F1 2021 – spoilers here

If I may don my tinfoil hat, I thought it very odd where Giovanazzi chose to park up.

Wasn’t he coasting and ended up somewhere near a gap? Difficult to do much else with no drive

I’m all for wheel to wheel racing but with Verstappen it always seems to be nose to side panel, wheel to helmet, weave and brake check.

Constantly driving straight at your opponent is not racing. Verstappen could have won this championship driving clean. By giving him so much latitude the race director and the stewards have done both the sport and Verstappen himself a disservice.

pondo
Full Member

If I may don my tinfoil hat, I thought it very odd where Giovanazzi chose to park up.

pfft, Latifi is pissed off that Russell is going to Mercedes and he’s not. Therefore as a middle-finger to Mercedes he deliberately reversed parked in an awkward place.

that his engine was on the limit

of consuming all of its fuel? 😉

“But Perez admitted that his engine was on the limit and hence had his engine failed at the end of the race, which would have extended the safety car and prevented Max’s last-lap pass on Lewis.”

So it wasn’t lack of petrol then, I stand corrected.

So the plan was for Perez to have an engine failure towards the end of the race thus causing a safety car, and /or run out of petrol.

Only Ant and Dec know the answer….

Wasn’t he coasting and ended up somewhere near a gap? Difficult to do much else with no drive

D’you know, I’m not sure – all I can find is his radio transmission, the team tell him not to shift, then tell him to park it and turn it off, but it sounds like it still has drive when he talks back. It was the team’s call to stop, not his.

“You can just go and pluck something out of the air and say yep, that’s what will now apply, because I think that would make a mockery of the policing of the championship.”

Anyone want to guess who said that on Friday?

But to have finished yesterdays race under the safety car whilst people were unlapping themselves would have been criticised as an anticlimax.

…but if Latifi had broken his leg and the race finished undert the SC there would have been no criticism.

Therefore as a middle-finger to Mercedes he deliberately reversed parked in an awkward place.

And Verstappen’s girlfriend is Kelly Piquet, sister of Nelson Piquet Jr who famously orchestrated a crash at Singapore to let Alonso win. Makes you think…. 😀

Let’s just say Red Bull had all the bases covered shall we…

And Verstappen’s girlfriend is Kelly Piquet, sister of Nelson Piquet Jr who famously orchestrated a crash at Singapore to let Alonso win. Makes you think…. 😀

Makes me think that her ex is Daniil “Torpedo” Kvyat… 😀

And Verstappen’s girlfriend is Kelly Piquet, sister of Nelson Piquet Jr who famously orchestrated a crash at Singapore to let Alonso win. Makes you think….

Well, Nelson was the willing patsy; the orchestrator was Flav, notorious also for the 1994 Benetton team that was the subject of fairly substantial allegations of cheating, whose drivers were Michael “park it at Rascasse, drive into the nearest Williams, whatever it takes” Schumacher and one Jos Verstappen 😉

I know everyone has already been arguing this for 24 hours already, but I’ve been busy.

I’m gutted for Hamilton, well as gutted as you can be for someone who’s no doubt onboard his private jet for a nice holiday somewhere.

I’d heard all the arguments for pitting under the safety car and not, it’s far from ideal, but everyone knows and accepts the rules. It was like a bolt from the blue for RBR, whatever LH did, they only had to do the opposite to get a decent chance of winning.

What I find hard to accept is the RD decision, convention says he should have allowed all the backmarkers to unlap, which would have no doubt resulted in a anticlimactic end, or he could have no allowed any of them to unlap themselves and Max would have had 6 cars to pass as they threw themselves out of his way under flashing blues, but deciding to just move a couple of cars out of the way of Max when he’s on a brand new set of Softs and qualifying fuel level, gave Lewis no chance, ESPECAILLY given Max’s attitude to sportsmanlike passing and a couple of DNFs meant he won anyway. HTF is Mercedes not going to appeal that?

one Jos Verstappen 

The same Jos Verstappen who in ’94 got flambaed with a fuel rig that Flav’s Benetton filched filters from for faster fuelling? 🙂

Indeed. 94 was a proper train wreck of a season.

Anyone want to guess who said that on Friday?

I’m guessing someone at Red Bull?

Toto congratulated Max

I think we’re all agreed that Masi gifted the win to Max on the basis that Max had fresh tires. I’d be a little less pissed off if Lewis and Max had both raced that last lap on the old tyres (Max’s “compensation” being that he’d reduced his time defecit by catching Lewis under the SC).

However, where was Bottas when all this was going on? Why wasn’t he within 20-25 seconds of Max prior to the Latifi crash? Surely Red Bull would not have pitted for new tyres under the SC if they lost track position to Bottas?

So, I think Bottas is the real villan here as his under-performance played into Red Bulls hands.

Or do I have this all wrong?

Nope, the 2nd driver is invaluable if he is close enough to stop the 2nd place rival from pitting

The same Jos Verstappen who in ’94 got flambaed with a fuel rig that Flav’s Benetton filched filters from for faster fuelling? 🙂

Oh that’s a good FIA cover up too. Benetton chucked out the filters but it had nothing to do with the fuel spill. The FIA needed to blame someone though and, obviously, not themselves so…..

Villain is a bit strong tho. Max and Lewis were, at times, 20 seconds ahead of everyone else. Bottas is just a mete mortal- a good, but not great driver surrounded by other equally talented drivers. Sometimes you just have to accept that Max and Lewis make the rest of the field look mediocre

Rumour mill is that Lewis is pushing for Merc to drop their appeal.

I believe the majority of motorsport fans want to see them race hard, but fairly, and whoever wins would be a worthy champion.

What we don’t want is another event, where it’s decided on by the stewards/incidents making everything look like a farce as it did in Saudi.

Spot-on. I may be a Hamilton fan and not like Max but if Max outdrove Lewis over the course of the season fair and square then I would have no hesitation in applauding that. I wasn’t a Schumacher fan back in his Ferrari years but watching his skill and the team’s brilliance was amazing and rightfully applauded. Watching him do 20-odd consecutive qualifying-level laps at Spa to make a strategy work is one of those things that stays with you, every lap I was shocked at how hard he was pushing the car and every time the next lap would be faster and even more unbelievable. When you see championships won with that level of skill, regardless of your preferences you are a happy fan. When you see stuff like what happened on Sunday you question why you invested 22 weekends and most of the year in following an unfolding story only to have it manipulated in the final few minutes. With Max and Lewis having an initially cordial relationship this year and both driving incredibly well I was hoping for another ’98-99, where Schumacher and Hakkinen slogged it out with the utmost respect and on the edge all year. That went up in smoke post-Silverstone.

D’you know, I’m not sure – all I can find is his radio transmission, the team tell him not to shift, then tell him to park it and turn it off, but it sounds like it still has drive when he talks back. It was the team’s call to stop, not his.

Classic sign of a hydraulic issue, gear selection actuators and clutch are the first to go followed by the hydraulic valve actuators. It means you have drive but very little power so the safest thing to do is drive off the circuit and stall the engine with the brakes or kill switch. You can’t always do this right by a marshall point so maybe he had no choice about where he stopped.

“You can just go and pluck something out of the air and say yep, that’s what will now apply, because I think that would make a mockery of the policing of the championship.”

Anyone want to guess who said that on Friday?

PLEASE let that be a direct quote from Karen Horner.

Rumour mill is that Lewis is pushing for Merc to drop their appeal.

He doesn’t want his 8th title to be tainted, rightfully so. I hope that it all plays out by the FIA admitting they royally **** it up, the rules get tightly rewritten, Massi gets the boot and that’s the end of it. If Mercedes get that result then they will be content. To not appeal it and let it set a dangerous precedent is bad for F1.

FIA reviews video evidence for Mercedes appeal, awards penalty to Man Utd

The appeal has been heard and the result is a penalty to Manchester United.

Well it might as well be. Makes as much sense as anything else that happened yesterday.

Rumour mill is that Lewis is pushing for Merc to drop their appeal.

Being a total cynic. Lewis comes out smelling of roses as he looks to be the consummate good loser whilst Merc push ahead and the record books show an 8x WDC.

That is being a total cynic. I actually agree that he probably is for all fg3 right reasons 🙂

I’m guessing someone at Red Bull?

PLEASE let that be a direct quote from Karen Horner.

10/10

That went up in smoke post-Silverstone.

Understandably sadly.

Hamilton chucked it up the inside and Verstappen came out of it feeling robbed.

Verstappen then spent the rest of the season chucking it up the inside any time Hamilton was about.

Who was better over the season? Don’t know.
Given that Mercedes got the constructors, one might suggest they had marginally the better car (assuming the Bottas isn’t significantly better than Perez), making Verstappen marginally the better driver.

But one might equally argue that’s an obvious but simplistic assessment.

You’d love to see them do a few races both in the same car at any given race but swapping which car between the races.

Never going to happen.

You’d love to see them do a few races both in the same car at any given race but swapping which car between the races.

Never going to happen.

Race of Champions? Didn’t Haiki Kovalinen beat Michael Schumacher there?

Race of champions is a bit novelty.

I was thinking more take the Mercs to Silverstone, the Red Bulls to Spa, the Mercs to Suzuka, and so on.

Like I said never going to happen.

Race of champions is a bit novelty.

Ah, not a ‘proper’ race, just staged for the TV cameras? Can’t have that!

Given that Mercedes got the constructors, one might suggest they had marginally the better car (assuming the Bottas isn’t significantly better than Perez), making Verstappen marginally the better driver.

But one might equally argue that’s an obvious but simplistic assessment.

Remember to factor in the effect of Silverstone, Hungaroring and Baku into the points equation

I think David Croft summed it up perfectly. A mistake was made but it wasn’t a fix or manipulated.
Masi had too much happening and too many decisions to make so his role needs to be restructured to have a (pair of?) assistants/deputes who also know the rules inside out and can come to a correct decision within 30 seconds.
Also a new rule of no safety car within say 5? laps of the finish and instead have a red flag and restart.

Personally I’d say the way out of it would’ve been to radio the lapped cars to say they have to immediately let Max past before turn 1 but obv that can raise other issues.

Masi shouldn’t be sacked, the rules confirm it’s his call. Lots of armchair experts trying to say otherwise.

That Crofty interview was interesting – have to say I agree entirely with him now the dust has settled a bit. Not a fix, a mistake and I don’t think Mercedes should or will pursue the appeal. Although I wanted Lewis to win, Max is a worthy champion and it’s a shame it got tarnished like that.

It wasn’t a fix, for sure, just a case of doing the wrong thing. There were two ways to do the right thing and at least one way to do the wrong thing. Masi was trying to do what he thought was the right thing, even though he’d initially said he was doing one of the actual right things, but he’d been persuaded by Horner that the right thing was the wrong thing and he should do the right thing (namely one of the wrong things), so he then did the actual wrong thing. The thing about the wrong thing was that it carried with it a near-certain race result, but then doing one of the right things carried a high risk of swinging to that result too. Awkwardly, the other right thing guaranteed a different race result, so whichever right thing was chosen was always going to be the wrong thing in someone’s eyes, but it really should have been obvious that what he (and Horner) thought was the right thing was the wrongest of them all.

I think he was thinking I must do anything I can to get this race restarted so there can be a little battle between Max and Lewis. But he should not be thinking in those terms at all.

I believe the majority of motorsport fans want to see them race hard, but fairly, and whoever wins would be a worthy champion.

I think that’s right. Though a minority clearly don’t, they just want their way – however it has to happen.

Sadly “hard, but fairly” wasn’t what we got.

The most remarkable thing for me personally was just how Max managed, each and every time I though he’d annoyed me as much as he could, he then went and made it worse.

After the farce of a restart, and the almost inevitable overtake for the lead, he then zigzags his way down the straight, side to side to side. What an arse.

A true achievement.

You’re not wrong Bez.

I’m not Crofty’s biggest fan but that is as good a summing up as you will hear. If the casual observer is confused or put off by the ending yesterday what on earth will they make of it if after appeals the first man across the line turns out not to be the winner after all.

If the casual observer is confused or put off by the ending yesterday what on earth will they make of it if after appeals the first man across the line turns out not to be the winner after all.

As a casual observer – less confused by that than by the fact a bloke can build up a 12 second lead, which is then magicked away by a creative interpretation of the regs while simultaneously allowing his opponent to take advantage of the situation to get a fresh set of better tyres – and then they’re put on track for one lap and told it’s a fair and reasonable situation, now go and race.