Formula 1 2021

[didcot]

Early indication is Lewis will get a fine. 

[Jol Wilkinson]

22 minutes ago, Darius43 said:

FIA has summoned Mercedes because Lewis unbuckled his seatbelt to pick up the Brazilian flag from the marshal after the race.  Another rule breach.

 

Wonder what they would have done to Mansell after he gave that lift to Senna...

 

Darius

Clearly more of an offense than weaving down the straight at racing speed or running your opponent off the track. When will the FIA stewards suffer from a bit of common sense?

[john new]

33 minutes ago, Darius43 said:

FIA has summoned Mercedes because Lewis unbuckled his seatbelt to pick up the Brazilian flag from the marshal after the race.  Another rule breach.

 

Wonder what they would have done to Mansell after he gave that lift to Senna...

 

Darius

Bring in rules to stop it being done in the future, rather like Prost(?) pushing his car over the line when it ran out of fuel, now banned and cars have to have a minimum fuel level left at the end. Some rules are subjective some absolute, the one about flags is absolute.

[didcot]

£5K fine, with another £20k suspended until the end of 2022 if he does it again.  As it sends the wrong message to the drivers in lower formulee. Unlike forcing a driver off the track and gaining an unfair advantage 

Edited November 14, 2021 by didcot

[PhilJ W]

30 minutes ago, didcot said:

Early indication is Lewis will get a fine. 

5,000 Euro's its just been announced.

[Night Train]

Masterclass in driving from Lewis.

[298]

9 hours ago, Jol Wilkinson said:

Clearly more of an offense than weaving down the straight at racing speed or running your opponent off the track. When will the FIA stewards suffer from a bit of common sense?

 

*And running yourself off the track in the process, just to make sure. 

 

Best weekend's racing I've skipped through whilst having breakfast in a long time tho...

[Pete the Elaner]

13 hours ago, Gareth Collier said:

So how far does Max have to push Lewis off the track to get a penalty?

 

That was quite disgusting.

The steward's reaction to it was absoluely appalling.

I am in favour of the lead car being allowed to take the racing line. The bit about leaving a car's width is hazy.

I have consistently been against cars using areas off the track as the racing line; routinely going wide after a turn. I feel stewards don't enforce this rigidly or consistently enough.

Verstappen did not take the racing line here. Nowhere near it. He was about 2 widths wide at one point. Hamilton was obviously wider but this was to avoid Verstappen. Whether he deliberately drove Hamilton off or understeered was irrelevant.

Masi does not make decisions on penalties, so it is unfair to blame him. The stewards make the decisions.

What I do think was a joke was the RB radio call to Masi about "what about let them race?". If I was Masi, I would have responded "racing should be on the track".

 

I don't have an issue with the rear wing penalty. Out of gauge is out of gauge, even if it is just 0.2mm. It is a bit like track limits: when does it become wrong, 0.1mm over, 1mm over, 1cm over, 10cm over? The limit is absolute. It was allegedly caused by damage. That is the risk of running something so close to its tolerance.

 

The harness issue is also a no-brainer. Drivers are not allowed to release it unless it is to get out of the car. The stewards should not just turn a blind eye to to this because other, potentially more serious, things have happened.

 

There have been other bad decisions by the stewards this season too. The field diving into the pits for Hungary's restart was wrong. Someone pointed out on FB that this was wrong but you never believe what you read on there right? He actually quoted the rule to backup his statement so I checked it for myself & I was shocked to find he was accurate. The whole lot other than Hamilton should have been given some sort of penalty that day.

[Zomboid]

It seems that sending Lewis to the back is like when you swipe at a wasp and merely annoy it.

 

And that is why he has seven titles. Should make for an interesting end to the season.

[PaulRhB]

Lewis made the mental switch after losing the title to Nico, now he turns that frustration into cool calculating speed when he’s got the car under him. Max needs to make the same mental switch and stop the dodgy manoeuvres which are beyond blocking, watch an Alonso masterclass to make a car wide.

I think it’s about 60-40 in Max’s favour for the title this year and if he wasn’t acting so petulant I’d welcome him pulling one over on MB. He just needs to grow up and find a bit of class as the utterances of him and Horner are looking whiny rather than the underdog making good. 

Edited November 15, 2021 by PaulRhB

[Andrew P]

Great Race again, the Season just keeps on giving.

[Andrew P]

As for the Seat Belt, I found this;

 

However, Charles Leclerc completed two laps at last year's Spanish Grand Prix without his belts on during the race and was not investigated for the incident nor were there any repercussions when video footage emerged of the incident.

 

Not good Stewarding this weekend.

[Andrew P]

I wonder what would have happened if Lewis had had his car damaged when taken out over the grass after the run off area.

[Zomboid]

9 minutes ago, Andrew P said:

As for the Seat Belt, I found this;

 

However, Charles Leclerc completed two laps at last year's Spanish Grand Prix without his belts on during the race and was not investigated for the incident nor were there any repercussions when video footage emerged of the incident.

 

Not good Stewarding this weekend.

Isn't it the same as the car touching thing? So long as they enforce that rule from now on, a relatively small fine is appropriate at this stage.

 

It's like saying that "I shouldn't be prosecuted for that robbery because I got away with 5 others". If Leclerc broke the rules he should have been dealt with, it was that weekend when the stewarding was bad (on this issue), not this one.

[Andrew P]

1 minute ago, Zomboid said:

Isn't it the same as the car touching thing? So long as they enforce that rule from now on, a relatively small fine is appropriate at this stage.

 

It's like saying that "I shouldn't be prosecuted for that robbery because I got away with 5 others". If Leclerc broke the rules he should have been dealt with, it was that weekend when the stewarding was bad (on this issue), not this one.

On refection, yes your right, 2 wrongs don't make a right.

 

Lets hope they check out WHY BR keep changing their rear wing just before the start of the Race as well now, it happened 3 times.

[mudmagnet]

23 minutes ago, Andrew P said:

On refection, yes your right, 2 wrongs don't make a right.

 

Lets hope they check out WHY BR keep changing their rear wing just before the start of the Race as well now, it happened 3 times.

 

They might argue that for safety reasons where they are finding cracks, if I recall correctly, didn't they previously had an issue this year?

 

[mudmagnet]

If my maths is correct,  then Lewis needs two wins at next two races to get equal points (ignoring fastest lap, as will be either Bottas or Perez picking those up), then final race decider?

 

Do Merc have another engine change? Clearly a huge pace advantage and not a great deal to lose. Pressure shifted a little to RB / MV now? Now theirs to lose?

Edited November 15, 2021 by mudmagnet

[Zomboid]

They're both under immense pressure. RB have to be slight favourites because they're ahead, but right now all Lewis has to do is win the rest of the races and he's champion, so in that sense it's in his hands.

 

There's been nothing much to choose between them all year and you'd be an idiot to bet more than 50p on either of them at this stage.

[daltonparva]

The 5th columnists have gone quiet.

[Hobby]

Yes and Horner was quiet as well in the post race interview...

 

1 hour ago, mudmagnet said:

Do Merc have another engine change? Clearly a huge pace advantage and not a great deal to lose. Pressure shifted a little to RB / MV now? Now theirs to lose?

 

I don't think they do, the way DC and the other chap were talking at the end of the race it would seem they expect everyone to run on the same engines for the rest of the season...

[mudmagnet]

1 minute ago, Hobby said:

Yes and Horner was quiet as well in the post race interview...

 

 

I don't think they do, the way DC and the other chap were talking at the end of the race it would seem they expect everyone to run on the same engines for the rest of the season...

I was thinking from a tactic in order to achieve more engine power. Can push a new engine much harder.

[woodenhead]

2 hours ago, PaulRhB said:

He just needs to grow up and find a bit of class as the utterances of him and Horner are looking whiny rather than the underdog making good. 

I think the problem for Verstappen is that Horner and Marko haven't acted in a manner that would demonstrate how Verstappen should behave, i.e. they are role models for petulant remarks.  Verstappen is a brilliant drive and fast, but he has been taught or allowed to keep acting in a manner that loses him sympathy.

 

With MB it starts with Wolf and he generally gets the tone right and it is reflected throughout the team, look at Bottas, he has not been on best behaviour or performance, but we haven't seen the RB driver swap mid season or any public arguments.

[ejstubbs]

2 hours ago, Andrew P said:

Lets hope they check out WHY BR keep changing their rear wing just before the start of the Race as well now, it happened 3 times.

 

I don't think there's much chance for RB to fit an illegal wing on the grid, if that's what you're suggesting. AFAIK the cars are scrutineered in parc fermé after the race and it will/should be checked then.

[woodenhead]

14 minutes ago, mudmagnet said:

I was thinking from a tactic in order to achieve more engine power. Can push a new engine much harder.

It can, but it needs a power course to get the best from it, apparently Qatar will also suit it, so it's game on next week.

[Zomboid]

2 minutes ago, ejstubbs said:

 

I don't think there's much chance for RB to fit an illegal wing on the grid, if that's what you're suggesting. AFAIK the cars are scrutineered in parc fermé after the race and it will/should be checked then.

If it's a permitted thing then all the teams could do it if they saw an advantage. Presumably RB can see some kind of advantage so they're making the changes.

 

It's not like it's some big secret that they're doing it, and all parts are available to be scrutineered.

 

Another question could be where did MB get all that extra speed from? I doubt a 0.2mm violation on part of the DRS flap could account for it (and that wasn't relevant in the actual race), so the logical conclusion is that they've found some other kind of change they could make to improve performance. It might be that they're running the engine in super mode and taking the penalties knowing they'll be that critical bit faster. A legitimate tactic that the other teams could use if they so wished.