2019 F1 challenge: Discussion thread: Canada 9 June

I don't think Vettel will get preference if Leclerc is ahead. Ferrari are now desperate for points and they will take them from anyone.

Joke of a call against Vettel in the race.
Rejoining the race in an unsafe manner?
Where was he supposed to go?
The car was on grass and had he done nothing, would have ploughed into the barrier.
Lewis was stupid trying to pass him then.
Another decent race botched up by stupidity.
Also why I don’t watch F1 regularly anymore.

That’s a fair point.
I still think the 5 seconds was unjust. Hamilton was behind him all the way through the ‘off’ and it is his responsibility to not hit the driver in front of him, which he could have done by staying on the left of the turn or braking.

It was interesting hearing some of the other former drivers responses too.
The issue that nobody has mentioned is the use of street circuits has always posed problems like this and today, was another example.

I’m more annoyed that it’s the first race I’ve seen this year and to have it decided by a bunch of old farts in a tv room and not the drivers is a bit sickening.

Drivers have gone over the grass at that point before and stayed left, off the racing line. If Seb had not made the error there was a good chance Lewis would have got past at that stage of the race. I still just do not know if they were right or not tbh, no real right answer to it. If you go by the letter of the law the penalty is fair but it is a street circuit where crap just happens. Nice to see Seb react to Lewis being boo'd, I hope they can continue to respect the racer in each other. Question, would Ferrari have made a complaint if it happened the other way round?

He knew exactly what he was doing. Went off on the left hand side of the track well aware that the racing line was on the right. He then got back on the track and went across to the right, impeding the car on the correct line. He then says Hammy should have braked and passed on the left when in fact he was the one who should've braked and stayed left after his fuck up.

Basically, yes, and then Ham would probably have had the momentum to pass him on the following straight.

Another Vettel error when under pressure

Technically he did gain an advantage, regardless of Mr Coulthard's opinions.

I didn’t watch it, when did they apply the penalty? Was it before or after the race finished? If the former then it must have made for a boring end as Lewis would have known he didn’t need to try overtaking as long as he was within 5 seconds. That’s the only trouble with these in race penalties, it takes away the need for drivers to overtake.

Frustrating as it is for Ferrari at least they know they have the pace to start getting back into this championship and their second driver is also outperforming the Mercedes 2nd car. Rather than the distraction of trying to appeal the penalty I think they should just move on and focus on trying to reign Mercedes in a bit.

Yesterday was unfortunately another example of Vettel faltering under pressure. We could argue about the penalty forever more, but he put himself in that situation. Of course it’s difficult; you’re being chased down for the win, trying to eek out everything in braking zones, leaving nothing on the table. Hamilton was relentless in his pursuit; it needed a lot of resilience to absorb that pressure.

Unfortunately, the stewards made the right decision. They can only apply the rules which the FIA publishes. When Verstappen overshot the final chicane at Suzuka and nerfed Raikkonen off the track, the former was also given a timed penalty.

2011 was a calamitous year for Hamilton, he got involved in a lot of incidents and things generally were not going right. He used the services of Didier Coton, who has been around in motorsport a long time. In my view, Hamilton became a better a driver after seeing Coton, who can better absorb pressure and takes a more pragmatic view of things. Lewis was a drama queen over the radio in Monaco, but he was absolutely flawless in his execution, despite driving with a serious handicap. When I think back to Bahrain 2014, that was another example of fantastic race craft and resilience from Hamilton.  Vettel needs to see someone, he can’t control his emotions, he cracks under pressure and makes strange mistakes when in wheel-to-wheel combat. Considering his level of experience, Vettel’s mistakes and tantrums are not acceptable. You can call it passion, I say its someone who is struggling to contain himself, struggles to execute under pressure like yesterday, and is no longer the standout driver he once was.

Ferrari need to be careful with Leclerc, he is clearly ready to fight at the front, but keeps being given rather peculiar strategies that appear to deliberately ruin his race. Charles is young, fast and motivated – he won’t stay motivated for long if he isn’t allowed to race anywhere near his teammate. This is the problem that Ferrari has, two fast drivers and they can’t both finish in the same position. It perhaps makes one appreciate the Mercedes approach, effectively having both sides of the garage race one another – its ended pear-shaped at times, but that’s motorsport. Thankfully for Ferrari, Bottas was not in a position to attack Leclerc. However, Leclerc’s long stints have previously seen him fall behind Verstappen, and unable to get the position back. I don’t see the value in deliberately penalising Leclerc to the extent that you are losing positions to other cars.

One last thing, has Emanuele Pirro managed to get back into Italy yet? It might be a bit difficult whilst staying in one piece……

In some ways its just a racing incident - if the roles were reversed I'm sure Hamilton would do/has done exactly the same thing.
As it didn't result in contact or a severe impedence of Hamilton's race perhaps they should take the view that the favour will be/has been already returned.

Indeed


but

If Vettel had come back on track fractionally later and wiped himself and Hamilton out, I wonder if any penalty would have been imposed (for the future) or if it would have been classified as "just another racing incident"?

That's the difference between open wheel fomulae and closed ones.
In BTCC the person in Hamilton's position would've kept the throttle pinned and spun Vettel into the barrier (and probably wiped themselves out too).
Time after time in touring cars you get the slo-mo replay from somewhere behind and you can see the brake lights don't glow on the 2nd car until it's on its roof or wedged in the side of car 1 with them both in the barrier.   

Absolutely.

It was unfortunate that Vettel got the penalty, but also unfortunately, it was the right decision. The stewards can only go by the rules, and Vettel’s rejoin undoubtedly impeded another car. With the situation at Suzuka, I agree that Verstappen was a lot more careless and abrupt than Vettel was. However, the rule is not written like that, depending on the extent of the impediment.

It appears to me that we need two things; heavily reformed regulations with respect to incidents and a permanent stewarding panel. At the moment we have new stewards every weekend, and it’s difficult for credible precedents to be created. IndyCar has a permanent steward’s panel. They include Max Papis, former F1 driver who is respected by pretty much everyone in that series. Decisions are consistent and not over-zealous, some of the “incidents” in F1 simply wouldn’t register as incidents in IndyCar. And that is where revised regulations come in, which should give the stewards a lot more discretion to consider whether a regulation has genuinely been abused. 

However, one area that IndyCar takes more action on is blocking. You can’t block, then move again to keep someone behind. F1 also has this rule, but for whatever reason, the stewards rarely have a problem with it. I thought Ricciardo deserved a time penalty for blocking Bottas twice. Bottas slipstreamed Ricciardo, he went to the right to pass, and at the last second Ricciardo moved from the left to the right. The data would have showed Bottas having to brake whilst going along a 200 mph straightaway, which is not correct. Verstappen got away with this numerous times in 2016 and 2017, which also annoyed me. Reactionary moves should be instantly penalised, it isn’t good racing nor particularly clever. Especially with these open wheel cars, if Bottas had not reacted in time, which is perfectly possible with the closing rate of DRS, it would have been a dreadful accident.