F1 2021 – spoilers here

It does seem strange that of all the parts of the car to look at, that Verstappen would try this particular part

my guess is that Red Bull were looking at how much the wing was flexing. The failure may have been the result of pushing the limits of the regulations. However, we don’t really know. The only thing that matters is that the car, as presented at the end of qualifying, wasn’t legal.

Read something earlier regarding Paul Monaghan and Adrian Newey going to the stewards before qualifying regarding the Merc wing flexing too much at speed.

As I said a couple of pages back, RB went to the stewards before qualifying. Watching the in car footage of Hamilton’s car the wing didn’t seem to be flexing anymore than any other car so I’m not sure what RB had allegedly seen, although there is a mention of a suspicion over the main plane as mentioned here

No one seems to have picked up on the rear wing of the RB fluttering or the fact that one of the RB mechanics clearly pushed the test gauge used to test the wing clean through their own car live on tv ie the wing failed the test.

It’s largely irrelevant but I understand why Toto is so pissed off as mentioned previously teams have been given chance to repair similar issues without reprimand.

I’m not so sure Horner would have been so humble if the shoe was on the other foot.

Is it worth changing all aspects of the power train etc at the same time or can they not do that?

Yes and no.
The PUNISHMENT divided into sections, ICE, MGUH, etc. Each bit changed gets a five place penalty.
So Hamilton drops from 5th to 10th for changing his ICE. If he did his turbo too he would be 15th so not worth it.
It might be worth it for, say, Williams. 5 places from an ICE drops them from 15th to 20th, another 5 for a gearbox and they stay 20th.
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Regarding the ‘penalise the driver not the team’ thing.
Imaging Perez had been rubbish this year. Merc have the constructors sewn up, the drivers is tight. Merc and RB would be both be running totally illegal cars, it won’t make any difference to the constructors but they’ll want every advantage they can get in the driver’s.
It won’t work. They win as a team, they lose as a team, they get disqualified as a team.
They sort of did it to McLaren in 2007, they could have won the constructors that year but were disqualified.

Spell checker failure, the capitalised punishment should read the PU is…
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Anyone remember McLaren’s 75 place grid penalty?

And Bottas wonders why he’s being dumped! 🤦‍♂️

He’s hopeless 🙄

Hamilton up five places already. Skill, luck, folk getting out of his way or a combination of all of the above?

Now will Checko take Hamilton out!!? 🤔

Well my bet of Hamilton winning I put on before the sprint race is looking good!

Win or crash would both seem reasonable guesses at the moment

17:13 “Tell Valtteri to follow me, we’ll get these guys,” says Hamilton.

17:19 Bottas is having to defend from Leclerc as the Ferrari seems to be very switched on at this restart.

that went well then

Aye, Bottas was an absolute chocolate fireguard at the start there!

Undercut on the cards here?!

Well he’s a bit further up the road.. better than nowt

YESSSSS!!!!

Shove that up yer arse Horner!

Max has been incredibly lucky not to pick up penalties on this. It’s all getting quite tense and arsey now between RB and Merc.

What a drive from Lewis though!

Classy reply from Max re the black and white flag.

What an absolute weapon.

Will we get to see his onboard anytime soon I wonder?

Verstappens attitude is awful
Team “black and white flag for weaving on the straight”
Him “ha perfect say Hi”

Lucky to not get a penalty for his shenanigans earlier pushing Lewis off the track

Aye was just wondering if we’ll ever get to see that shot bluearsedfly

Loved Totos reaction at the camera in the garage. Gan on son! 😂

Max and Red Bull are made for one another – no class and bad sportsmen.

Well looks like I’m cashing in that bet. Brilliant performance by Lewis and it really exposed how nasty a driver Max is. Warning flag for weaving, pushing drivers off the track and taking the piss out of the stewards on the radio for good measure.

Bottas denied a second there. Five seconds and a black and white flag. Max not worthy if he does win the championship.

What a drive!

Talk of damage limitation from Red Bull seems a bit of a stretch given the free-passes they’ve been given this weekend.

They don’t like Max in Brazil, do they? 😂

https://makeagif.com/gif/richard-hammond-bad-winner-uaKNnv

Toto Wolff finding Horner in the paddock trying to make a quick exit.

😂

Edit, dammit how do you post a gif?

They don’t like Max in Brazil, do they? 😂

Or here! He’s such a classy fellow… perfectly suited to red bull’s current behaviour.

Unbelievable stuff. A true champion’s performance all weekend. So much for the DSQ from quali deciding the title.

Going to be an intense last 3 races. As much as I dislike Max I still think he’ll be deserving of the championship if he holds on but he lacks a touch of class and needs to mature somewhat.

If Lewis wins then this will be the race that was the key. Even dropping 7 points today by coming second would have pretty much been curtains bar a DNF or something.

Definitely more to come regarding the protests from RB about the Merc, listening to Horner after the race he made it clear RB think there’s something going on with the rear wing on the Merc (although Toto is adamant Merc have nothing to hide).

As with everything in life, I always try my best to see things from every perspective. I wouldn’t say I’ve warmed to Max or Horner recently but it was only yesterday morning I was listening to Horner and he came across as quite humble and almost likeable.

Fast forward 24 hours and things have gone against RB, both Max and Horner have slipped back into their usual spiteful ways. Any other team maintains a level of professionalism when things don’t go their way but RB are completely incapable of this from the management down to the mechanics (one of which was taking the piss out of the wing test yesterday on an Instagram post).

Horner also mentioned that Max shouldn’t have been penalised for running Hamilton of the track as Max gained no advantage in doing so. Has anyone ever taken the time to explain to Horner the basic fundamentals of motorsport?

Ps where’s the onboard from Max? Someone mentioned we have to wait for it to be downloaded?

Strange as we can see any other angle from any other car live as it happens.

Edit, dammit how do you post a gif?

Are we not talking about max running Valteri off at T1 cause it was the first lap?

Seems to be a tactic he is refining, run the other guy off the track without touching them, hoping they won’t let him just drive into them, and blame them if he does.

Are we not talking about max running Valteri off at T1 cause it was the first lap?

Glad someone else spotted that, but it probably went down as a first lap incident.

Lewis off to see the stewards again about his safety belt when taking the flag at the end.

You can’t make this up.

It’ll be no more than a rap on the knuckles….but on the other hand, with these stewards, who knows!

€5000 fine with another €20000 suspended to next year. Phew…

When was the last time a driver was fined for that? Drivers do it all the time after victories and at home wins etc.

Drivers have always gone around touching each others cars. When was the last time someone was fined for that?

Touché.

That has to be one of the best weekend performance of all time.