2017 FORMULA 1 AZERBAIJAN GRAND PRIX - Grand Prix Weekend Thread

[fieldodreams79]

Lewis was complaining that the SC wasn't going fast enough at one point and then gets dropped by it due to restart gamesmanship. Vettel was attempting to stay close so he didn't get dropped by Lew on a restart. Then $hit happened as it does sometimes in motor racing.

I don't think Vettel would've reacted the way he did if it hadn't been something out of the norm.

Then the overreacting took place. Something no one disputes. I think we're all overacting to a racing incident on a tight circuit and a complete whackadoo race.

[chillibowl]

Originally Posted by fieldodreams79

...I think we're all overacting to a racing incident on a tight circuit and a complete whackadoo race.

agreed.

but it is something different to talk about!

[bauble]

Ays, I suppose my main point is that I genuinely think that the reaction of many here, and in the motor sport world generally is a completely over the top.

What ever the exact cause of Vettel's anger, and we know his view, what followed was quite trivial. Petulant, wrong headed, crass? maybe. but it was hardly a blood bath, merely sticking out the tongue. But then I am old enough to remember when racing drivers were heroes, not pampered kids.

It is just my own personal opinion, after all, and yes my utter dislike of Hamilton is well known, but I don't feel that it is relevant to my point. It could have been anybody on the receiving end, and still just a silly thing to do not WW3.

Cheers,

Baub.

[JHamilton]

Originally Posted by chillibowl

i dont think its fair to apply the sporting standards of another series to criticize a driver from a different series, especially, when its acknowledge that there are different rules/procedures between the two.

to point out that there is a better way to do things for sure but to call LH's action un sporting because they do things differently somewhere else is a tad extreme imo.

in F1, any driver leading the pack would have slowed or attempted to back up the pack and typically when they do we applaud the driver for it as this is not only the expected behaviour it was up until now universally considered an important skill to have in F1.

I'm pretty extreme, chili. I'm on the far right.



I'm not trying to apply rules from other series but explain where my viewpoint is coming from. When I see the intial incident, my brain automatically says "He (HAM) can't do that!", because that is against the rules and not considered good sportsmanship in pretty much every series here. In F1/FIA this obviously is not the case.

[fieldodreams79]

Originally Posted by chillibowl

agreed.

but it is something different to talk about!

Sure beats nagging about how boring it was!

[chillibowl]

Originally Posted by JHamilton

I'm pretty extreme, chili. I'm on the far right.

'More than Words' my friend!

[Matt]

Originally Posted by JHamilton

I'm pretty extreme, chili. I'm on the far right.



I'm not trying to apply rules from other series but explain where my viewpoint is coming from. When I see the intial incident, my brain automatically says "He (HAM) can't do that!", because that is against the rules and not considered good sportsmanship in pretty much every series here. In F1/FIA this obviously is not the case.

This. Even all the way down to the local levels, if you play games on a restart you get one do-over, and if you do it again you get sent to the back.

Edit:// Just looked up the track on google earth and did some measurements - the distance between the point at which the leaders would fire off on the restart and the s/f line was nearly 2.5km. That's dumb.

[Aysedasi]

Originally Posted by bauble

Ays, I suppose my main point is that I genuinely think that the reaction of many here, and in the motor sport world generally is a completely over the top.

What ever the exact cause of Vettel's anger, and we know his view, what followed was quite trivial. Petulant, wrong headed, crass? maybe. but it was hardly a blood bath, merely sticking out the tongue. But then I am old enough to remember when racing drivers were heroes, not pampered kids.

It is just my own personal opinion, after all, and yes my utter dislike of Hamilton is well known, but I don't feel that it is relevant to my point. It could have been anybody on the receiving end, and still just a silly thing to do not WW3.

Cheers,

Baub.

I'm happy to agree to disagree. Clearly I think it was a long way from trivial. We'll see what Vettel does the next time the mist descends......

[BillWiskins]

I don't think there has been an overreaction.

I do think that in any given situation, a driver's number one responsibility regardless of status or fame or championship position is to not drive into the car in front. I hope we all agree on that bit - I do accept that racing narrows the margins somewhat, of course.

If we also take the stewards' position that Hamilton didn't do anything abnormal (personally, I think we have to accept that otherwise we're back to conspiracies and then where will it ever end) then what we have is a human (an extraordinarily talented and very handsomely compensated one, but still a human) making a mistake. Happens all the time. I expected a "What are we doing here?!" outburst and a demand for Charlie Whiting to penalise Lewis followed a few laps later by a "no further action". Maybe some grumpy radio from Hamilton, maybe he loses his vision, just your normal Formula 1 fun.

But... I just can't get over the next bit. Really sorry, I just don't understand how anyone can look at that deliberate swipe and go "yep, good old fashioned racing!"

It can't be 'just handbags', or however it was referred to earlier.

"Oh, he only drove into him at safety car speeds, leave him alone."

"Ah, but he only drove into him in a slow corner, let him be."

"Well, he only caused minor damage, what's the problem?"

"Come on, he only punctured one tyre, where's the harm?"

Yeah, I'm being ridiculous (I hope...) but my point is, if this is allowable, then where do we cross the line into something worth over-reacting to?

If I was race director or whoever makes the call, I'd have had Ferrari call him in exactly one second later and send him home while I work out how many races he's banned for.

[Matt]

Different views from different parts of the world.

[Aysedasi]

Originally Posted by BillWiskins

I don't think there has been an overreaction.

I do think that in any given situation, a driver's number one responsibility regardless of status or fame or championship position is to not drive into the car in front. I hope we all agree on that bit - I do accept that racing narrows the margins somewhat, of course.

If we also take the stewards' position that Hamilton didn't do anything abnormal (personally, I think we have to accept that otherwise we're back to conspiracies and then where will it ever end) then what we have is a human (an extraordinarily talented and very handsomely compensated one, but still a human) making a mistake. Happens all the time. I expected a "What are we doing here?!" outburst and a demand for Charlie Whiting to penalise Lewis followed a few laps later by a "no further action". Maybe some grumpy radio from Hamilton, maybe he loses his vision, just your normal Formula 1 fun.

But... I just can't get over the next bit. Really sorry, I just don't understand how anyone can look at that deliberate swipe and go "yep, good old fashioned racing!"

It can't be 'just handbags', or however it was referred to earlier.

"Oh, he only drove into him at safety car speeds, leave him alone."

"Ah, but he only drove into him in a slow corner, let him be."

"Well, he only caused minor damage, what's the problem?"

"Come on, he only punctured one tyre, where's the harm?"

Yeah, I'm being ridiculous (I hope...) but my point is, if this is allowable, then where do we cross the line into something worth over-reacting to?

If I was race director or whoever makes the call, I'd have had Ferrari call him in exactly one second later and send him home while I work out how many races he's banned for.

Yep, with you all the way there Bill.

[S griffin]

Let me start by saying that it is not right that a driver finishes second after being a lap down, because he got lucky with the SC free pass rule. In my view it is not fair, unless you introduce a token SC for every race. Yes, Bottas did a good job, but it is a very hollow second place. If you're a lap down you should unlap yourself on your own merit, not given to you just because you got lucky with a SC. Bottas actually looked like he would unlap himself anyway before the SC came out

The race itself was farcical at times. Failing timing screens, SC going too slow, SC period going on too long, too much debris on track due to too much aero on modern cars and as for Seb, whatever Lewis did, you cannot take the law into your own hands. Seb is a great driver, but as we saw in Mexico last season if he feels unjust he lets the red mist get the better of him

Stroll I am proud of, I would love to see people criticise him now. As Mario Andretti said if you can drive, you can drive period. After looking lost at Monaco, he has really come on leaps and bounds the last two races. Hope he continues to do better

Max must have wondered if he ran over a black cat recently, as too often he has been put out of a good position by bad luck. He needs a change of it soon. However take nothing away from the Honey Badger, yes he got lucky, but what a brilliant drive from being a bit down

The Valterri/Kimi incident, well Valterri tried to give him room and bounced off the kerb into Kimi, while about the two Force Indias, I feel Ocon could have given Checo more room on the exit

Finally, it's so good to see Fred finish in the points, he deserves it more than Honda

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by bella

why is it up to the leader to dictate the pace? because the safety car isn't there (or fast enough) to do it for them?

IndyCar doesn't have these problems.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by JHamilton

.

What ever happened to Nuno Bettencourt?

[Tourer]

Originally Posted by bjohnsonsmith

He said he can't explain why the rules say that. #160

There must be some explanation or logic behind the rule, somewhere..

The "leader sets the pace" approach taken by the FIA was part of the approach used from when safety cars were first introduced into FIA racing (to replace the previous approach of red-flagging then re-starting the race). I think that happened in the mid/late nineties from memory but happy to be corrected on that.

So 20 or more years ago. Seems to have worked in most situation over those 20 or so years but I suspect that the actual explanation or logic behind the rule would be lost in the mists of time - although we could all take a good guess.

The current F1 system of the SC driving away from the field LONG before the control line is probably more of a culprit than the "leader sets the pace" rule IMHO. Baku highlighted this - it might be that the activation point at Baku is changed in future years based on Sunday's somewhat messy SC re-starts (not just the "red mist" one - they were all at least slightly shambolic).

[JHamilton]

Originally Posted by Tourer

The "leader sets the pace" approach taken by the FIA was part of the approach used from when safety cars were first introduced into FIA racing (to replace the previous approach of red-flagging then re-starting the race). I think that happened in the mid/late nineties from memory but happy to be corrected on that.

So 20 or more years ago. Seems to have worked in most situation over those 20 or so years but I suspect that the actual explanation or logic behind the rule would be lost in the mists of time - although we could all take a good guess.

The current F1 system of the SC driving away from the field LONG before the control line is probably more of a culprit than the "leader sets the pace" rule IMHO. Baku highlighted this - it might be that the activation point at Baku is changed in future years based on Sunday's somewhat messy SC re-starts (not just the "red mist" one - they were all at least slightly shambolic).

Great post, thanks. I forget how comparitively rare SC are in F1 sometimes.

On those rare occasions, I think there is room for improvement. Usually the 2nd place driver is waaaaay too far back! Not this time!

[Paradise City]

From my patchy memory it was brought in near Imola 94 but before Senna's death.

[Matt]

Originally Posted by Tourer

The "leader sets the pace" approach taken by the FIA was part of the approach used from when safety cars were first introduced into FIA racing (to replace the previous approach of red-flagging then re-starting the race). I think that happened in the mid/late nineties from memory but happy to be corrected on that.

So 20 or more years ago. Seems to have worked in most situation over those 20 or so years but I suspect that the actual explanation or logic behind the rule would be lost in the mists of time - although we could all take a good guess.

The current F1 system of the SC driving away from the field LONG before the control line is probably more of a culprit than the "leader sets the pace" rule IMHO. Baku highlighted this - it might be that the activation point at Baku is changed in future years based on Sunday's somewhat messy SC re-starts (not just the "red mist" one - they were all at least slightly shambolic).

This.

As I stated before, the point at which the field was restarting on Sunday was a whopping 2.5km from the control line.

[F1Guy]

Originally Posted by BillWiskins

I don't think there has been an overreaction.

I do think that in any given situation, a driver's number one responsibility regardless of status or fame or championship position is to not drive into the car in front. I hope we all agree on that bit - I do accept that racing narrows the margins somewhat, of course.

If we also take the stewards' position that Hamilton didn't do anything abnormal (personally, I think we have to accept that otherwise we're back to conspiracies and then where will it ever end) then what we have is a human (an extraordinarily talented and very handsomely compensated one, but still a human) making a mistake. Happens all the time. I expected a "What are we doing here?!" outburst and a demand for Charlie Whiting to penalise Lewis followed a few laps later by a "no further action". Maybe some grumpy radio from Hamilton, maybe he loses his vision, just your normal Formula 1 fun.

But... I just can't get over the next bit. Really sorry, I just don't understand how anyone can look at that deliberate swipe and go "yep, good old fashioned racing!"

It can't be 'just handbags', or however it was referred to earlier.

"Oh, he only drove into him at safety car speeds, leave him alone."

"Ah, but he only drove into him in a slow corner, let him be."

"Well, he only caused minor damage, what's the problem?"

"Come on, he only punctured one tyre, where's the harm?"

Yeah, I'm being ridiculous (I hope...) but my point is, if this is allowable, then where do we cross the line into something worth over-reacting to?

If I was race director or whoever makes the call, I'd have had Ferrari call him in exactly one second later and send him home while I work out how many races he's banned for.

Best post on this thread. Agree with you 100%.

[johnh875]

To me Hamilton several times appeared to breach reg 39.10, by not keeping within 10 lengths of the SC, including when the incident occurred - SC lights were still on at that point! So it may not even be a case of the lead car dictating the pace, although I would have to say that slowing down on the exit of a corner when you are leading the field should be termed "erratic"; holding speed you could argue.

Still I think Vettel got off very lightly for what he did to, and his reaction afterwards was typical.

Does F1 state where their first SC control line is for Baku? I know it has been noted for other tracks.

[Akrapovic]

Originally Posted by bjohnsonsmith

IndyCar doesn't have these problems.

Nor does ELMS, WEC, AsLMS, IMSA, etc. The list is actually pretty huge.

[F1Guy]

Wonder what the stewards decision would have been if Vettel's second deliberate hit on Hamilton, had damaged something on the left front, which then meant Hamilton had to pit to fix the damage, or even retire from the race? What if Vettel went onto to finish 4th, while Hamilton fell further back, or DNF's because of Vettel's deliberate actions?


Also, the cynic in me was thinking the call to fix Hamilton's headrest and the stop-go for Vettel coming at almost at the same time had a bit of a "show/entertainment" element to it. To swap the headrest would take about 10 seconds, Vettel also then get's 10 seconds (should have been much more), and then they both end up on the track next to each other.

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by F1Guy

Also, the cynic in me was thinking the call to fix Hamilton's headrest and the stop-go for Vettel coming at almost at the same time had a bit of a "show/entertainment" element to it. To swap the headrest would take about 10 seconds, Vettel also then get's 10 seconds (should have been much more), and then they both end up on the track next to each other.

I'd put the tin hat away.

[F1Guy]

Originally Posted by crmalcolm

I'd put the tin hat away.

You're probably right. Thanks for letting me borrow it for a minute though.

[bauble]

Many years ago when the safety car was first introduced into the regulations, I asked Michele Alboreto who was driving for Footwork at the time, if he thought it was a device to spice up the racing rather than a safety feature.

Michele gave wry smile and said; " I know my chickens."

I have never heard the expression before or since, but his opinion was plain, and it was not concerning safety issues.