F1 2021 – spoilers here

Much as I feel that Verstappen is an entitled little brat and a dangerous driver to boot – I’d admire him more if he just punts Hamilton off in the first corner at Abu Dhabi and walks away from the wreckage with the title.

Then at least we’d have no pretense that Red Bull are trying race fairly or be sporting in any sense of the word.

It worked for Senna and Schumacher (mostly).

in your eyes Hamilton can do no wrong

Oh please, get a grip. For what it’s worth, on initial viewing I thought it looked to be primarily Hamilton’s fault. I wasn’t aware of the FIA guidance until after the race. But when I see new facts I can change my mind. I’m sorry that this doesn’t fit your persistently one-eyed narrative.

I think they could provide more direction on where to give a place back so it would be a) safe and b) actually giving the place back properly without gaming the DRS zone. So maybe “max, give LH the place back by slowing down before pit entry”. Simple and effective.

There’s already a long accepted way of safely letting someone retake a place without losing too much time – and it isn’t by dropping 5 gears on a straight, moving and then braking! 🙂

.after all, he did exactly that in Brazil and was told it was fine!

I think this point deserves more discussion. The stewarding decision made at Turn 4 at Brazil is coming around to bite folks on the bum, just as many predicted it would.

Which would rely on both/all drivers being aware simultaneously. We’re still not sure if Hamilton was ignorant of the penalty or was intentionally slowing down to avoid the DRS line

Surely it’s very simple, at least in the case of a stewards’ direction rather than a team pre-empting it. You first tell the team who are entitled to retake the place. When they’ve confirmed that their driver has the information, you instruct the other team.

As for whether Hamilton was aware, I thought the ruling acknowledged that he wasn’t?

@TJ I don’t think many people were actually massive Hamilton fans but people have been impressed with his stance on racism/human rights issues and taken his side over the reckless MV and his, let’s face it, often racist, incredibly one-eyed fans, and the odious Horner, and some very odd/poor stewarding decisions. I know I have.

Making Mercedes/Wolff seem like the underdog/nice guy is quite a feat.

My suspicion is that there was some kind of jockeying/game of chicken type stuff going on. Hamilton wondering but not knowing for sure if he was being given the place back but definitely not expecting such sudden slowing down (or the obvious wobble towards him) – Hamilton knowing if he was being given the place back MV would try to take it right back so not wanting to do it on the wrong place. Conversely Verstappen keen to get on with it to give him the best chance of taking it straight back. Then combined with an element of Verstappen not really giving a **** if Hamilton crashes into him and having aggressive instincts he isn’t really fully in control of.

Might be complete BS but that’s my take.on it.

The swerve towards Hamilton is pretty damning isn’t it? What possible justification could there be for that. Also I’d like to see Horner punished for straight up lying about the braking, but I’m not sure there’s a mechanism for that.

@TJ I don’t think many people were actually massive Hamilton fans but people have been impressed with his stance on racism/human rights issues

Yup – count me as one.  I see Hamilton as a man who had to grow up in the public eye but was very cossetted so did not do the growing up till later on in life.  I totally agree about that – his reaction to BLM was spot on IMO and I gained huge respect for him for that.

A lot of drivers cross the line that separates “uncompromising” from “dirty”. Max seems to be permanently on the wrong side of it though.

Can anyone remember a clean overtake on him?

I thought the ruling acknowledged that he wasn’t?

It does. That Hamilton didn’t overtake is a red herring here. Verstappen’s plan was very clearly to let Hamilton past, and take advantage of the DRS zone (it is, after all what he eventually tried to do later on) Hamilton clearly didn’t know what Verstappen was doing, and the stamp on the brakes didn’t help either of them in the end. I think it was probably born of frustration and anxiety to win, the pressure on both of them is tremendous after all.

Its not like Hamilton has been squeaky clean either – earlier incident in the season where he was found to be in the wrong after punting Verstappen out but did not get significant punishment

1. Lewis was found to be predominantly at fault, but Max was also assigned blame as he could’ve backed out like Lewis did at the race before and thus avoided a collision. They touched, it was a minor impact but spun Max out. The punishment was for the collision, not the result, which is fair as had that impact happened at Paul Ricard, max would’ve likely stopped before hitting the barriers…admittedly, his tyres would’ve been ruined.

Just to say, I’m a LH fan, but up until the last few races, I thought MV has had a better season and driven really well, if aggressively and would’ve been a worthy champion, but recently RB and MV have become somewhat loathsome.

if he just punts Hamilton off in the first corner at Abu Dhabi and walks away from the wreckage with the title.

If a first corner punt happens that way I think it’ll be 50:50 if max takes the title or gets a DSQ.

And either way way I think it’ll end up in court, whoever waves silverware around.

The way I feel about the “race” last night right now I’d be happy if the whole 2021 season was just called off. Annulled. Let’s just have ‘21 get in the sea and try again next time.

Meh – can’t get too excited about the stewards decision on this one. What is striking though is that Max genuinely doesn’t seem to believe the rules apply to him as a whole – that he should be able to drive how he wants, make any manoeuvre her feels is necessary and be just fine and screw the other guy.

Drive like a dick, get penalised is very much F1 and the sooner he realises that the better. He could have had this title wrapped up a fair time ago had he took that on board.

Anyway – it has set the scene for next week to be an absolute belter. If Max wins fair and square good on him and he deserves the title. If he tries it one and crashes out or get s a race deciding penalty then good – it would be fair also. If Lewis wins fair and square then he deserves the championship and has proved – particularly in Brazil and in Saudi – why he is considered on of the true GOATs of the sport

It worked for Senna

It did, although Senna in 1990 did it as revenge for 1989, as much for Balestre screwing him over as Prost’s manoeuvre. So while it was absolutely a deliberate crash to win the title, it was to put right a previous injustice (at least in Senna and many other peoples mind).

So did we get a crash count?

I think

Hamilton hit Verstappen twice (one the brake test incident, one at restart one) and Ocon once (restart two).

Verstappen hit Hamilton twice (one the brake test incident, one at restart one).

Can anyone continue the list?

PS clean overtake from Verstappen? Second restart, third to first while Hamilton was creating sparks (lovely photo incidentally) by leaning on Ocon.

Can anyone remember a clean overtake on him?

I was mulling that earlier. Trying to recall the last time someone got alongside him without either there being contact for someone, or someone being forced off-track. I’m all for tough racing and would rather see most of those moves than endless stewards’ decisions, but it’s a bit too monotonous and often a bit too lacking in awareness of where it goes past tough moves into dick moves. There’s no doubt for me, though, that yesterday’s collision is unequivocally into dick moves (again, something I’ve shifted my opinion on somewhat because I honestly did not believe he’d been so stupid as to hit the brake).

I hope Max and Lewis get read the riot act ahead of next week’s decider, in that unsportsmanlike driving will result in disqualification from the season, as applied to Schumacher in ’97 in the title deciding antics against Villeneuve at Jerez.

Surely it’s very simple, at least in the case of a stewards’ direction rather than a team pre-empting it. You first tell the team who are entitled to retake the place. When they’ve confirmed that their driver has the information, you instruct the other team.

That would seem to be a sensible approach.

PS clean overtake from Verstappen? Second restart, third to first

I think the question was about people being ‘allowed’ to overtake him without him doing something reckless to stop them.

It appears to me that Red Bull got the tactics wrong in a couple of areas.

Changing to medium tyres appeared to give them no benefit after the initial overtake. I am guessing they were hoping to pull away before the but that did not happen.

Interestingly, Lewis questioned not switching to mediums and the team gave areassuring reply (they were right). The same happened last week when Hamilton questioned why he came in to change the tyres when he was flying. The answer came shortly after when Bottas punctured. It seems that Mercedes have greater trust in the data and are less impulsive.

Then even with the damage to the front wing Hamilton was setting fastest laps. This could be to do with tyre wear on the red bull. But there is also the question of whether Red Bull set the car up to have more down force at the compromise of speed. Verstappen’s qualifying lap would suggest they had the potential to go faster. Which supports that to some extent.

 What is striking though is that Max genuinely doesn’t seem to believe the rules apply to him as a whole

I think you could make a case for most F1 drivers believing that to be true. All of them are just super A type personalities who really can’t understand why everyone else hasn’t realised their individual genius at driving and just either given them the best car or got out of their way. I think to drive F1 you sort of have to be like that.

The interesting thing is that in his career in the lower formulas, Russell had the very same reputation as Verstappen (we saw it briefly this year when he tried to “overtake” by occupying the same time and space as Bottas). Next year is going to be a banger…

If a first corner punt happens that way I think it’ll be 50:50 if max takes the title or gets a DSQ.

He’d have to be DQ’d from the season, though, not just the race, and n order to lose the title. That’s only happened once before, and I suspect in no small part because it was the second year in a row where—in a great many people’s eyes—the same guy did the same thing for the same reason. That’s not the case here.

Unfortunately I don’t think there’s much that can stop Max taking the title *if* he wanted to (and could) deliberately take Hamilton out of the race. Question is, when the chips are down, are his dad’s genes actually going to come through that strong?

I hope Max and Lewis get read the riot act ahead of next week’s decider, in that unsportsmanlike driving will result in disqualification from the season

I hope so too – it risks bringing the sport into disrepute if there’s any deliberate actions to force someone off the track in order to win the WDC.

I want to see it won fairly, not 3 days later after a load of stewards decisions, appeals and deliberations.

Cynic in me says the F1 ‘owners’ will tolerate anything that is ‘drama’ and creates news headlines. At the same time they’re alienating die-hards I expect there’s a lot of newbies or casual returners (me), who are lighting up a viewing figures + tweets executive dashboard and getting the marketeers and financiers frothing.

Verstappen is a complete **** bellend though.

It seems that Mercedes have greater trust in the data and are less impulsive.

This. Mercedes are super impressive here. Inevitably it’s occasionally the wrong call but 9 times out of 10 they make the right decision regardless of the pressure. A few times over the last couple of years I’ve really struggled to understand a call when it’s made but then either by the end of the race I’m proved wrong or it turns out in the post-race insights that it was justified.

And yeah, I also wondered why Red Bull fitted mediums for the restart… seemed like they’d been handed a free stop and then boxed themselves into either too much deg or having to make an additional late stop. I wondered whether they were gambling on lots of safety car laps allowing them to extend the life.

I wondered whether they were gambling on lots of safety car laps allowing them to extend the life.

I thought the same, I think it almost worked, one or two more SC/VSC periods would have been enough.

What a dick Schumacher was! What Verstappen did yesterday is not close to Schumacher’s antics.

There’s no doubt for me, though, that yesterday’s collision is unequivocally into dick moves (again, something I’ve shifted my opinion on somewhat because I honestly did not believe he’d been so stupid as to hit the brake).

I was 50:50 too. I thought Lewis was a bit clumsy but Max was slowing in in stupid place. But to have actually braked, that’s really quite shitty driving.

The same happened last week when Hamilton questioned why he came in to change the tyres when he was flying. The answer came shortly after when Bottas punctured. It seems that Mercedes have greater trust in the data and are less impulsive.

100+ years of teutonic efficiency vs CAFFEINE!! CAFFEINE!! IN MASSIVE DOSES! AND SUGAR!

🤣

Surely what happens next race will come down to who has the fastest car in race trim, if Hamilton has the race pace and qualifies first then he will likely play the long game and let Verstappen past in any kamikaze manoeuvres then look to get past during pit stops. If Max is on pole and has the race pace then would he be calm enough to let Hamilton past and play the long game?

That’s only happened once before, and I suspect in no small part because it was the second year in a row where—in a great many people’s eyes—the same guy did the same thing for the same reason. That’s not the case here.

Are you talking about Schumacher here? If so it was 94 and 97. He absolutely annihilated everyone in 95 and 96 was the absolute pig of a Ferrari

Yes, sorry, got my dates confused—96 was of course Hill’s championship year. Duh!

I struggled to keep up with the twists and turns when watching this last night so have tried to summarise below. This might help keep track of which incident on which lap with which driver peoiple are discussing

Race Start – Hamilton keeps the lead

Lap 10 – Crash and safety car deployed. Hamilton pits under the safety car. Verstappen stays out, and inherits the race lead.

L14 – Red flag halts the race. Verstappen changes tyres under a red flag.

L15 – Race restarts with Verstappen first but Hamilton gets a better start. Verstappen cuts the corner and takes back the lead.

L16 – Race restarts again. Michael Masi puts Verstappen behind Hamilton but Verstappen passes him on the inside into the first corner.

L37 – Hamilton passes Verstappen but both run wide. Verstappen is asked to give the position to Hamilton. Verstappen slows brake tests Hamilton and damages his front wing.

L38 – Hamilton radio: “He just brake-tested me! I’ve just hit him, man, my wing’s broken.

L42 – Verstappen gives Hamilton the lead but takes it back immediately.

L43 – Stewards give Verstappen a five-second time penalty for leaving the track and gaining an advantage. Verstappen lets Hamilton through into the lead. “We didn’t need to do that, Max,” his engineer tells him

Race finish – Hamilton wins and scores fastest lap.

YOu missed Bottas backing up Verstappen on lap 10

I am more pro-Lewis as I like what he does as a person. I am more anti-Verstappen because of how he behaves as a driver. I try to stay neutral when judging incidents so here are my thoughts for discussion based on the timeline above.

L14 – Strange call to red flag but assuming no conspiracy it was ‘lucky’ for Red Bull
L15 – WTF was that at the start by Verstappen? Same as Brazil and it was wrong there too
L16 – Weird judgement by Masi but I thought it was the more sporting decision even if it possibly ignored rules. Great start by Verstappen.
L37 – Max should get DQ for brake test and dangerous driving. Clearly not the normal way of letting a car regain a place. Race Control need to learn the order in which to tell people about these things so the over taker knows before the over takee.
L42 – This is a rule break by Verstappen as far as I can tell
L43 – Not sure why Max gave up the place but as his tyres were shot I suspect Lewis would have taken him anyway. Possibly for post race appeals to show that he wanted to give the position back to Lewis and was mis-judged on the earlier incident?

And Verstappens practice start in the pit lane, and Hamilton being more than 10 car lengths behind him – which I think I heard radio saying was allowed as it was a formation lap, not an SC restart.

Surely what happens next race will come down to who has the fastest car in race trim

Last year Verstappen was on pole by a long way and pranced off into the distance leaving everyone else for dust.

They explained the red flag decision on Sky when it happened. Apparently the concern was in the Tecpro was damaged they’d need to get a crane on the circuit and that would necessitate a red flag.

There was a fair amount of barrier to examine and with marshals very much in the firing line and given if they did find damage they’d have to stop the race anyway the decision was it was safer just to stop, properly check the barrier and repair if necessary rather than lots of laps behind the safety car, marshals in danger and then perhaps having to stop anyway.

@TJ I don’t think many people were actually massive Hamilton fans but people have been impressed with his stance on racism/human rights issues and taken his side over the reckless MV and his, let’s face it, often racist, incredibly one-eyed fans, and the odious Horner, and some very odd/poor stewarding decisions. I know I have.

Making Mercedes/Wolff seem like the underdog/nice guy is quite a feat.

Pretty much sums it up. I find Hamilton easy to dislike at times but his on-track ability deserves respect. He definitely races to the limit, but all the top drivers do. Thing is, I think guys like Hamilton and Alonso will push to the absolute limit without stepping over the line – yes, they make mistakes sometimes but I don’t think they are deliberately dirty drivers. Verstappen is clearly very talented but his behaviour is often childish and petulant and his belief that it’s fine to just push other drivers off the track is way over the line. I think the stewards need to take a lot of the blame for not coming down much harder when all this nonsense started. As the other drivers have said, nobody knows for sure what’s acceptable or unacceptable any more.

The real hero of this race was whoever designed the Merc front wing. Two big whacks and still setting fastest laps. I thought for sure it would be failing next kerb he went over.