Fernando Alonso’s Jim Bowen tribute – Up and Down in Brazil

“Here’s what you could’ve won.”

The voice of 1980s Bullseye host Jim Bowen – whose well-known words would ring out on the British gameshow as cartoon character ‘Bully’ presented the speedboat or new fridge the contestants hadn’t snared – would have been the perfect accompaniment for this weekend’s race.

In a parallel universe Brazilian GP – with no Max Verstappen present and everyone shifted up one position – Charles Leclerc crashed out from pole on the formation lap, Lando Norris rocketed from fifth to first (via two restarts), Lewis ‘Still I whine’ Hamilton dropped like a stone as well as Perez and Alonso having one of the all-time great duels for runner-up spoils.

All these drivers (and a few more) have been in and around the runner-up spot on pace in the races or points in the championship battle.

Were it not for the brilliant Verstappen/Red Bull combination ruining it for everyone, this season would have been a classic as they fought it out for top honours.

Ah well, we can always dream (cue Bully hauling out his ‘special prize’ – a luxury hand food blender – this is actually a good idea for the sprint race award).

Goin’ Up

The sniper

The world’s faintest praiser (Alonso – who else?) gave a patronising verbal pat on the back to Perez for not taking him off in the duel, saying there were not many drivers in F1 who could do that. Stoffel Vandoorne and Lance Stroll have been previous victims.

The main target though appeared to be Esteban Ocon, with whom the Spaniard connected in practice. The two did not get along at Alpine, and the relationship is clearly festering nicely still.

F1 will be so much poorer when Alonso eventually retires (in 2050?).

Getting through it

A classic Martin Brundle gridwalk moment with Machine Gun Kelly 😅 pic.twitter.com/EGWssbjin9

— Sky Sports F1 (@SkySportsF1) November 5, 2023

Not the world’s greatest interview here, but Mr Colson Baker (rapper Machine Gun Kelly) did at least manage to be a bit of a good sport by turning the tables on Norfolk’s finest grass-track champion with some air guitar – more than most F1 celebs can do.

It ended in a semi-train crash, but you can’t expect Brundle to hit the mark every time.

Alpha Taur-rise

Yuki Tsunoda and Daniel Ricciardo have pulled off a mini-miracle (with the help of their hard-working designers and engineers of course) by scoring some decent points over the last two races, lifting the Italian team off the foot of the table to eighth and within touching distance of seventh-placed Williams.

Yuki managed to reach ninth in the race without actually hitting anyone either, though he did have a quintessential mini-spin early on.

Gassed

15th to seventh for Gasly on Sunday. Tout simplement charmant.

Goin’ Down

Swiss miss

Sauber isn’t just slow in a literal sense. It gives off slow vibes. Both cars retired miserably in Brazil. What an awful Alfa send-off 2023 has been.

Just lie back and think of the bikes/coffee beans/booze/latest business venture Valtteri.

Powerless Prancing Horse

The root of Alfa’s problems is possibly related to the Ferrari power unit though. Likely to have done for Leclerc on lap -1 and Sainz in the closing stages too.

The Ferrari post-race press release, joyfully optimistic as ever, described it as a race “with regrets.” Each quote paragraph begins “It was a difficult day,”; “It’s been a disappointing day,” and “We are very disappointed”. Beautiful.

Lack of imagination

Yet again we saw Perez labour behind another car while trying the same unsuccessful moves again and again – it also happened behind Sainz in Austria.

As soon as Perez got past Alonso in Brazil, the Spaniard just did him back again anyway. The Aramco Martin driver just showing the Mexican what it felt like to be in third place, and then taking it away again, was also quite Bowen-esque.

AMG Barn door

Mercedes had to run a huge rear wing to make up for lost downforce courtesy of a conservative ride height after its Austin DSQ. And subsequently went nowhere.