I waited a day so as not to spoil anything from yesterday’s race, but I do have a couple questions.
In the course of Alonso’s penalty that was to be served on his first pit stop, and then the (potential) extra penalty when the first one wasn’t served correctly, the commentators mentioned that something similar happened with Ocon in the previous race. I must have missed that; what was his original penalty for, and what did his team do wrong that led to the additional penalty?
Is there any consensus on the what led to Aston Martin’s performance this season? Did they get some new, key personnel, or find some new technical innovation that got them to the point where they’re challenging Mercedes and Ferrari?
They have copied the Red Bull design (whatever that means, exactly). Those announcers talk so goddamn much, I pretty much just tune them out, but I recall hearing something along these lines.
Not only did they copy red bull’s design, but they also have a shit ton more wind tunnel time under the new rules for finishing as far back as they did last year. Plus red bull got penalized wind tunnel time for exceeding the cost cap.
If it was that simple, why hasn’t every team done it?
Australia is gonna be a Craker! Max vs. Merc, and lets see what Checo can do from last place in the Red Bull. Can he get into the points?
I think the Red Bull’s still disappear down the road. I don’t think the RB suited the colder conditions which apparently won’t be the case in the race. But hope I’m wrong because it’ll get boring fast.
If not perhaps a race-long ding dong Hamilton vs Alonso battle will save the day.
I shall refrain from spoilers and just say that there was a race.
Interesting. Very interesting indeed.
I watched this on DVR delay, and kept hoping the Assholes, uh, I mean Stewards or Race Directors, or whoever would have let the 3 hour time limit drain out, covering their Sorry Asses. But no. That was Some Old Bullshit, Granddad!
I say, do Qually, then just roll dice to determine the winner. Yes, I’m very drunk right now. I"ve loved this sport for 3/4 of my life, and can’t abide the shit I saw today.
Every bit as egregious as that shit that gave Max his first ‘Championship’. Butt-Fuck!
What a clusterfuck.
If you’re gonna red flag a race after an accident, do it right away. It’s ridiculous that some cars come in to change tires under the yellow, they lose positions, then everybody else gets a free tire change while the field is parked in the pits.
On a restart, unless everyone completes a sector, it doesn’t count. We’ll just rewind and put everyone back where they were. I bet Hulkenberg and Haas were pissed; moved from 4th down to 8th, I think.
Apparently you can be penalized for causing an accident, even if the accident got wiped off the books. Sainz ran into Alonso, then the field was reset to the positions they were in at the restart. Alonso got third place back. Admittedly, other cars were involved, and causing a collision poses risks beyond just loss of position, so the stewards should take it seriously. From what the announcers were saying, there wasn’t sufficient information to determine the running order when the flag was waved, so they had to revert to the order at the last official point, which was the restart. It seems silly to me that the stewards can use cameras and other tech to levy a penalty against Sainz, but they can’t use it to determine the running order when the positions were frozen after the accident.
A five-second penalty against Sainz, and then a yellow-flag finish, seemed like a recipe for disaster. Sainz was in 4th on the track, Stroll was immediately behind him in 5th. All Stroll has to do is finish within 4.9 seconds in order to inherit 4th. He really has no reason to stick close to Sainz, but everyone behind him also wanted to get within 5 seconds. With everybody crowding up like that, I’m almost surprised that didn’t blow up in their face.
You could get penalised on a warm up lap, and the incident took out another car, so a penalty applied in this way is entirely proper. Though to penalise a driver in the first corner after a restart is unusual and harsh on Sainz in this case. And when the red flag came out a few of the cars were on the gravel meters away from the track so where would they place them? I don’t think they did anything wrong there.
I think my main issue is the necessity of the red flags in the first place. I understand the last one was because they don’t want to finish behind the safety car (which they did anyway but at least they tried not to). I just hope it’s been formalised in the race rules that incidents in the last x laps will be red flagged instead of dealt with by a safety car so it’s a formal part of the sport.
I really would like to see cars forbidden from changing tyres in red flag situations.
What nobody wants to see I hope is for decisions to be made for entertainment reasons instead of sporting ones. A proper sport needs to be defined by its rules to ensure fairness and transparency. The entertainment flows from that.
Well, I am all in favor of late red flags. But on a tight track like in Melbourne, they should do a rolling restart if there are so late in the race.
I think they should place the cars on the track in the order that they are when the flag is waved (or when the lights go on). The ones that are off the track in the gravel, if they can get out, rejoin at the end. Otherwise, it’s like that whole restart never happened. Stroll (I think it was) drove off at turn 3. Hulkenberg threaded his way through traffic and made up several places. None of it mattered.
Checked the schedule after last week’s race to see when the upcoming race is…and it’s not until the 30th. A 3-week break? Damn, I assume that they need some time to get everything to Azerbaijan but that seems long.
The long break wasn’t originally planned. There was a race in China planned but it got canceled and they didn’t fill in the gap with another race.
I woulda let them raced in my Back 40.
Oh, wait. It’s a lake now. Nevermind.
