What did F1 get up to on its summer holidays?
If you kept up with Formula 1 over the summer break you’ll know some huge moves have been announced over the past three weeks making it one of the busier mid-season pauses in recent years.
While driver moves dominated the headlines, with Daniel Ricciardo’s shock Red Bull exit to Renault setting off a dominoes effect, Force India also kept the F1 world busy with the Lawrence Stroll-backed consortium leading the team takeover to secure its future.
If you kept up with Formula 1 over the summer break you’ll know some huge moves have been announced over the past three weeks making it one of the busier mid-season pauses in recent years.
While driver moves dominated the headlines, with Daniel Ricciardo’s shock Red Bull exit to Renault setting off a dominoes effect, Force India also kept the F1 world busy with the Lawrence Stroll-backed consortium leading the team takeover to secure its future.
But F1’s summer shutdown is supposed to be a moment of peace between the frantic 21-round season, both in name and in the rules with teams ordered against any work for two weeks, and for the majority of the grid it has been a time to rest, refresh and reset ahead of the second half of the campaign.
As F1 prepares to return to action this weekend at Spa-Francorchamps, catch up with what’s happened behind the headlines starting with the world champion.
Lewis Hamilton is accustomed to the jetsetter lifestyle but by his own admission the break came at an ideal time to recharge in what he’s described as one of the toughest title battles of his career.
A relative slowdown was welcomed by the four-time F1 world champion having revealed he was off on a family holiday following the Hungary race and aside from his commercial posts his social media channels have remained quiet – aside from the time he went on a serious litter pick in the name of going green.
I’m in just one of so many beautiful parts of the world today when we stumbled across this mess. We couldn’t stand by, we had to do something. We all need to act, we must stop supporting companies that are blindly fixated on their profits at the expense of our beautiful planet! pic.twitter.com/CBG0VD0jOs
— Lewis Hamilton (@LewisHamilton) August 7, 2018
F1’s newest social media star Kimi Raikkonen has been one of the more open drivers sharing family holiday snaps with his two ‘Ice Cubes’ as well as the launch of his first book co-written with Kari Hotakainen.
Fellow Finn Valtteri Bottas has certainly been keeping in top condition over the break launching his own duathlon event close to his hometown.
Bottas wasn’t the other fitness fanatic this summer with Romain Grosjean completing his maiden triathlon and Brendon Hartley taking on a 100-mile mountain bike race in Colorado alongside familiar F1 face Mark Webber.
Pierre Gasly also enjoyed his holidays in Greece and Southern France, albeit interrupted by phone calls from Red Bull motorsport advisor Dr Helmut Marko, but the rising F1 star didn’t mind too much given the second call confirmed his move up to Red Bull.
But in an eye-opening revelation Gasly found out the ‘dream come true’ news wearing potentially the least amount of clothing an F1 deal has ever been agreed in.
“When Helmut started the call with me I was in my underwear,” Gasly said. “When the call ended I ran around the house shouting to my mates and they all jumped in the pool straight away!”
Fellow F1 youngsters Esteban Ocon and Charles Leclerc also took the chance to go on a friends holiday with the Sauber driver continuing to clock up his airlines with a trip to Bali.
The Monegasque, who is strongly linked with a move to Ferrari from next year, kept his motorsport eye in with explorations around the Indonesian island on two wheels fulfilling the backpacking experience in the short summer break.
Bali pic.twitter.com/KdQxwFNrSw
— Charles Leclerc (@Charles_Leclerc) August 7, 2018
While F1’s busiest driver of 2018 did allow himself a few days of rest and relaxation, Fernando Alonso naturally kept himself occupied with the one thing he loves over anything else: racing. Back on World Endurance Championship commitments with Toyota Gazoo Racing following their Le Mans triumph back in June, Alonso was once again part of a winning team with victory in the Silverstone 6 Hours.
But his success was to become short-lived as both of Toyota’s cars were disqualified post-race for a technical infringement. At least the champagne tasted sweet at the time…
Victoria en las 6h de silverstone! Gran trabajo de todo el equipo @Toyota_Hybrid , @Sebastien_buemi y Kazuki para otra ejecución implacable!! Vamooooosssss!!!
— Fernando Alonso (@alo_oficial) August 19, 2018
Victory on the 6h of Silverstone ! Amazing job again from @Toyota_Hybrid , Seb and Kazuki! Great day!! pic.twitter.com/RSQsXqmHv9
With F1 life returning to normal as the paddock convergences on Spa-Francorchamps for the Belgian Grand Prix it is back to focusing on events on track.
But with a frantic summer break there will be a few interesting answers to the staple ‘did you have a good holiday’ question.
