GP2 - Belgium Weekend Thread

[strider]

This would be totally wrong, but maybe they thought, with hindsight, that they had been overly harsh with Senna and that they should level the playing field.

[Adri_tifosi]

Simply incredible.

Senna has to win yes or yes.

[Bleu]

The thing with grid penalties is that you lose more if you are in the front. Pantano finished 21st so he would have recieved actually 5-place grid penalty even if penalty is considered as 10-place penalty. Or actually 4-place, because I'm sure that Valsecchi is out of tomorrow's race.

I was also thinking how unlucky d'Ambrosio has been as he finished 9th in the feature for fourth time this year. But this time he got lucky with Zuber's disqualification so he's on pole.

[BootsOntheSide]

The officials have effectively declared that mechanics in GP2 are worth more than mechanics in F1. Senna was slow away due to wheelspin on a damp piece of track, not through the team releasing him at a dangerous time. It was a harsh penalty, but perhaps it wouldn't seem quite as bad if Ferrari had been penalised for their offence.

Pantano lost it after his problem under the safety car, with a succession of mistakes and ragged moves. It'd be forgiveable for a rookie to do these things, but a driver with so much experience should be able to keep calm. di Grassi has been robbed of the sprint race pole and a possible championship challenge, whereas Pantano's disqualification has barely penalised him.

Very unfortunate for Zuber to be disqualified after such a strong drive, I just hope the penalty was fair.

[Teretonga]

The issue isn't really whether Senna's penalty is justified. If those are the rules then they should be applied.

However they would now have a problem applying the same rules to any F1 driver in the light of Massa's penalty in Valencia. Imagine what would happen if they gave Hamilton a DQ if the same situation arose tomorrow that massa got the $10 000 fine for...?
Inconsistency will bite them back every time...

[Mekola]

Can't wait to see what happens tomorrow...

[Jackman]

Originally Posted by Go_For_Pole

I suppose that was not his plan. Also I find the penalty totally unexplainable, grid penalties were handed out for such things, now suddenly it is a DQ. Why don't they exclude Pantano from Monza as well and get it done with?

Pantano nerfed di Grassi and he also overtook Nunes behind the safety car, so that's 2 penalties. He was 21st and any penalties has to take place at the next race, so it can't be held over to Monza, so I imagine that's why he was disqualified from the event - it's not ideal, but at least he is seen to get penalised, even if in reality he wasn't as there were no points for him today anyway from the back of the grid.

[Go_For_Pole]

ok, if this the rationale, next time say a Honda F1 car blows an engine instead of going back 10 places on the grid they will DQ it right? I mean they would not get any points and who gives a damn about sponsors anyway...

Oh and one othet thing. if overtaking under the sc was such a crime there was all the time in the world for Pantano to be penalised during the race, let alone being told to give the place back. And while we are at it, who told Parente and the rest to overtake? Pantano was not stationary as in the Monaco incident, as we saw he didn't make a gesture to Parente, race control surely didn't order Parente to go by so why?

[Adri_tifosi]

AFAIK Maldonado did the same or worse with Di Grassi and nobody exclude him

[Jackman]

Originally Posted by Go_For_Pole

ok, if this the rationale, next time say a Honda F1 car blows an engine instead of going back 10 places on the grid they will DQ it right? I mean they would not get any points and who gives a damn about sponsors anyway...

Oh and one othet thing. if overtaking under the sc was such a crime there was all the time in the world for Pantano to be penalised during the race, let alone being told to give the place back. And while we are at it, who told Parente and the rest to overtake? Pantano was not stationary as in the Monaco incident, as we saw he didn't make a gesture to Parente, race control surely didn't order Parente to go by so why?

That's a ludicrous comparison.

Pantano wasn't penalised for the safety car incident during the race because I believe it wasn't seen at the time, but the other drivers have the same right to overtake him when he stopped as anyone has to go past a stalled driver on the grid.

[Icebaby]

So the "unsave release" of a car rears its head again, rules state this will constitute a penalty, fair enough but if the FIA are looning for consistancy you can't hand out different punishments for the same offence even though there in two seperate races.

On the basis of this Senna has every right to feel agrevied, had Ayton been about I am sure he would be commenting hard on the matter.

Senna for me was the man who should have won the race and drove well even to get back to 11th.

Pantano being excluded, again this would not happen in F1 if a lead driver commited the same offence IMO, the FIA appear to hand fines out which they know the teams can afford and bring money to them as an organisation, the GP2 teams have far less resource.

This "unsafe release" thing annoys me, apply the same penalty and everyone knows where they are and Massa should not have escaped the same fate and then blame the other driver "just a backmarker as Massa said) for having the nerve to be going down the pit lane at the same time as he was exiting...maybe Senna should have used this as his defence as well...

[chunterer]

So folks as the thread reflects, it was a highly controversial, dramatic and entrtaining feature race.

I was jumping about in my seat watching that one!!

I guess Pantano brought trouble on himself in a way because he was driving like someone who'd been told that this was his last race ever or something. He seemed to lose the plot a bit!

Great racing though, Maldonado versus Petrov, then Buemi and then Zuber was top value!

Senna took a helluva lot of pressure early on from Alvaro and it was clear to me that some teams cars worked a damn sight better on a 'wet' set up than a dry one!!!

Piquet's cars faded after the start and then came back to life on slicks, I sport struggled a bit in the wet and then were quick in the dry too. Campos cars on the other hand seemed to revel in the awkward conditions earlier on. Both Petrov and Di Grassi were mighty early on.

Di Grassi drove an absolute blinder to get upto 9th was it before he was unceremoniously dumped out of proceedings!!

I thought it interesting afterwards when Senna was interviewed by 'bright spark Charlie' that he thought the stewards could've taken the damp pit lane into consideration. He said that if it was dry he would've cleared the Durango car when the lollypop was released and there wouldn't have been any issue. I guess his argument being how could the stewards penalise anyone for this as no one was to know the lack of traction would lead him into the other car's path?

Any thoughts on that one folks?

[Piglet]

Originally Posted by chunterer

Any thoughts on that one folks?

...About as believable as Massa's "the other car should have moved other" claim from Valencia

[chunterer]

Senna out, bent his wing after getting sucked into a Grosjean Kobayashi battle midway through.

SC came out after Valerio shortened his car, helping Maldonado close in on D'Ambrosio and Soucek. Soucek later stacked it at Paul Frere, the scene of an unbelievable save from Grosjean a few laps earlier when he did a 360 and kept it out of the barriers, continuing.

Maldonado pulls off a stunning victory though, taking poor D'Ambrosio on the last lap, yes in his favourite place at the top of the hill into Les Combes!!

A timely note to anyone in F1 and GP2 that he's still a man to watch......

[BootsOntheSide]

Pantano can think himself incredibly lucky this weekend. He finally has a mechanical problem after a season of perfect reliability, and it overlaps with a debatable penalty for his rival. Worse still, he effectively went unpunished for the Safety Car overtakes as he had no hope of scoring points form the back, and his punishment for the di Grassi incident was only the places he lost through the spin. His smug "they've given me a holiday" attitude on the ITV4 interview sums him up pretty well.

Great move from Maldonado, unfortunate for d'Ambrosio but I'm sure he'd've settled for 2nd before the race. Valsecchi was hugely impressive considering that he'd been in hospital overnight.

[Go_For_Pole]

Originally Posted by Jackman

That's a ludicrous comparison.

In what sense?

Originally Posted by Jackman

Pantano wasn't penalised for the safety car incident during the race because I believe it wasn't seen at the time, but the other drivers have the same right to overtake him when he stopped as anyone has to go past a stalled driver on the grid.

"wasn't seen" is not much of an excuse considering it was clearly shown live on the tv feed. If they failed to see it, they should be more penalised than Pantano. And Pantano was not stopped when others overtook him. Granted he was going desperately slowly but tell me which rule allowed Parente to make a decision that he should go by. If Pantano had pulled over or stopped or indicated to other to pass, then ok.

Anyway, having seen today's race, Senna can not be seriously considered championship material. It is no coincidence that he has not had a single championship to his cv.

[Bleu]

During the SC you have to stay within certain length to car ahead and gap between Pantano and Senna was clearly more than that.

[Go_For_Pole]

so the rule says that Parente was right to get by?

[brands]

The GP2 stewards were correct to punish Senna, as they were to punish his team mate in Valencia for a very dangerous practice.

It was the F1 stewards who "bottled it" by not having the nerve to act during the race against Massa and then further compounded it by the slap on the wrist penalty post race.

I assume they are different stewards but would have thought they would be reading the same rulebook, still the FIA and consistency never go together.

[ivanalesi]

Are the GP2 stewards the same as F1's? In anyway, they just messed up everything. It's remarkable... Neither Bruno or Giorgio had to be punished this way. Anyway, if Giorgio gets pole in Monza, which he's favourite to do, then I think the championship is his. Just from an amusement point of view, I was angry that he punted di Grassi, it would had been very interesting to have real 3 way fight at Monza. Shame for Maldonado, they had some problems in races mid-season, he could have been contender for the championship.

[Icebaby]

Originally Posted by brands

The GP2 stewards were correct to punish Senna, as they were to punish his team mate in Valencia for a very dangerous practice.

It was the F1 stewards who "bottled it" by not having the nerve to act during the race against Massa and then further compounded it by the slap on the wrist penalty post race.

I assume they are different stewards but would have thought they would be reading the same rulebook, still the FIA and consistency never go together.

Same steward as far as i am aware with Charlie Whiting in race control, same rule book under FIA hence the disparity between the F1 decision and GP2, an unsafe release is what it is and therefore the rule should apply across all forms of motorsport under FIA rules with a drive through.

[JamesRamone]

has Valscesschi been credited with 6th place yet?

[Mekola]

Originally Posted by Go_For_Pole

Anyway, having seen today's race, Senna can not be seriously considered championship material. It is no coincidence that he has not had a single championship to his cv.

Remember that he has a huge handicap on his CV (10 years outside racing). What caused that handicap (the family refusal to let him drive due to the death of his uncle). And who is his real main rival (Nelsinho Piquet, no other!). These points could explain easily the difficulties that Bruno has to cope on his racing career, aside everyday racing matters that all drivers have to affront.

[Mekola]

Originally Posted by chunterer

Maldonado pulls off a stunning victory though, taking poor D'Ambrosio on the last lap, yes in his favourite place at the top of the hill into Les Combes!!

Cheers to Maldonado and his team. Have to remember if Maldonado's favourite place to overtake is the same track section where Gonzalo RodrÃ*guez did the same to Montoya on his way to victory, on the 1998 F3000 race.

[chunterer]

Well I was wondering similar things this morning but about 1999 not '98!! Whilst it wasn't quite on the scale of Gonzo's monster commitment up through there on his comeback to 2nd in '99 (i've never seen a driver with balls like that ever on that day in '99!), Pastor was certainly quicker up through Eau Rouge than most people, towing up behind his 'prey' on numerous occasions in both races.

He was also hugely late on the brakes!!!

Based on what Maldonado did over the 2 races, Zuber did bloody well to repel him at the end of the first race it has to be said!

Another move that stood out for me was Kobayashi's on Grosjean around the outside of Kemmel (I think?) on lap 1 this morning. Class.