F1 Belgium GP 2022 Pre-Race Report
Don't cry for me, Alpine. The truth is, I never left you. - Madonna... I mean, Ricciardo

Summer break for F1 fans usually means two things:
Fans get to watch celebrity drivers do rich people things on Instagram.
Fans get to watch the daytime soap opera, The Days of a Driver's Contract.
The second option is a more satisfying watch, as we saw in episode 2022 with Alpine and Mr.Oscar, which also led to Mr. Ricciardo's untimely contract demise.
Just a few uneducated opinions post-summer break:
You may notice that I took out Hamilton from the trend chart because he’s continually improving, amazing, has great style and just blah blah blah. Yes, awesome. Let’s move him off the chart so we can see more easily the definitive movement of other drivers.
When looking at performance improvement, the lines of Max and Russell are quite similar, with Russell being a tad more of a consistent improver on the grid.
Lance needs Latifi. Without the other billionaire driver, Lance does look a bit out of place in F1. Latifi, unfortunately, is the meme target of everyone. Well, you might wonder what about Magnussen, the other flatliner? Does his line seem just as bad? Well, it does not look bad for him because his teammate Mick is even lower. At the end of the day, perception of performances is always a measurement against somebody. Are you hotter or colder than…
From the spreadsheet, there do seem to be three different races for Belgium. Max to Carlos [Line 2-7] are the champion runners, Bottas to Vettel [Line 8-13] seems to be the midfielders, and then lastly, Albon to Lastifi [Line 9-22] as the bottom feeders.
Meme of the Grid:
Check out The Sample! One of my favourite newsletter discovery tools. It lets you sample other newsletters depending on your interests. Try it out!