2019 F1: Discussions

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What a mess. I would have thought that you'd only impose a penalty that would change the race result if it was an egregious penalty, which this wasn't.

Can't accuse the stewards of any national bias, as Emanuele Pirro is Italian. He seems like a lovely guy and a true racer (check out the long interview he did with Motorsport Magazine a few years back).

Irrespective of whether it was technically right/ practically wrong, Vettel of course behaved like a child...
 
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Yes he definitely did.
Been looking at the footage and it’s pretty obvious the stewards made the right call. The car wasn’t that out of control. There’s a point during the cockpit footage you can see him clearly steering to the right. That’s the point he’s moving into the race line and obstructing Lewis, who could have easily passed at that point.
 
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Lewis was disadvantaged and should, by rights, have got past. Nobody can dispute that at least.
 
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My issue is that if Hamilton was in Vettel's position and Bottas (for example) was in Hamilton's position, I really don't see a penalty happening.
 
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That 5 second penalty on Vettel / Ferrari was excessive.

Hubert, the penalty was absolutely correct. Rules are very clear, and this is a safety rule: if you leave the track, you must rejoin the track in a safe way (not at full throttle and taking again the racing line when you have another driver coming behind). The priority is then for drivers who are in the track, and you can’t block them or fight with them when you are rejoining the track. And this is what Vettel did.

It’s clearly explained in the Steward’s decision:


Vettel was crying and behaving like a child, as usual, but the Stewards know the regulations better than him 😉
 
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My issue is that if Hamilton was in Vettel's position and Bottas (for example) was in Hamilton's position, I really don't see a penalty happening.
Exactly the same penalty, but I don’t think Hamilton would do the same as Vettel did in that situation. It was clear that Hamilton knows the regulations better than Vettel 😉
 
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Exactly the same penalty, but I don’t think Hamilton would do the same as Vettel did in that situation. It was clear that Hamilton knows the regulations better than Vettel 😉

Oh for the good old days when you could ram your opponent off the track and win the championship...😉

The rule may be technically correct, but the use of it is flawed, as the stream of ex-drivers siding with Vettel shows.
Hell, even Mark Webber thinks it was wrong.
Mark Webber!
Come on...
::stirthepot::
 
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Oh for the good old days when you could ram your opponent off the track and win the championship...😉

Do you mean as Schumacher did to Hill in Australia ‘94 to win the championship? 😉

At that time, the regulations were not able to penalize such an unfair action (because Schumacher was already DNF in that race), so Schumacher won his first Title that way because for the FIA was not possible to take points -as a penalty- from his previus races. Thankfully the regulations were changed after that incident in 1994, and when Schumacher tried to do the same against Villeneuve in Jerez ‘97, he lost all points of the season, and went from vicechampion to the last position. I think it’s the hardest penalty ever in the F1 history.

Thankfully the regulations are sometimes improved in the right direction, because this is racing, this is a sport, not the “Death Race” 😉
 
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'The hardest ever penalty ever in F1 history'.

I'm sure he was really bothered about losing second place in the championship, especially as he kept all his wins and points....
 
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'The hardest ever penalty ever in F1 history'.

I'm sure he was really bothered about losing second place in the championship, especially as he kept all his wins and points....
He went from 2nd to the last position in the Championship. I don’t remember any hardest penalty. Do you?

 
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It was a soft penalty. If you would have given the choice to him between a one race ban for 1998 or going from 2nd in the championship to last he would have snatched your hand off. Classic case of the FIA being seen to be hard while actually not doing anything 'meaningful'. The guy already had two WDCs he wasn't going to lose sleep over losing a second place was he?
 
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I don’t say it was a hard enough penalty (I agree with you that, being the 2nd time doing the same unfair movement to win a championship, it was a soft penalty). I just say it was the hardest penalty ever in F1 history for a racing driver, if we consider he went from 2nd to 26th in the standings.

Anyway, the regulations can avoid now a similar movement, because FIA can take points from
previous races, and not just from the race where the incident happened
 
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They just seem to have gone too far the other way now, with Vettel's penalty a case in point. I don't know why they don't just say that if you go off on the grass you must stop the car, get out and do twenty pressups before continuing. But then some of the drivers wouldn't do the pressups properly eh? 😉
 
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Standings after Paul Ricard:



Hamilton & Mercedes-AMG: unstoppable 👍

 
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Waste of a Sunday afternoon, even the commentary crew on the UK sky feed were critical and making up jokes, at one point it was suggested that they may go and turn on the sprinkler system to liven things up, Saturdays WTCC racing from the N/ring on Eurosport was loads better.
 
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I couldn't even stick through the 6 minute highlights..........
I watched the whole race FF in about 10 minutes. Couldn't find a single highlight.
 
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Political correctness gone crazy.... the whole F1 thing.
No more beautiful woman ( race girls) for fear of .......well for fear of being accused of looking at a woman because she’s beautiful.
You can’t even pass anyone in an aggressive manner in a race car now in case you hurt the other drivers feelings. You watch , next will be indicators ( turn signals ) for when you have to let the guy in front know your going to hurt their feelings so they can prepare themselves for the shock and book a session with their life couch.
I’m ranting I know ...:-(

MotoGP is the trill of the weekend now.
 
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British super bikes at my local circuit this weekend, wife doesn’t go with me but watches it on tv, with the windows open for live sound😀 my “local” circuit is really local.
Unfortunately my attempts at photography there usually are boring shots or pics with a bit of bike leaving the frame!😟