If I can nit pick in proper doper fasion…
If you’re rich enough, you absolutely can pay a buttload of money to drive an F1 car fast. Ferrari would be happy to oblige you. But if you want to actually RACE in FIA F1 events, then yeah, you need a superlicense.
It’s been done. Alex Yoong or whoever. Lots of undeserving drivers have been given seats in F1 cars because of Daddy’s Big Bucks. Fuck, look at Lance Stroll.
Yeahbut, they all have gotten a superlicense…unless you’re implying that got one through bribes…which I can’t say is an impossibility.
I’m implying they have been shoved into lower formula that would allow them to attain the 'Super License" because of Big Daddy Bank Account, and nothing to do with driver skill.
Look at Hamilton and Vettel and guys like Fishy-Killa and Trrully Scrumptious. They grew up driving karts, and have the real life cred. Other guys bought their way into the sport. Most don’t last too long.
And then there is Kimi. Drove icy roads, did a handful of minor league shit, ends up in F1 and is a World Champion.
Lance Stroll started in kart, drove in Formula 4 and F3 before making it to F1 driving for Williams. All this before daddy bought Force India.
But Daddy paid for it all. Right from the start. You can buy seat time, but you can’t always buy talent.
I think there are guys with more talent than Stroll that are sitting out of F1. Because of Daddy Stroll
I use Stroll as an example, and argualbly he is one of the ‘better’ ones, but there is a history of unquilified drivers getting into F1 behind big bank rolls. Sorry to hijack this. Been ‘out in the sun’ all day…
I agree the ugly green stuff on the Ferrari needs to go. And speaking of which, the driver line up is too much like a Touristy Mexican place in P. V.,
Carlos and Charlie’s
They did have good Margaritas
Stroll scored a point in the last race. He’s also managed several podium finishes in the past so he clearly has some talent. Is he occupying a seat that could have gone to a more deserving driver? Probably, but daddy owns the team so daddy makes the rules. And that’s the last I’ll say of Lance Frikken Stroll.
Yep. Same here.
So let’s talk about whether Max Verstappen was robbed when he had to give P1 back to Hamilton because he ran wide passing him at turn 4, when Hamilton had been running wide at the same turn all race long.
It’s all to do with the FIA’s definition of “gaining a lasting advantage.” Gaining a position by going off track has always been unacceptable, as the FIA considers gaining a position to be a lasting advantage.
It is, of course, stupid that the FIA does not consider the cumulative time gained by going off track 40 times to be “gaining a lasting advantage.” It’s equally stupid that they can decide mid-race to tell drivers to knock it off despite not having an explicit rule against it. But that’s neither here nor there in terms of Verstappen being told to give back the position.
I still think Red Bull screwed up by not pitting Verstappen from the lead when it became apparent that the undercut was so powerful.
I’ve brought this up once before in an F1 thread, but I’d like to see the tracks designed so that the drivers can’t gain time by going off track. Put some rumble strips at the apex and exit of curves, enough to upset the car but hopefully not break it. I know it’s not that simple; I think someone even mentioned low-grip paint when this was discussed before. If it shaves a few tenths off their lap time, these drivers will take every inch they can get.
I would think putting anything physically on the track (ok its technically off the track) that interferes with grip is going to have a risk associated with it that could cause bad things to happen if a car is unintentionally off the track.
Given how good and near instantaneous real time image recognition and processing is these days I’d just have the track edges as a fat painted lines then set up cameras viewing and processing the positions of the cars as they go around the corner. You could then calculate how much and cumulatively how long they went off track and have a scaling time penalty which could be tailored per track and even corner. So it’s up to the driver how much they want to cut corners, maybe a big off that is accidental/avoiding a collision is not penalized, repeated cutting ½ a foot off racks up to a stop go, the odd minor excursion doesn’t do much at all. That can be fed back in real time to the driver as well.
In the old days there would have been a gravel trap there to deter leaving the track. They stopped doing that because it was better for the show to keep cars in the race instead of retiring because stuck in gravel. Maybe they should consider going back to that.
I always say, all of these methods for punishing drivers for going off track (gravel, sausage curbs, astroturf, etc) are all well and good until it’s your favorite driver pushed off the track by an incompetent backmarker. These things cut both ways, and I agree it’s better overall that cars are able to carry on.
I’m not sure that the kerfuffle was all that serious really.
The drivers were told that going wide at that turn would see times wiped during quali but would be not be sanctioned during the race.
Quelle surprise! certain drivers decided to maximise their speed by doing just that which was completely within the rules up until the point where the race directors said “errrr, you are taking piss now, stop it or we’ll penalise you”.
So that was the end of that.
Max’s overtake off the track was always going to be sanctioned regardless of the in-race change of heart by the race directors. There is a long precedent that you can’t overtake in that way and keep the place.
So every driver had the same option to take the wide line under normal racing, some did, some didn’t but all saw it happening and could have done the same. None of them ever had the option of overtaking off the track and having it stick.
The problem is that RBR did see it happening at around Lap 38 and told Max to do the same. If they weren’t going to penalize Lewis, why not try it themselves. It was then that race control said don’t do that.
But when they stopped it, they stopped it for everyone. They didn’t stop it just for Max so I don’t see the problem.
It seems problematic that they let Hamilton do it, shaving seconds off, for 38 laps but then when someone else said, let’s give it a go, they decided to stop it for everyone. Hamilton undeniably got an advantage from doing that. So I see a BIG problem with that.
The stewards should never have allowed it (running wide) to happen in the first place. And then they shouldn’t have changed their minds mid-race. If there are supposed to be track limits, then they should enforce them and enforce them consistently. Else, why have track limits at all?