Joe Man’s Teammate battle diary!
Here we haved looked at each race and qualifying and see how teammates faired against each other. The juiciest battles and the ones who got left behind!
Red Bull
Verstappen 1st – Perez 4th
Although on paper its Max who takes the spoils, Sergio Perez will feel he leaves the second race of the season with equal standing. Perez was brilliant in qualifying pulling off his own lap of the gods and putting it on pole. Finally it seems he has got up to speed with Max and it will be fascinating to see if this continues. Perez had the race covered too before horrible luck cost him what looked like victory. Verstappen was very supportive and genuinely looked sorry for his team mate when he became the latest victim of the race ruiner Nicholas Latifi.
Max will know that Sergio is now on his tail and could mount a challenge of his own.
Max Verstappen 1 – a very unlucky Sergio Perez 0
Mercedes
Russell 5th – Lewis Hamilton 10th
A convincing win for George Russell over his illustrious team mate Lewis Hamilton.
Russell got what was expected out of the car in Qualifying putting his car in 6th. Incredibly the seven time world champion was knocked out in the first period of qualifying! It seems George is getting to grips with this car a lot quicker than Hamilton. For Russell driving a tricky uncompetitive car is something he has been used to at Williams so it’s no surprise that he is finding it easier.
Lewis right now is nowhere and needs to find some magic in Australia.
George Russell 1 – Lewis Hamilton 1
Ferrari
Charles Leclerc 2nd – Carlos Sainz 3rd
Nothing has changed at Ferrari since race one. Charles is dominating his team mate. We thought it might be a bit closer, and may well be soon, but right now Leclerc’s driving is golden. He looks totally in control of the car and himself. He drove brilliantly again. Not taking anything away from Carlos and his third place but he is clearly behind right now!
Leclerc 2 – Sainz 0
Alpine
Ocon 6th – Alonso DNF
Now this was the juiciest of all the weekends team mate battles. While the front of the race was a slow burn at the start, the Alpine drivers raced each other like crazy. They clearly had a fast car with Esteban winning out in qualifying with a fantastic 5th place.
But when it was lights out these two went at it like we have rarely seen with teammates. Both drivers have a record of teammate troubles and it reminded us all of how things went between Ocon and Perez. For me Ocon overstepped the line. I was surprised the Alpine bosses didn’t order them to stop soon after Esteban’s late move on the straight. You simply can’t move that late. It was very lucky they didn’t have a high speed crash yet they continued on wheel for wheel costing them a huge amount of time. Team boss Otmar Szafnauer is going to have to get on top of this one as I suspect we will have an accident very soon. As it turned out Ocon drove brilliantly to take 6th on the line. Unluckily for Fernando his car failed him!
Estaban Ocon 2 – Fernando Alonso 0
McLaren
Another tough race for McLaren with Sadly only Lando finishing. In a positive for the team he drove a great race to come home in 7th. In many ways he had no right to get his car that high up and will take great confidence to Australia. For Daniel it was another miserable weekend. He will be happy that he was nearly on pace with his team-mate in qualifying and 12th was a step forward for him and the team. However he lost all power in his car and had to retire. Even before then the race wasn’t going well. Collisions at the start and Daniel was tumbling down the order. We all hope things turn around in Australia.
Lando Norris 2 – Daniel Riccardo 0
Alfa Romeo
At the moment Vallteri Bottas is showing his class and clearly enjoying his time with Alfa. Fantastically fast all weekend and leaving Lewis Hamilton in his wake must feel amazing. No one expects anything other than Bottas to dominate his rookie teammate and that is the case so far. A commendable effort for Zhou Guanyu finishing in 11th. It could have been so much better for him had he not had car issues at the start.
Vallteri Bottas 2 – Zhou Guanyu 0
Williams
Not a great weekend for Williams yet again. They don’t seem to have made much progress. Alex is far and away on top in this one and it must really bring in to question whether Latifi is out of his depth in F1. He needs to turn it around soon. Accidents are too frequent and once again he brought out the safety car, crashing all on his own. Albon is doing everything he can and the team will be delighted to have him.
Alex Albon 2 – Nicholas Latifi 0
Alpha Tauri
Pierre will be happy with his weekend and was back to his old self taking his car to an excellent 8th place. Unfortunately we never got to see Tsunoda as his car failed to make its to the start line. Such a shame for the Japanese driver after his excellent 8th place in the opening round. We are yet to see both drivers finish a race!
Pierre Gasly 1 – Yuki Tsunoda 1
Haas
Great result again for Kevin Magnussen who is setting F1 alight since his unlikely return. Point again for the team coming home in 9th. I think Mick Schumacher should also look back on this week as a success because he isn’t seriously injured!! His crash in qualifying was one of the worst we have seen in a while with his car torn in two. He will need to get his confidence back and start showing he car keep up with Magnussen before this season damages his reputation.
Magnussen 2 – Mick Schumacher 0
Aston Martin
Nico Hulkenberg, Lance Stroll and Sebastian Vettel are all tied here. Seb has yet to kick off his season but his arrival onto the scene is imminent as we head to Melbourne in a a couple of weeks. As for his ‘stand in’, Nico Hulkenberg has done remarkably well considering the lack of notice and clear absence of grid experience over the last couple of years specifically. For effort, he deserves his plaudits. However, for points, he has come up considerably short. Not that is down to him, however. In the sister car, things haven’t been much better. Lance Stroll is also yet to score and, despite looking like he was going to score at least a couple of points to take home, he too has come away from both races with his tally still at zero. The Canadian in fact finished below his counterpart once again in Saudi, which has lead to fans to scrutinise his long term future in the sport, regardless of dad involvement. As we progress to Australia, Seb will be looking to start his personal season off with a bang, whilst Lance will be keen to avoid any more disappointment. As for Nico, it’s back to the sidelines, for now.
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