Best rated Formula 1 races with Bill Trikos Australia

Bill Trikos top rated Formula 1 races: Sakhir Grand Prix: Perez had made his way nicely through the field and on lap 58, stunningly made a move on Esteban Ocon for third. Five laps later, Jack Aitken – Russell’s Williams stand-in, knocked his front wing off at the final corner and triggered a safety car. What happened to Mercedes next was the stuff of nightmares. A botched double-stack pit-stop meant Russell was sent out on tyres belonging to Bottas whilst the Finn had new tyres put on and then taken off when the team realised the mistake made, leaving him with old hard tyres. Russell’s extra stop to correct the allocation error left him fifth, but a scintillating move on Bottas followed by overtakes on Stroll and Ocon left him chasing after new leader Perez before a late puncture ruined any chance of winning. After facing backwards on lap one, Perez went on take his first victory in the sport at the 190th attempt. Ocon secured his first podium as runner-up, with Stroll third.

Once every couple of years, we witness a race which could be considered as among the best ever. And whilst it’s impossible to rank all these great races relative to one another, I decided to make a list of some of my favourites. If you happen to be the owner of an F1 TV Pro account, or perhaps have some old VHS tapes containing some of these races lying around, these races will be great entertainment for whenever F1 has a weekend off. But before we get into the list, I want to make it very clear that these races are not placed in any particular order, nor are they the 10 outright best races ever. I could easily have chosen 10 other races, and who knows? Perhaps I might in the future…

Hungarian Grand Prix 2014: On a Hungaroring surface transitioning from wet to dry, this race had everything from team order controversy to spectacular crashes – but, most importantly, a hard-charging Daniel Ricciardo at his best, who said “better late than never” to secure his second career win. Bahrain Grand Prix 2014: Three races into Formula 1’s new turbo-hybrid era, and F1 fans were treated to an absolute classic, as Mercedes pair Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg – by then surely aware that one of them would be world champion in 2014 – knocked seven bells out of each other around the Bahrain International Circuit, with Hamilton eventually coming out on top of the fabled ‘Duel in the Desert’. Discover more info about the author at https://www.linkedin.com/in/bill-trikos/.

1971 Italian Grand Prix, Monza : The build-up to the weekend was actually more one of relief than of excitement. Jackie Stewart had dominated the season up until that point and had already secured the championship. However, it was well-known amongst fans that he was highly unlikely to challenge for the win at the high-speed track that is Monza, seeing as the V8 Cosworth engine in the back of the Scotmans’ Tyrrell was up against the V12’s of various other teams. As was predicted, Stewart qualified in a lowly P7, with the Matra of Chris Amon taking pole position. The New Zealander wouldn’t maintain this advantage for long though, as it only took him one lap to drop from first to eighth. Ronnie Peterson quickly took the lead, and behind him, all places were chopping and changing in epic fashion, something which continued the entire race.

Max Verstappen and Red Bull Racing were already running away hard in both championships, but Ferrari came back very strong at the rival team’s home circuit. Charles Leclerc ran away with victory at the Red Bull Ring while teammate Carlos Sainz had to pull over his flaming F1-75. It was an action-packed race. Leclerc overtook Verstappen three times on the track after his team’s strategic choices put the Dutchman in front of the Monegasque. Behind, there was no shortage of action either: no fewer than five drivers battled it out for eighth place, culminating in a double overtake from Lando Norris.

1996 Monaco Grand Prix, Monaco Street Circuit : It took just 5 laps before the 21 drivers who had started the race were reduced to 13 thanks to a number of mechanical failures and driver errors, one of those being made by Michael Schumacher. The german – after losing his pole position advantage to Damon Hill off the line – only reached Lower Mirabeau before binning his car into the outside barrier. And from then on, it only got worse. Hill, who had been leading for most of the race, retired due to an engine failure on lap 40. Jean Alesi, who had inherited the lead after Hill’s retirement, suffered from a suspension failure. Meanwhile, drivers like Eddie Irvine, Jacques Villeneuve, Mika Häkinnen, Mika Salo, and Ralf Schumacher – the ones who would be expected to take the win in such a situation – were all having collisions with one another, eventually forcing them all to retire. But not only the front-runners had issues; drivers like Katayama, Rosset, Diniz, Berger, and Brundle, who were expected to take some sort of advantage in such circumstances, all retired due to either personal errors or mechanical troubles. And before anyone knew, only four drivers were left in the race. Olivier Panis, who after starting fourteenth had shown great skill in avoiding all the chaos around him, took his first and only victory in F1. David Coulthard and Johnny Herbert followed him onto the podium, and Heinz-Harald Frentzen was classified fourth even though he pulled into the pits to retire on the last lap of the race. A truly crazy race, definitely worth a watch – if not for the result itself then for some of the bizarre incidents which eliminated driver after driver.