Round 08
Great Britain

Warnings: implied ual content

Length: 4.0k words

 

 

 

ARTICLE

OPINION: Lee Sunmi is lucky to be leading the championship

After clinching her first victory in a rain-affected race in Canada, there have been many headlines and many more speculations about “super rookie” Lee Sunmi. While the victory was well-deserved, and Lee is obviously more skilled than some of her peers (forcing Max Verstappen into a mistake is not common occurrence), analysts and pundits alike fail to realize one thing.

Luck.

Formula 1 is built on many things, and while we can spend all day talking about detailed performance statistics, chance is something that must be discussed more frequently.

If Lee Sunmi had joined the Haas F1 Team (and this is not to criticize the shortcomings of F1’s sole American team), she would not have experienced the same results. Porsche has the fastest (if not, the second fastest) car in the entire grid. Any competent driver could achieve the same results that Lee has given that they had a car capable of doing so. Do we really believe that Lewis Hamilton would be P9 in the drivers’ championship standings if he was in a Porsche instead of a Mercedes? Of course not.

Lee Sunmi might be a decent rookie, but she’s far from the best. If anything, she’s only lucky that Porsche has delivered with a quick car for the 2022 season. Put Lee in the Williams. Or just put her in a draggy yet still somewhat quick Mercedes. She’d barely be in the top 10 of the championship.

As lucky as Lee is to be leading the championship, she’s luckier to be here in the first place. There are currently more talented drivers than her in other racing series, and that’s the truth.

This article was written by Jang Joohyuk for K-Sports News.

 

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COMMENTARY

2022 British Grand Prix

Channel 4 Broadcast with Alex Jacques, David Coulthard, and Mark Webber

Lap 48 of 52

COULTHARD: What an awful day for the world champions and world-champions-to-be.

WEBBER: Awful and strange. They were going into this weekend with the hopes of winning, but it looks like it’s going down to Carlos Sainz. Perez is 8.5 seconds behind him with 4-5 laps left. There’s just no chance for Perez, but Carlos, yes.

JACQUES: After a horribly long pitstop by the Ferrari crew—almost 20 seconds—Charles Leclerc is going to have to be satisfied with third place. Meanwhile, his teammate, Byun Baekhyun is only in seventh place after receiving a puncture due to debris on the track. The same debris also damaged Max Verstappen’s car, put him a few places back, but the Dutchman is currently in fourth place.

COULTHARD: A good recovery drive from Max, but what could have been.

WEBBER: I’m surprised by Sunmi too. I would have thought that after the win in Canada, leading the championship everything, that she’d have this grand prix done and dusted. But she’s just had a lack of pace.

COULTHARD: Her teammate, Sebastian Vettel, isn’t doing too well either. He’s currently in fifth position. Over the weekend, Porsche did have problems with cooling, but this is just unacceptable. As a team, if you’re leading the world championship, 1 and 2, you can’t be having technical problems.

JACQUES: Lap 49 out of 52. Carlos Sainz continues to march towards his maiden grand prix victory, and the championship leaders are struggling in the midfield.

COULTHARD: I think we’ve got the race order complete right now, though. Leclerc is 5.8 seconds behind Perez, and even though he’s eight tenths faster, he’s just going to run out of lap time. Verstappen has too much damage, and even if Vettel is right behind, no way Max would let him pass.

WEBBER: No chance.

COULTHARD: Behind Vettel is his teammate, Lee Sunmi, and she’s not going any faster than him. And then Byun. This has been such a disastrous weekend for him.

JACQUES: The three-time champion lost so much time being stuck behind Lee, and then he ran over just a bit of carbon on the track…

COULTHARD: It’s not great. If the order stands as it is, he’ll be 24 points behind his teammate.

WEBBER: Ouch. And I know what that’s like. I’ve been the second driver, and it’s damaging to your confidence. Just to be behind your teammate by that many points stings, but this’ll be a blow to him.

JACQUES: Wow, do the two of you really think that way?

COULTHARD: Well, of course. These guys—and girls—are ultra-competitive. The best drivers—the champions—don’t become great by not caring. They get to where they are because they care too much about winning. They’re hypercritical of their mistakes because they want to be better. It’s just their nature.

 

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ARTICLE

OPINION: Byun Baekhyun is no longer the face of Ferrari

It’s Charles Leclerc now.

Upon Byun Baekhyun’s 2017 arrival in Ferrari’s Formula 1 team, he was assumed to be the second driver. After all, he was paired with Sebastian Vettel, and Sebastian Vettel was a four-time world champion. Vettel had been in Formula 1 for almost ten years, and Byun only debuted in 2013 with Force India.

However, it was Byun—not Vettel—who would break the ten-year drought at Ferrari. He won his first world championship with the scarlet car, beating out Lewis Hamilton in the Mercedes, and the rest was history.

From then on, Byun was the charging new face at Ferrari.

Let’s be clear that Byun is an incredibly talented driver who grew up in the European racing circuit. He is good, and he was that guy. However, a new era has fallen upon us. Charles Leclerc’s entrance to Ferrari in 2021 proved to be a turning point.

In 2021, Ferrari’s car was only competitive enough for P3 in the constructors’ championship. For once, in his time at Ferrari, Byun didn’t have a race-winning, championship-winning car. And for once, he struggled against his younger and hungrier teammate. Byun finished P7 in the drivers’ championship while Leclerc finished in P5, making the Monégasque driver best of the rest.

Now, in 2022, Byun is struggling harder than ever. While we can attribute his poor results to hard luck (technical difficulties in Bahrain and Azerbaijan caused Byun to retire), he just isn’t performing as well as Leclerc.

There may be many reasons why Byun is struggling, but none of them matter. He isn’t delivering anymore. He’s 24 points behind his teammate, and Leclerc has also had some awful luck in DNFs. They should be at least level on points. But after today, after only salvaging P7 at the British Grand Prix while Max Verstappen was in P4 with a damaged car, is embarrassing. Let’s not forget the mistakes in Canada that lost him the lead and ultimately the win.

Byun is no longer what Ferrari needs.

Ferrari needs a tough driver who can deliver against the charging, troublesome Lee Sunmi. Ferrari needs a serious competitor who can fight head-on against the brutally quick Max Verstappen. They need someone who can directly challenge the experienced Sebastian Vettel.

A new face is needed for these things. A hungry warrior who thirsts for his first world championship. And that’s Charles Leclerc.

This article was written by Emilia Bisognin for Racing News Italia.

 

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Sunmi paces around her hotel’s long corridor of guest rooms. She had grown tired of her tiny suite’s lack of walking space and has gone out in the hallway. It must have been 2 or 3 in the morning at the point, but she doesn’t care. Her mind can’t stop. All she can think about is how horrible today has been.

 

P6.

 

Charles Leclerc now leads the championship with 108 points. Sebastian has 106. And she has 105.

 

Maybe I am the second driver, Sunmi muses to herself as she continues to pace. Maybe I don’t have what it takes.

 

After the post-race briefing with the team, she wanted to throw up. She couldn’t lead the championship for one more round. As great as her successes were in Canada, as awful as her failures in Great Britain are.

 

The press moved quickly, and soon, just after the race, Sunmi found a dozen articles detailing her atrocious day in P6. Porsche could have her claim that it was all just cooling issues to blame—something with loss of coolant after the skirmish on Lap 1—but Sunmi knows the truth. She just didn’t have the pace today. She just wasn’t quick enough.

 

What if I don’t have what it takes?

 

Sunmi rounds the corner of the hall and finds that Baekhyun has just exited his own suite, head hanging low. He’s wearing sweats, his white hair appears to have a rumpled look about it—like he’s been tossing and turning.

 

“Couldn’t sleep either?” Baekhyun asks when he’s lifted his gaze.

 

“No,” Sunmi confirms in a frustrated mutter. In all her exasperation, she finds herself surprisingly candid. “I can’t stop thinking about what people are saying about me,” she says. “It’s bad.”

 

“That makes two of us.” Baekhyun shakes his head and scoffs. “Two. That’s what they’re calling me. Number two driver.”

 

Sunmi can’t find any sympathy. “At least you’ve got championships,” she quips.

 

“That makes it even worse.”

 

I doubt it, Sunmi thinks. Her eyes scan Baekhyun’s slumped figure. Like her, he’s undoubtedly tired because of Sunday’s grand prix, but his mind must be refusing to allow him any sleep too. The pressures of a championship weigh heavily on her, and she can understand that much. Although she doesn’t know what it’s like to be a driver for Ferrari, she’s heard stories from Sebastian.

 

You age faster when you drive for Ferrari, Sebastian had once joked with Sunmi. He was laughing when he said that, but she’s not so sure if he was kidding about it.

 

“Wanna talk about it?” Sunmi offe