What to watch this F1 Weekend (Aug 14th - Aug 19th)

• Formula 1 - Spanish Grand Prix; from Catalunya Circuit, Spain. Practice 1. Friday @ 4:55am - 7am (ESPN2) live
• Formula 1 - Spanish Grand Prix; from Catalunya Circuit, Spain. Practice 2. Friday @ 8:55am - 11am (ESPN2) live
• Formula 1 - Spanish Grand Prix; from Catalunya Circuit, Spain. Practice 3. Saturday @ 5:55am - 7:30am (ESPN2) live    
• Formula 1 - Spanish Grand Prix; from Catalunya Circuit, Spain. Qualifying. Saturday @ 8:55am - 10am (ESPN) live
• Formula 1 - Spanish Grand Prix; from Catalunya Circuit, Spain. Race. Sunday @ 9:05am - 11am (ESPN) live
• Bitchin Rides. Mon/Wed @ 7pm - 8pm (MotorTrend) replay
• Hot Rod Garage. Tuesday @ 7pm - 7:30pm (MotorTrend) replay
• Motorweek. Tuesday @ 7:30pm - 8pm (MotorTrend) replay
• Geared up. 1973 Porsche 911 RS. Tuesday @ 9pm - 10pm (MotorTrend) new
• Wheeler Dealers: Dream Cars. Wednesday @ 9pm - 10pm (MotorTrend) new

Short week so I'll keep it brief. The biggest takeaways from the second race at Silverstone was Max Verstappen was right, the Merc doesn't like high temps and rear tires with the upped pressures enforced by FIA to avoid tire blow outs, and fortune favors the bold. Some nice one stoppers out there for points, Hulk's Racing Point fires up on race day and he scores points in 7th, while Perez recovers from covid. The strategy didn't pay off for Bottas, but it seemed more like trying to mix things up turned out to work better for Hams after thinking Bottas covered off Max; the Red Bull's pace was just too strong in the heat for the Merc. Max earned that win, Hamilton did well to take second with fresh tires late, but took a little to long to pass Leclerc during his second stint. Bottas, dropped two spots from pole and will have a bad taste in his mouth heading to Spain. Merc is going to have to figure out why they can't handle the heat; it could be too much downforce based on discussions from post-race, but we'll see how the long run tire performance looks for the teams comes FP2. Everyone is heading to Spain in August so it should be another hot one. With the checkered flag dropped, the Driver's Championship standings are as follows: Hamilton, Verstappen (-30), Bottas (-34), Leclerc (-62), Norris (-69), Albon (-71). As you can see, Bottas' 11th place finish in the BGP has cost him quite a bit and he has good reason to be peeved, but there's a lot of bad luck in play which he can hopefully shake going forward.

Enjoy your motorsport weekends.

Video courtesy of Formula1.

Video courtesy of JoeAchillies.