Formula 1, 2020

[PaulRhB]

4 hours ago, EddieB said:

Still, Lewis must be a dirty and dangerous driver, judging by the points on his super licence...

I think those are from his two collisions with Albon from when the first lot expire in November and the opinion of the commentator drivers was racing incident in both cases rather than ‘dirty’ tactics, but he got the penalties. The commentary team commented after this years collision that Hamilton isn’t a dirty tactics driver. 
Considering Schumacher twice punted off his only rival, in 94 & 97, to decide a championship I don’t think it’s particularly fair to call Hamilton dirty in comparison.

Edited September 27, 2020 by PaulRhB

[RJS1977]

I don't know that there was anything 'inconsistent' about the stewards' decision. Had there been other drivers doing practice starts in the same place who weren't penalised, that would be inconsistent but as far as I'm aware there wasn't. 

 

The pit lane curves to the right and has a wall immediately adjacent to it, so any drivers coming out of the pits wouldn't have much warning of Lewis's position. I could certainly imagine if Lewis came out of the pits and saw someone there, he might well have said "Man, that is so dangerous!" Whilst the rules themselves may not explicitly say you can't practice starts there, there may have been a ruling from the race director specific to the circuit. It's the responsibility of the driver and team to ensure they know the rules. Incidentally both Narain Karthikeyan and Johnny Herbert (often a race steward himself of course) said on Sky after the race that where Lewis practiced his starts was outside the permitted area.

 

Moral of the story - if you intend to practice starts in the pit lane, don't ask your team, ask the race director - preferably before you get in the car!

 

Likewise I don't think there was anything inconsistent regarding the penalties handed out regarding running wide at Turn 2. The race director had evidently warned the drivers beforehand that they would be penalised if they rejoined other than at the permitted entry point and Danny Ricc accepted his error.

 

Ultimately the stewards have very little leeway regarding the punishments they hand out. If the rule says "Don't do this or you get a five second penalty", that's what the stewards have to give them. In that regard, DC's regular criticism of the stewards is somewhat wearing.

 

[woodenhead]

4 hours ago, 57xx said:

 

Stay out of the thread until you seen the race then, simple.

It appeared in my unread items, I do try and not read stuff but sometimes you just see enough and then you zoom in and read the whole sentence.  It didn't affect my enjoyment of the race from the comfort of my recording of the highlights show.

 

Also I did end my post  with a laugh emoji - I know I have only myself to blame if I see the result before I see the race.

Edited September 27, 2020 by woodenhead

[woodenhead]

With regards to the Hamilton penalties - which team had the most to gain from using the rulebook and raising a complaint with the FIA and which team whilst seeing the punishment as perhaps harsh didn't condemn it.

 

I'm glad that in the end the FIA took back the licence points as that did seem a step too far and I was beginning to think myself this is the FIA indirectly taking him to task about his increasingly political stances.

[Andrew P]

8 hours ago, newbryford said:

I guess Ferrari must be pleased.

 

Replacing one crasher with another "lets' drive into a wall for no reason".............

Yes I agree, Carlos has seen the Red Mist, and was dreaming of nice Red overalls and having and nice Red Car, and then thinking to himself; now what would I do in this situation if I was in the Ferrari right now.

 

BANG!              WHOOPS, 

[woodenhead]

Seb was looking rather anonymous this week, Sainz was showing he is ready to replace him over at Ferarri  and Albon again had a hard race from the back whilst Gasly & Kvyat benefitted from good strategy.

 

The races are certainly not boring these days.

[RedgateModels]

This season has highlighted just what a poor track Sochi is. We have been spoilt with the likes of Mugello etc to show how good tracks used to be and how good the racing is on them.

 

I'm not going to add to the comments about the stewarding, it's all been said already. 

[Oldddudders]

8 minutes ago, RedgateModels said:

This season has highlighted just what a poor track Sochi is. We have been spoilt with the likes of Mugello etc to show how good tracks used to be and how good the racing is on them.

I was surprised to learn that Mugello used to be a longer track. A much longer track. A much, much longer track! For the sportscar round it hosted in 1966 it was 66.2 km long, and the race was just 8 laps! Targa Florio stuff!

[Pete the Elaner]

9 hours ago, RJS1977 said:

I don't know that there was anything 'inconsistent' about the stewards' decision. Had there been other drivers doing practice starts in the same place who weren't penalised, that would be inconsistent but as far as I'm aware there wasn't. 

 

The pit lane curves to the right and has a wall immediately adjacent to it, so any drivers coming out of the pits wouldn't have much warning of Lewis's position. I could certainly imagine if Lewis came out of the pits and saw someone there, he might well have said "Man, that is so dangerous!" Whilst the rules themselves may not explicitly say you can't practice starts there, there may have been a ruling from the race director specific to the circuit. It's the responsibility of the driver and team to ensure they know the rules. Incidentally both Narain Karthikeyan and Johnny Herbert (often a race steward himself of course) said on Sky after the race that where Lewis practiced his starts was outside the permitted area.

 

Moral of the story - if you intend to practice starts in the pit lane, don't ask your team, ask the race director - preferably before you get in the car!

 

Likewise I don't think there was anything inconsistent regarding the penalties handed out regarding running wide at Turn 2. The race director had evidently warned the drivers beforehand that they would be penalised if they rejoined other than at the permitted entry point and Danny Ricc accepted his error.

 

Ultimately the stewards have very little leeway regarding the punishments they hand out. If the rule says "Don't do this or you get a five second penalty", that's what the stewards have to give them. In that regard, DC's regular criticism of the stewards is somewhat wearing.

 

 

Karun Chandhok was the commentator/pundit.

 

But other than that, I entirely agree. Nobody else did practice starts at the entrance to the track. It looked a pretty hazardous place to do so & what did Hamilton feel he would gain by doing them here rather than in the pit lane with everyone else.

Don't be fooled into thinking that all the top drivers know the rules thoroughly.

As a former snooker referee, I can assure you that most of the top players don't know them as well as they could do & neither do the commentators. The same is true of most sports; most people learn how to play them from hearsay & you nearly always learn something surprising from reading the rules.

 

The 'go through' chicane after turn 2 did its job. It is supposed to penalise drivers for missing the turn by forcing them to slow down. Most drivers did this, some accepted the penalty for no doing so (Ricciardo) while Sainz's effort to make his penalty as light as possible cost him.

 

Even without the penalties, Hamilton would not have won. Hamilton lost the win during Q2.

The soft tyres showed no pace advantage over the mediums, allowing Bottas to keep up during their first stint. After Hamilton had pitted for new tyres, Bottas was able to set a series of fast laps & would have emerged from his own pit stop in the lead.

 

Hamilton will be hard to beat if he can still manage 3rd place on a 'bad' weekend.

 

[Pete the Elaner]

9 hours ago, woodenhead said:

With regards to the Hamilton penalties - which team had the most to gain from using the rulebook and raising a complaint with the FIA and which team whilst seeing the punishment as perhaps harsh didn't condemn it.

 

 

You could look a this the other way around.

If you were in any sport, had a good knowledge of the rules & adhered to them, would you feel cheated if you saw someone breaking them?

It wouldn't be your fault that they were unaware they were doing something wrong. 

As a referee/umpire/steward, by not penalising someone who has broken the rules, you are cheating the teams/competitors who have done nothing wrong.

[EddieB]

9 hours ago, PaulRhB said:

I think those are from his two collisions with Albon from when the first lot expire in November and the opinion of the commentator drivers was racing incident in both cases rather than ‘dirty’ tactics, but he got the penalties. The commentary team commented after this years collision that Hamilton isn’t a dirty tactics driver. 
Considering Schumacher twice punted off his only rival, in 94 & 97, to decide a championship I don’t think it’s particularly fair to call Hamilton dirty in comparison.

My comment was meant as ironic! There’s no way that Lewis is a dirty driver.

 

Lewis made some basic errors early in his career (I think it was Montreal where he rammed into the back of two cars stopped at a red light at the pit lane exit), but in recent years his racecraft has been exemplary.  When it appeared he was given two points on his licence yesterday, it seemed extremely harsh.  On C4 they noted that Grosjean is clean, by comparison.  There are others on the grid who have something of a “reputation”, yet don’t appear to accumulate points.

[woodenhead]

5 minutes ago, Pete the Elaner said:

 

You could look a this the other way around.

If you were in any sport, had a good knowledge of the rules & adhered to them, would you feel cheated if you saw someone breaking them?

It wouldn't be your fault that they were unaware they were doing something wrong. 

As a referee/umpire/steward, by not penalising someone who has broken the rules, you are cheating the teams/competitors who have done nothing wrong.

I don't disagree and all the teams do this I would imagine, when you are talking such micro variations in car performance you use every angle you can to gain an advantage.

 

In the commentary it was very much about the stewards having a go, when it was more likely someone had questioned the legality of the move with them to spur intervention.

 

But putting two points on his licence when he had clearly been heard asking if he was ok to perform what he did shows he himself was taking steps to ensure he was not foul of any regs.

 

 

[Andrew P]

1 hour ago, RedgateModels said:

This season has highlighted just what a poor track Sochi is. We have been spoilt with the likes of Mugello etc to show how good tracks used to be and how good the racing is on them.

 

I'm not going to add to the comments about the stewarding, it's all been said already. 

Sochi, a poor Track?  ITS A TERIBLE TRACK IMHO.

 

There are many classic Tracks around the world, and if you switch on your TV half way through a Race, and see a Driver going around a corner, you almost immediately know where he is on the Track. Take Spa, Silverstone, Monaco, Monza, Nurburgring, Barcelona, Texas and now also Megelo, and there are more, but with Sochi, I had no idea how many corners Bottas had to go before the Flag fell. 

[Reorte]

46 minutes ago, Andrew P said:

Sochi, a poor Track?  ITS A TERIBLE TRACK IMHO.

 

There are many classic Tracks around the world, and if you switch on your TV half way through a Race, and see a Driver going around a corner, you almost immediately know where he is on the Track. Take Spa, Silverstone, Monaco, Monza, Nurburgring, Barcelona, Texas and now also Megelo, and there are more, but with Sochi, I had no idea how many corners Bottas had to go before the Flag fell. 

If you think that's bad do you remember Phoenix?

[PMW]

15 hours ago, EddieB said:

Question.

 

Was there a virtual safety car at Monza to replace the polystyrene blocks damaged in Vettel’s brake failure incident?

 

Why then the need to have one at Sochi after Grosjean’s demolition derby (part two)?  Even under VSC it’s an unnecessary safety risk for the marshals.

 

The difference was the purpose of the polystyrene blocks. The ones Vettel took out were only indicator boards, but the ones at Sochi were effectively a part of the race track, as they marked the exit route from the run off area for cars running wide, so had to be replaced. Failure to do so would come under the sporting rule about changing the track condition after the race start, which is not permitted. 

 

There are lots of points you could make from this weekend. Yes, as said already Sochi is a horrid track. Secondly for whatever reason the race directors notes this weekend were very odd. These are the "local rules" for want of a better way of putting it which are added to the standard rules for specific tracks. These relate amongst other things to track limits and practice starts. The notes for the practice starts stated, precisely, "on the right hand side, after the pit exit lights. For this avoidance of any doubt this applies at all times when the pit lane is open". that's pretty much word for word. Hamilton conducted his practice starts on the right hand side, after the pit exit lights, but apparently not the correct part of the right hand side after the pit exit lights. Given the vagueness of the wording you can understand why he was upset.  Toto Wolff was upset because he was penalised twice for the infringement of the same rule. Common practice in formula 1 has always been to apply only one penalty, unless the offence is repeated after the penalty is applied. This is not a written rule, but why change common practice of many years now?

 

The other issue was the turn two run off. Insisting that all cars which crossed the outer kerb, hence leaving the track should drive around the barriers as punishment was always ridiculous. A driver at racing speed, accidentally running wide doesn't have the time to react and make the regulated run off area, we saw what happened when the Racing Point tried. 

 

Finally, despite being a Lewis Hamilton fan I was not impressed with him this weekend. He is, in my eyes the greatest the sport has ever seen, notwithstanding that I accept that comparing drivers from different eras is next to impossible but Hamilton has everything, a fantastic technical understanding of the car meaning if something isn't quite right he can point the mechanics in the right direction. A phenomenal ability to pull out a single quali lap when needed (and now quali mode on engines is outlawed you are seeing how much of it was really him, not the car). The ability to drive lap after lap to "vectors", lapping within a few thousandths of a second each time to manage fuel and tyre use, and then to engage the legendary "hammer time" when he needs to. The ability to out think drivers one on one, there is nobody better in a dog fight than Hamilton, and most importantly the off track abilities. The ability to attract the big sponsors which keep him in a competitive car, knowing where that competitive car is going to be before it happens, who else would have left a then dominant McLaren for a start up Mercedes outift? Also he nurtures the love and respect of the team, they go that extra yard for him that Bottas doesn't quite get. But .... this weekend we saw the bad side of him, the grumpy side with an axe to grind which seems to stop him getting on with his racing. After his pit stop he was too busy chuntering about the timing of it. He came out in clean air on fresh, albeit hard tyres yet Bottas in the lead and Verstappen in second were putting a second a lap on him with worn mediums. He should have been reeling them in, but his head was in a bad place, and when that happens he can be remarkably ordinary. 

[RJS1977]

3 hours ago, Oldddudders said:

I was surprised to learn that Mugello used to be a longer track. A much longer track. A much, much longer track! For the sportscar round it hosted in 1966 it was 66.2 km long, and the race was just 8 laps! Targa Florio stuff!

 

Completely different circuit, although the present circuit effectively replaced it. Unlike Nurburgring or Spa, there are no common elements between the two circuits.

 

The old Mugello was a road course much in the manner of the Isle of Man TT circuit.

 

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

3 hours ago, Pete the Elaner said:

...Hamilton will be hard to beat if he can still manage 3rd place on a 'bad' weekend.

That's the major thing to take away from Sochi 2020. Hamilton had a difficult weekend - which happens to most drivers at least a couple of times a season - yet still finished in a position which most of this season's drivers would feel constitutes a 'decent weekend's work'.

 

I should imagine that Verstappen is actually the most disappointed with his weekend, compromised by his unexpectedly lacklustre start. 'If only' he had got away well and jumped Hamilton in the first corner, the day would likely have been his.

 

As for Vettel, I thought he looked pretty dazed after his Q2 crash, and during the race was out there on autopilot, just getting round the circuit. Makes me wonder what Racing Point will do when they discover that their new 'champion' driver's fire has gone out.

 

Confirmation that Sainz is now almost a 'Ferrari ready' package. Superb DIY wrecking of his own car, but just failed to take out his team mate, although he did contribute to moving him toward the rear of the field, so shows promise in that skill set. And Norris is still 4th in the table despite no points at Sochi, which is nothing short of miraculous.

 

Next season with Sainz gone and Ricciardo in the improved Merc engine McLaren, now that should be fun. There's a guy who can really use a racy race car, plenty smoking tyres with a go-faster motor to test the king of the late brakers.

[RedgateModels]

3 hours ago, PMW said:

. He should have been reeling them in, but his head was in a bad place, and when that happens he can be remarkably ordinary. 

 

My take? 

 

he was resigned to his position with hard tyres that were going to struggle to get to the end following a stop earlier than he would have liked. Finishing on 3 wheels was not something he wished to do again

 

As we have said before ,he is very professional and knows when to push, when not to. 

 

Look at Norris, he raced hard on his and had to stop for fresh tyres towards the end of the race ....

[Pete the Elaner]

3 hours ago, PMW said:

 

The other issue was the turn two run off. Insisting that all cars which crossed the outer kerb, hence leaving the track should drive around the barriers as punishment was always ridiculous. A driver at racing speed, accidentally running wide doesn't have the time to react and make the regulated run off area, we saw what happened when the Racing Point tried. 

 

 

If you don't do something about track limits, then you may just as well not bother with them at all; let the drivers do donuts on the infield, counting each one as a lap. That may sound a joke, but where do you draw the line with going off the track? 10cm? 1m? Just when does it become wrong?

 

The barriers are there to provide an automatic penalty for cars which for one reason or another cannot stay on the circuit, where they should be.

 

They had the orange lines around the inside of turn 1 & 2, so this was the limit. Touch it & you need to go through the barriers. This was designed to be the penalty for leaving the track, so the wiggle needed to do to get through was intentionally there to slow them down & create an automatic penalty so they could just get on with racing straight away. Sainz thought he could get away without slowing & we all saw the result.

 

So what are the alternatives? A time penalty? This screws up racing & many have expressed their unhappiness with it. The barriers were there to provide an alternative to this.

A barrier? Car would instantly be out, leaving debris across the track.

A grass area? Put a wheel on that & the car spins, potentially causing a collision.

A gravel trap? This would put the car out of the race.

These alternatives are undesirable because they usually mean less cars racing & safety car period.

 

If you have any better ideas, then please share them. I am sure the FIA would be interested to hear them too.

 

[Pete the Elaner]

11 minutes ago, RedgateModels said:

 

My take? 

 

he was resigned to his position with hard tyres that were going to struggle to get to the end following a stop earlier than he would have liked. Finishing on 3 wheels was not something he wished to do again

 

As we have said before ,he is very professional and knows when to push, when not to. 

 

Look at Norris, he raced hard on his and had to stop for fresh tyres towards the end of the race ....

 

I think you're right about that.

Maybe it was not picked up in the highlights, but shortly after his pit stop, the team told him to push. He responded that he needed to manage his tyres. He was moaning about pitting too early but the graphics showed his soft tyres had almost nothing left.

 

What I don't understand is why Bottas held on to the fastest lap. With 2 cars pitting in the last few laps, you would think that fresh tyres on low fuel would have allowed them to go faster, even though they would not pick up the extra point for it.

[LNERandBR]

I think many would prefer Grass or Gravel in the run off areas. Certainly, that's what most old school tracks seem to have. There's an automatic penalty involved there given that if you go off the track you loose grip and could crash.

 

Granted, they are more dangerous which is why the tarmac is there. 

 

Although I think having the barriers set up right next to a wall was a little silly. Was't it just a bollard before or was that another track where cutting a corner is done too regularly so a 'penalty' track is needed?

Edited September 28, 2020 by LNERandBR

[PMW]

I think you missed my point somewhat Pete. I fully support track limits, we seem to get away fine with barriers at Monaco and guess what, drivers generally manage to get around the corners without hitting them. The problem at Sochi was that whilst a driver who for example missed his breaking point and ran off into the safety area was easily able to drive out through the polystyrene obstacle course, a driver at full speed who simply ran wide, which seemed to be most commonly caused by hitting the infield kerb on T1, by the time he has realised he has crossed the line is already out of the corner. He physically can't make it through the approved exit route, which makes the race directors note a farce. 

 

I still think Hamilton was in "chunter mode". He was unhappy he was starting on the soft tyre, that was down to a team decision on Saturday which back fired. He was unhappy about the penalty, unhappy about being called in when he was but the team timed his stop to get him out into clean air, and that worked really well. Don't pay any attention to the tyre graphics on the screen they mean nothing. A kid with a red crayon could probably guess better what life is left in a tyre. The graphic showed red but Hamilton was still chucking in fastest laps which kind of makes a mockery of them really. The driver knows what is left in the tyre, nobody else. It needed a radio call from Toto to explain why they timed the stop when they did. 

 

I heard the radio call about managing tyres, it was an excuse, it was an "I'm not playing and I'm going to take my ball home" type of comment, when Bonno tried to give him Verstappen's lap times his response was go away and let me sulk.  We have seen it before from him. For me, it's the only flaw in the otherwise perfect racing driver.

 

 

[Pete the Elaner]

36 minutes ago, PMW said:

 

I still think Hamilton was in "chunter mode". He was unhappy he was starting on the soft tyre, that was down to a team decision on Saturday which back fired.

 

That wasn't the team's fault.

It was mainly his own fault for leaving the track on his first Q2 lap, which was on the medium tyres.

He lost his chance at another Q2 lap on the mediums when Vettel crashed. The timing of the red flag meant that he was in danger of not making Q3 at all, so they had to throw everything at the last lap, including soft tyres. While watching it live, I don't think they had a choice.

 

Bottas' first Q2 lap was fine so he did not have to set another one.

 

----

 

On run-offs: maybe the penalty of driving around the obstacles is not harsh enough. Clearly the penalty in Monaco is a wrecked car, but on the 1st turn after a start, sometimes it is not possible to avoid going wide.

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

3 minutes ago, Pete the Elaner said:

...On run-offs: maybe the penalty of driving around the obstacles is not harsh enough. Clearly the penalty in Monaco is a wrecked car, but on the 1st turn after a start, sometimes it is not possible to avoid going wide.

Make the track the track, none of these coloured areas and weird kerbs, just black and white. There is enough sensor and comms capability now to detect and manage whatever is standardised as 'crossing the line' e.g all one tyre over the line: with a standardised penalty, immediate drive through of an extra speed limited stretch on the circuit as an example.

 

Might take several races to sink in, but once it is clear that 'go there, and you are so deep in the do-do' is established, drivers will only go off the race track by genuine 'accident' rather than by routine design.

[LNERandBR]

Issue there is if you lock up going into a turn where there is run off you can release the brake and just go straight to avoid losing as much time.

 

If you lock up going into a turn where there's grass and gravel on the outside you don't have that option and thus loose more time by being forced to stay more on the track.

 

The drivers will always go for the easier and quickest option so just saying 'don't go there' wouldn't work. You'd get more penalties for track limits which the 'go around the bollard' method is supposed to remove. Thus we as fans will be more upset that there are yet more 5 second penalties for what we see as good hard racing.

 

Tarmac run off areas are safer than grass or gravel as you have a chance to keep the car out of the wall. Grass takes away grip and modern F1 cars tend to bounce over gravel. That's why so many tracks are ripping up the grass and digging out the gravel and replacing it with miles of tarmac run off. Issues with cars abusing track limits are always going to be a thing at certain corners and the ways to punish it are always going to be a compromise. 

Edited September 28, 2020 by LNERandBR