Oh boy what a season it’s been. Now that the European leg of the F1 season has begun, I figured I’d give my thoughts on how the 2018 Formula 1 season is going.

I believe that at this moment, Valtteri Bottas is the best driver on the grid. After a rather disappointing start to the year, crashing out of qualifying in Melbourne and not being aggressive enough to pull a move on Sebastian Vettel in Bahrain, he has rebounded quite nicely. He has just had some of the worst luck I’ve ever seen. Bottas was poised to win the Chinese Grand Prix, however a late race safety car came out after he had already passed the pit lane which meant that he couldn’t pit for new tires and his competitors could. Even more heartbreaking was the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, where Bottas perfectly managed his Supersoft tires for the entire race and pitted under the safety car that came out after a well-timed crash by Red Bull Racing. He got a great start after the safety car period had ended but ran across some debris that track officials had not cleared up properly while leading and with just two laps to go. This was a major blow, as there was a 32-point swing when he was forced to retire from the lead, and his teammate Lewis Hamilton assumed the lead and took the win. Personally, I believe Bottas has been spot on this year and should be a lot closer to Hamilton than the current championship standings have him at.

Speaking of Lewis Hamilton, the season started off fairly bleak, with Hamilton not winning until the aforementioned Azerbaijan Grand Prix. People were starting to question as to whether or not he still possessed the ability and drive to win at that point. Then reality set in and Hamilton won in Azerbaijan with a stroke of luck and drove off to a statement victory in this past week’s Spanish Grand Prix. Now that Hamilton has turned on his competitive edge, he looks almost unbeatable as long as he has a competitive car underneath him. At this point, he has a 17-point lead over Vettel in the championship standings and a 37-point lead over Bottas. The next track, Monaco, suits Vettel’s Ferrari but with Hamilton being as competitive as ever, anything is possible.

At this point, Ferrari is being classic Ferrari. They opened with a bang by winning the first two races in Australia and Bahrain, however they have since dropped off due to being out-developed by Mercedes. Please stop me if you’ve heard that before. Last year they at least managed to make it to Belgium in August before they completely collapsed. Sebastian Vettel has recently called on them to continue development, however they have failed repeatedly to give the four-time world champion a competitive car to take on his main rival Lewis Hamilton.

Looking down the rest of the grid, the only other interesting stories stem from incompetence. Red Bull’s drivers, Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen have come under fire recently for breaking the golden rule of motorsports by colliding with each other in Azerbaijan. Max Verstappen broke his streak of incidents in Spain by not colliding with another car for the first time this year. Daniel Ricciardo also spun under a safety car in addition to finishing about a minute behind winner Lewis Hamilton.

Further misery comes in the form of America’s F1 team – Haas. The two cars looked very promising in Australia but then had to retire due to improperly applied tires. Things haven’t gone well for them since with Romain Grosjean’s string of accidents continuing in Spain. At least Ericsson didn’t ‘hit’ him this time. Kevin Magnussen has also had his share of run-ins with other drivers this year with close to half the field accusing him of driving in an unsporting manner. This season started out with promise for Haas, however it has since unraveled completely.

So far, the 2018 F1 season has been a wild one, and it’s only about a quarter of the way over. With as many twists and turns there’ve been it’s shaping up to be quite good and I can’t wait to see what else is in store.