This is the important part. It was a chickenshit move by Rosberg, but Hamilton and Rosberg have been pulling this same chickenshit move on each other for years now. The internet is quibbling over just how chickenshit this move was, and (for example) compared to Hamilton’s chickenshit move in Canada, where he “understeered” and pushed Rosberg into the runoff, this is perhaps more egregious for a number of factors, but all that really means is that Hamilton is a better actor and knows when and how to get away with this move. Crucially, though, Rosberg took the runoff in Canada, partly (I think) because he’s mentally established himself as the #2 driver, but also because he’s always counting the points.
Hamilton knew damn well he was going to hit Nico, he was ahead, he saw him right there; I don’t buy this BS about “Nico was in my blind spot.” He could have run straight, lost a couple seconds and therefore the race, but he’s willing to say, “Look, if you’re going to put us in this position where I have to yield or we crash, I’ll choose crash. Every time.”
This one took place on the last lap, with all the uncertainty of cold tires and fading brakes.
The three-time and defending World Champion has a bad case of understeer and it jut happens to be the one corner where the guy leading him in the points is alongside him on the outside? Pretty damned implausible.
Cite on point B, please. I tried looking up Hamilton’s record with the stewards myself, but as you’d imagine the web is only giving me results on the incident in Austria right now. I’m asking about penalties for on-track incidents, not for something like an illegal engine change after qualifying.
It may well be Rosberg’s fault, but if it was then the Canada incident was Hamilton’s, and should have been penalized accordingly.
That’s pretty much my opinion as well.
Canada was the first race after Spain, where I gather they both caught hell from the bosses for taking each other out. That may have been fresh on Rosberg’s mind at the time.
I don’t know about the whole “blind spot” thing. Wearing a helmet would cut down sideways visibility somewhat. But if Hamilton couldn’t see Rosberg why did he wait so long to turn in?
Ah, a bit of brain fade on my part. Should have said “worn tires”.
And the two lines you quoted were about the two separate incidents, the first was about the last lap in Austria, the second was about the first lap in Canada.
Because he had just gone around the outside and knew Rosberg would be somewhere to his right. Hamilton was absolutely right: he left Nico all the room in the world on the inside, and Nico chose to follow Lewis deep into the corner instead of taking the racing line - which would have kept him in front. He wasn’t trying to keep Hamilton behind him in the corner. He was trying to take him out because he knew Hamilton was going to pass him into the next corner anyway thanks to DRS plus Rosberg’s fading brakes.
Now, you can argue that Hamilton was similarly at fault in Canada but there are two major differences: he didn’t go off the racing line in order to push Rosberg wide, and he made wheel to wheel contact rather than T-boning Rosberg. I was a bit surprised Hamilton didn’t receive a small penalty for that contact, to be honest. But it’s no surprise at all that Rosberg was penalized for Austria. I think the stewards limited it to a meaningless time penalty rather than grid spots for the next race because they felt karma had already penalized him with a broken wing.
They played it again at 11:30 PM my time, watching it now. But yeah, that was a very lame reason to preempt the scheduled program. There was also a practice this morning before qualifying, not sure if that’s P2 again or P3, but I recorded it, too.
Not going to post any race results in case someone hasn’t seen it yet. I do have a question, and maybe it’s something I missed somewhere along the line. Why are the teams not allowed to coach the drivers over the radio? Seems to me that’s what the guys in the garage should be there for- to tell the driver how to fix something that’s going awry or whatever.
The FIA decided that it was too much like driver coaching and that the racing should be left to the drivers. I think they’re wrong, especially if telemetry indicates a safety issue (which a transmission failure could be in the event of a lockup), but that’s how the rules currently are.
They could until a couple of seasons ago, but it got to the point to where they were micro-managing the drivers. The teams would tell the drivers things like where they needed to brake differently at certain corners, when to apply the throttle differently, things that should be totally in the realm of the driver - including the various settings on the steering wheel.
The FIA clamped down on that so the teams came up with code words and phrases to convey info to the drivers, so the FIA’s response was to just ban all team to driver coaching. The team can tell the driver the brakes are overheating, but not how to set the brake bias, for example. The drivers can tell the team pretty much anything, but the team must only reply within the new rules.
I haven’t heard what if any penalties will be imposed on Rosberg or Mercedes, so nobody really knows how serious the infraction is right now, but if they let it slide, the other teams will surely try to exploit the loophole.
A lot of people complained that modern F1 cars basically drive themselves, and the drivers were secondary. So the FIA decided that rather than banning in-car electronics, they’d just make the drivers operate everything themselves. I think it’s silly; having to take a hand off the wheel to make adjustments to the suspension settings at 180 miles an hour is dangerous. I’d rather they just simplify the electronics (say, three power settings for the engine and harvesting/boost on/off switches for the MGU, and nothing else).
It seems like this season the FIA is just pulling shit out their ass as they see fit. I can not recall a season with more mid-stream changes* and general grab-assery. It’s getting pretty tedious and embarrassing. The radio restriction are pretty damn silly, and detracting from the sport.
Also, the announcers mikes need to be cut. They should have to push a button to spew whatever inane crap rolls into their empty heads. I’m really disgusted by Hobo’s “old man juicy jowls” and whoever it is that keeps smacking his lips. Pet peeve of mine. Can’t fucking stand it!
Maybe I’ll just watch the races on “Mute”.
*qualifying, radios, curbs, off-track sensors and more to come, I’m sure…
There is really only one mid-season change, and that is the qualifying system.
The radio rules were introduced at the start of this season. It’s just that Rosberg’s problem was the first incident since the start of the season - something for which the teams ought to be thanked. Also, iirc only the second message (“stay out of 7th gear”) was found a breach of the rules.
Track limits have always been an issue. The drivers know that they are supposed to stay on the racetrack. It’s part of the rules. The FIA are concerned where the drivers break the rules and gain an advantage, and this is not new. The sensors must come under the general category of local field rules, since it’s a bit difficult to leave the track in Monaco, or (say) the Wall of Champions in Montreal, without losing part of the car. The drivers all knew about them - it wasn’t a “gotcha” when the teams started getting warnings.
As for the qualifying system, the new one was such a dreadful idea that they had to do something or no-one would turn up for the sessions.
No, they made a substantive change to the radio rules between Britain and Hungary - requiring the team to instruct the driver to come into the pits for problems requiring correction. Under the new rule, both parts of the instruction to Rosberg would have been a violation, while under the old rule the first part (“chassis default 1, you’re stuck in 7th”) was not.
I thought the whole kerfluffle with Perez was that they asked permission to tell him that his brakes were failing and they weren’t allowed. AIUI, the “change” was that teams were simply instructed to tell the driver to pit, which isn’t really a change at all because they’ve always been able to tell the driver to pit. There was nothing stopping Force India from having Perez pit and then telling him in the pit box that his brakes were failing, at which point they could either send him back out (where he’d presumably be easier on his brakes), or retire the car.
It’s still not clear to me which parts of any of these recent messages (Hamilton/Baku, Perez/Austria, Rosberg/Britain, and Button/Hungary) are actually forbidden.
I don’t think any suspension settings are driver adjustable, and only minor pit stop adjustments to the wings.
If I understand the radio message rule now, you can call the driver into the pit and tell him anything you want to as long as he’s between the pit entry line and the pit exit line - he doesn’t need to stop, but he can’t get the message while on track. Of course he could also stop and the team could coach all they wanted until he crosses pit exit.
Essentially a self-imposed drive through for coaching.
Exactly. When you start allowing “safety-related” messages with no associated penalty, I feel what that would do is end up encouraging teams to run a more aggressive, potentially dangerous setup in the hopes that it lasts the entire day, if not they wait until the last moment when it becomes a “safety concern” and tell the driver to switch settings, getting the maximum value out of the aggressive setup.
If they have to take a drive-through, then perhaps they’ll decide to take a more conservative, safer setup to start with.
Essentially, if you setup your car in such a way that it ends up becoming a safety issue before the end of the race, take a penalty.
