🏁75 points and counting

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Question of the day: would you rather have Carlos Sainz's hair or Fernando Alonso's?

- Ryan David | Publisher

P.S. We're releasing episode #005 of The Gravel Trap podcast today. Check it out wherever you listen including Apple, Spotify, and more.

Are the Mercs back?

Photo: Remko De Waal

That's a wrap on what's possibly the last French Grand Prix for a while. It was... not that exciting.

It was, however, excellent for Mercedes fans. Their drivers claimed a 2-3 finish—the highest finishes Toto's boys have claimed this season. A very dehydrated Lewis (his drink bottle didn't work) took P2 10.5 seconds behind Verstappen. George took advantage of a Virtual Safety Car computer issue to pass Pérez and take P3.

Heartbreak and a P5

The tifosi (aka Ferrari fans, aka me) weren't so pleased. For the third time this year, Charles Leclerc retired from a race he was leading. During lap 18, he inexplicably spun out and crashed into the wall. He was on the radio shortly after complaining about the throttle—reminding many fans of his issues in Austria.

• He also let out a guttural scream. It was only a matter of time before someone made it into this.

Team principal Mattia Binotto squashed theories of Austria's throttle trouble resurfacing. Both Mattia and Leclerc placed the blame squarely on driver error. With 3 P1 retirements, Chucky's now given up a possible 75 points. Max leads him in the driver's championship by 63 points.

All things considered, Carlos Sainz had a great day. He had to start in P19 because of an allocation penalty but worked his way all the way up to a P5 finish—even with a 5-second penalty. Those 14 places earned him the fan vote driver of the day.

Many fans (who could obviously do a better job), condemned the Ferrari strategy to pit Sainz while he was P3. Sainz defended it. For some context, had he kept his position (and his tired not exploded), P3 would get him 15 points. P5 earns 10 points and his fastest lap bumped him to 11.

Is it worth risking getting 0 points to earn 4 more?

By the numbers

• Fernando Alonso surpassed Kimi Raikkonen's record for most laps ever driven in F1 with 18,621. Kimi couldn't be reached for comment as he was having a shit.

• Lewis earned his 49th second place finish in his 300th grand prix start. Win 103 wins, that means he's won or gotten second more than 50% of the time. Insane...

• It was also the 50th time Lewis and Max have shared the podium.

World championship standings

Meme lane

Thank you

Thanks for reading The Gravel Trap today. If you loved it, share it with the oldest person you work with in honor of Fernando Alonso.