OK, perhaps the title not strictly true in the context of Valtteri Bottas’ current Mercedes contract to drive, but Bottas certainly crashed out of today’s Formula 1 Grand Prix at Imola, all hail George the Finn Slayer.

What a race. A good old F1 circuit, good old F1 unreliability, and a good old F1 crash. Just like the old days.

All the going’s on today in Imola has a tad of irony about it, particularly being the very next F1 race weekend following the Honey Badger’s rage against the F1 social media machine. Danny Ric called out F1’s publicity gurus for putting out a top 10 moments of the 2020 F1 season, which included 8 crashes.

 

“I was just like… you guys are fucking idiots”, the Aussie raged mused. “Maybe 12 year-old kids want to see that kind of content because they don’t know any better, but we’re not kids, Just do better guys. Do better than that”.

Well we here at TJ13 feel most chastised on reflection. Our Whatsapp group chat was buzzing over the drama created by British driver George the Finn slayer and Valerie Badass. Now known as ‘The Crash’.

Mercedes appear to have had a collective meltdown during the winter. Firstly, paying Sir Lu an amount of cash that would feed the poor in the world – and probably make them a touch chubby. And secondly, not recruiting George, I’m way faster than Valerie – even though I’m driving the Flintstone mobile, Russell.

 

Had the Stuttgart Bosses of the galaxy dominating F1 outfit, paused their perpetual quaffing of barrels of Riesling for a moment of rationality, then today’s incident ‘The Crash’ would not have happened.

The TJ13 team are united in their incredulity that Bottas is still in F1 and not at Haas – who compete in their own event – which is so slow they can’t even unlap themselves when given time to do so at the restart of the race.

Also, knowing that both Valerie and Prince George were not injured, we at TJ13 began to dissect the incident in an attempt to apportion blame and the ensuing appropriate ridicule.

We did all agree Red Bull should sort out their number two driver situation and get rid of Alex Albon….. oh wait….

On that matter, Sergio today appeared to mistake the unusual experience of gravel at a racing circuit as akin to a much beloved landscape from his homeland of Mexico. He was mildly bemused by the lack of Cactus (or is it Cacti?), which is probably why he felt it was okay to overtake behind the safety car. At laest Checo admitted ‘driving like an idiot today’.

But I digress.

 

Back to ‘The Crash’, probably the most spectacular since Ricky Patrese mounted Gerhard Berger forcibly from the rear in Portugal 1992.

I have to admit, the Usher and I appear to be in the minority opinion that Badass Valerie was way more to blame than British George. Then again, we are the only British contingent in the debate.

The point was well made that there was enough room for both cars, yet that isn’t the whole story.

The Williams car was hurtling toward the Mercedes at an excess speed of 30mph over the German machine. Both were approaching 300kph and Bottas did a tiny jink to the right. At that speed, the other driver has no idea how far Bottas is going to move across the track and even a touch of input is hugely exaggerated at that speed.

 

 

The usually sane Anthony Davidson appeared to protest a little too much when analysing the situation by demonstrating Bottas’s final move left showed didn’t want a collision. Really?

It’s also worthy of note that Bottas again was having a less than average weekend. P8 in qualifying. P10 at one point in the race, and the reason a Williams was way faster than the Finn’s Mercedes was because he had failed to get the tyres up to temperature. He just should be doing better.

Elsewhere, the non-Russian Russian entertained again proving F1 without Romain Grosjean can be just as much fun. It’s just a Hass thing, maybe a Murican thing.

 

Also, Aston Martin’s gear syncronisation issues, which affected both Seb the Spin and Lance the Rich – is clearly the fault of the FIA 2021 regulation changes designed to disadvantage the low rake car designs, Lawrence was allegedly heard to mutter.

Also noted was that the Silverstone team engineers are so affected by this FIA sabotage that they couldn’t fit the wheels to Vettel’s car by the required deadline.

The sleepy eyed stewards and Monsiuer Massi only woke up to this infringement, banging their gavel and declaring Aston guilty, fairly late in proceedings which made the Vettel stop and go penalty appear very harsh.

Alpine are proving that Renault really did deserve to be in F1. But hey hoh, it’s all French to me.

Elswhere, Pierre – I was unjustly sacked by Red Bull – Gasly, fitted tsunami tyres when there was a touch of rain before the race start. And stubbornly refused to accept this error for an eternity, probably costing him a podium.

His team mate, the nicknamed Yoshi from Mario Brothers fame, had the opportunity at the restart to overtake Sir Lu, but clearly got very excited, soiled his nappy and spun off, a la Mazzaspin.

Back to ‘The Crash’. Given I’m writing this article while the rest of TJ13’s commentators are drinking hard liquor, therefore I state, it is this websites opinion George is innocent.

 

And despite us believing the luck tank of Sir Lewis is finally empty, he managed to drive into the gravel – even admitting he made a mistake. – and spent an age before getting his car out. Lucky the ‘not allowed to reverse onto the track’ rule Ted mentioned has been cancelled – though when, no one remembers.

However, if you watch the replay you can see he joins the track as another car flashes past. A Christian Horner who is on his game would have drawn the stewards attention to a possible ‘unsafe return’ to the track.

 

So no penalty, but in fact due to sheer dedication the team’s galactic domination ambitions, Valerie then caused a red flag allowing Sir Lu to unlap himself while having a shit in the pit lane, and have his car repaired and polished up.

All this sadly meant Lando Norris was robbed of a deserved P2.

Clearly, it’s time for TJ13 to take a different point of view and just accept Sir Lu is the greatest ever F1 driver in the last 1000 years – and will be for the next millennium too.

By the way, shout out to British Ferrari (McLaren) who demonstrated how to justify team orders without pissing off the fans. Maybe a couple of Aussies disagree, but they are a long way away and Danny Ric wasn’t at his best.

Other worthy mentions are the un-Schumacher rain-meister-esque control of Michael’s son, young Mick, as he spun behind the safety car.

Queen Latifa once again proves he shouldn’t be in F1 either, despite the fact we could easily attribute blame to Mazzapin for the Williams driver’s early demise. Why blame the nationless driver you say? Because we can.

What will we do if Mazepin wins a race? He’s nationless. No anthem to play. No flag to wave. Let’s just hope it doesn’t happen. My bookie friend reckons the odds favour Elvis playing one last gig over a Mazzaspin F1 win.

Kimi is still under investigation by Messi and the Klu Klux Stewards at the time of writing. His sin? For re-starting after the red flag in the wrong place.

 

In Kimi’s defence he has told the FIA officials in previous years if they insist on stopping a race when there is a non-Russian Russian drinking F1 driver buddy on the grid, it’s just too tempting for him. Therefore, “it’s cos I was pissed” (English pissed not Murican angry) will presumably be his defense.

Such was the action that double world champion, and probably the best ever F1 driver, hardly got a mention. Fred was in the end beaten by teammate and French ace, Esteban Ocon – who lest we forget has been beasted by every team mate since arriving in F1. Alonso will be back.

Lance Stroll floated above the regs row between Daddy and the evil FIA, to finish P9. His guys did fit his wheels in time, despite the raging inferno of his brakes fire and the crappy Aston gear changes.

Not a bad result for the blighted low rake car design.

 

Ferrari were not quick in a straight line, though early doors ‘It is I’ bottled a move on Lewis for P2. New kid Carlos not only raced at Imola but inspected several parts of the park area in between stints on track still scoring a remarkable P5.

Niki Mazepin of no where in particular, finished a credible 17th having been lapped more times than any driver since Fernando drove a McLaren with a GP3 engine in the back.

In conclusion, Bottas is finished in F1. George is a rising young star of the global English sport. And that’s that. (Even Ted says he crashed with George Russell).

 

The only stale taste I the mouth was the accusation from George that Badass only did what he did because he saw it was Russell pedaling past him faster than a sonic boom.

Presumably, the Brit intended us to conclude Bottas knows Russell will soon be driving the Finns shiny black silver arrows and so behaved in a desperate defensive fashion. We can assure you George we’ve seen Bottas desperation on many occasions.

However, given the good and gracious nature of our F1 commentary we can forgive this mild indiscretion.

NOTE TO FIA: Cancel China EVERY year and race here in Italy during fresh spring weekends.

Auf Wiedershen.