announced that he will retire from Formula 1 at the end of this season. Seb would have loved to win another title after spending six frustrating seasons at Ferrari dealing with performance and strategy issues, but that didn't seem like a possibility with Aston Martin's current form.

This season was touted to be a big reset with the introduction of technical regulations, which got postponed by a year thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. There were also some exciting driver line-up changes which opened up some possibilities in terms of competition for the championships and the midfield positions. Let's take a look at which drivers and teams have impressed and who have been underwhelming.

Title Contenders and Challengers

After 8 seasons of Mercedes dominance, the start of the season seemed to indicate that the Constructors' Championship would be a contest between Ferrari and Red Bull, with the latter taking over the Honda powertrain development after their exit at the end of last season. Although Mercedes drivers notched a 3-4 at the first race in Bahrain, that was because both Red Bull cars had issues. 13 race weekends in, Red Bull are comfortable at the top of the table, while Ferrari seem to be precariously close to losing the second place to Mercedes.

Ferrari's season so far has been a tragedy of errors. Both drivers have committed errors on multiple occasions and lost crucial points. Whenever they've done their job, reliability has cost them dearly. And when both the drivers and the reliability has been on point, their pit wall and pit crew have cost them because of poor pit stops and bad strategy calls. With only 9 race weekends after the summer break, Ferrari might have run out of time to be in the contention for the Constructors' title. However, Charles Leclerc might still have a chance to take the Drivers' title fight to the end.

George Russell - The Type of Guy

George has been the most consistent driver on the grid this season. He has finished every race (except Silverstone) in the top 5, and has been on the podium as many times as Charles Leclerc, i.e. 5. After coming pretty close to a pole position in heavy rain at Spa last year, he finally got his first pole position at Hungary this weekend. A maiden victory doesn't seem too far, especially with the way Mercedes has been overcoming the difficulties faced earlier in the season.

Liked By Pierre Gasly?

Pierre Gasly's Instagram game has been pretty strong so far this season. His performance, not so much. After getting demoted to AlphaTauri from Red Bull mid-season in 2019, Pierre notched his first F1 win at Monza in 2020. Ever since he has led the team from the front, finishing the last couple of seasons in the top ten. This year's car isn't that great, and if they don't improve there's a risk of Pierre slipping to the 14th or 15th in the championship by the end of the season. While he has been confirmed at the team for next season, Red Bull has an army of junior drivers ready to replace him if Helmut Marko's patience ends.

Alpine - The French El Plan

Alpine has been a decent midfield team for the last 5 seasons. But so far this season, under the leadership of Otmar Szafnauer, they have been taking the fight to their biggest competitor McLaren. Both Fernando and Esteban have consistently finished in the points, while former Alpine and current McLaren driver Daniel Ricciardo is just not able to figure out his car, leaving his teammate Lando Norris to do the heavy lifting. Alpine are currently ahead by a measly 4 points, but they might just be able to retain this position by the end of the season if Ricciardo's woes continue. With Alonso's move to Aston Martin just confirmed, both drivers will be motivated to compete more often than collaborate, and that might play into McLaren's favour.

Aston(ishingly poor) Martin

After forming a bond (get it?) with the iconic British brand last season, it hasn't been smooth sailing for Lawrence Stroll's team. While they have managed to replace Vettel with Alonso a lot sooner than expected, the remaining season is still going to be somewhat painful, and their only target would be to give Vettel a decent send-off and prove to Alonso that they are improving, as they build the new development facilities.

Silly Season Predictions

After Vettel's retirement and Alonso's move, there are five potentially vacant seats on the driver grid. Oscar Piastri's debut at Alpine seems all but confirmed so not much ambiguity there. Could Helmut Marko relegate Yuki Tsunoda to a Red Bull reserve driver role for a season and bring back Alex Albon into the fold, and then get Yuki back when Gasly leaves at the end of the 2023 season? Would Zhou Guanyu and Mick Schumacher swap seats at Haas and Alfa Romeo? Would Jost Capito choose his new drivers from the current F2 grid or give Nicholas Latifi a new contract and sign up Nyck de Vries alongside him? I will wait with my jar of Nutella until action resumes four weeks later at Spa Francorchamps.