[Official] Italian Grand Prix 2021: Grand Prix Weekend Thread

[Skam85]

Originally Posted by Teretonga

The second is the notion that you can effectively pass in Rettifilo and that T2 is possible for two cars to RACE around side b side without someone being pushed off or disadvantaged. Its NOT. Not under racing conditions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TB5yhZdF8SI

5:12 onwards. Pretty fair and comparable pass from last year. Sainz was a little further along the road than Verstappen this year but Kimi opened his steering slightly and gave room.

[Born Racer]

Thanks, Skam85, and that's a good comparison to see how Hamilton was pretty aggressive in how he squeezed Verstappen. It was a 'back off or we crash' philosophy, which has become too prevalent, but is partly a consequence of circuit design.

[Skam85]

Originally Posted by Born Racer

Thanks, Skam85, and that's a good comparison to see how Hamilton was pretty aggressive in how he squeezed Verstappen. It was a 'back off or we crash' philosophy, which has become too prevalent, but is partly a consequence of circuit design.

Absolutely right. Neither backed down but Hamilton at no point opened his steering. It was probably 52/48 Max's fault so what's done is done. I personally love this drama between the two of them and hope it continues right down until the last lap of Abu Dhabi. Not only that, these clashes give guys at other teams their time to shine which is always good to see.

[Teretonga]

Originally Posted by Skam85

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TB5yhZdF8SI

5:12 onwards. Pretty fair and comparable pass from last year. Sainz was a little further along the road than Verstappen this year but Kimi opened his steering slightly and gave room.

Yes both good clean passes but I'd stand by my comments.
In both cases the car on the outside was fully alongside. (I'm including Stroll at the 2nd chicane)
Raikkonen on the inside therefore had to give room and was unable to take the chicane at his normal RACING speed.

The drivers being overtaking had their speed through the chicane compromised because they were being overtaken
In effect both overtakes began under braking, before turning in. So both over takes were well under way before they entered the chicane.
It can be done but it requires the co-operation of the driver being overtaken.

This is nothing like the HAM/Max situation on Sunday. In both cases in 2020 the overtaking car was well forward of where Max was relative to Ham.
Sainz at Rettifilo was even slightly forward of the car on the inside. He HAD to be given room

[Skam85]

Originally Posted by Teretonga

Yes both good clean passes but I'd stand by my comments.
In both cases the car on the outside was fully alongside. (I'm including Stroll at the 2nd chicane)
Raikkonen on the inside therefore had to give room and was unable to take the chicane at his normal RACING speed.

The drivers being overtaking had their speed through the chicane compromised because they were being overtaken
In effect both overtakes began under braking, before turning in. So both over takes were well under way before they entered the chicane.
It can be done but it requires the co-operation of the driver being overtaken.

This is nothing like the HAM/Max situation on Sunday. In both cases in 2020 the overtaking car was well forward of where Max was relative to Ham.
Sainz at Rettifilo was even slightly forward of the car on the inside. He HAD to be given room

Yes but your statement was that two cars cannot physically race side by side into the first chicane without someone going off track. That video clearly shows they can.

[Aysedasi]

Originally Posted by Skam85

Yes but your statement was that two cars cannot physically race side by side into the first chicane without someone going off track. That video clearly shows they can.

Yeah, maybe, but perhaps not when you have the two leading contenders for the WDC going into that chicane, neither of whom believe they should be giving quarter to the other - particularly in Max's case. He is, without doubt, a 'no quarter' driver.

[Teretonga]

Originally Posted by Skam85

Yes but your statement was that two cars cannot physically race side by side into the first chicane without someone going off track. That video clearly shows they can.

Well think about what I actually wrote.

I said the car being overtaken had their speed through the chicane compromised. That should be obvious.
I also noted that Sainz and Stroll both were 100% alongside the other car. In racing terms the overtaking has been partially completed while they are still in a straight line.
They are well forward of where they need to be to recognize that the action has begun. In Rettifilo Kimi knew Sainz was there and was at least totally alongside.

Sainz was also faster, much faster over the race distance. Kimi is also committed to the corner but he's not going to interfere because he knows he's being overtaken.
Is Kimi RACING Carlos Sainz. No. He is being overtaken by a faster car that has had a tyre change He makes room for him in a difficult part of the course.
When I use the term 'racing' I mean competing. Kimi was not competing for that piece of the track with Carlos. Yes they were in the same race but operating at different levels.
Stroll on the other hand at Chicane two which is a little more open really did extremely well to get alongside and then turn in and complete the over take by the time they exited. But again he had cooperation from the other car.

My whole purpose in answering the people in this discussion is to help them understand how the FIA system actually works.
It is based on a set of principles that are actually simple and effective but like most things aren't written down because every incident is taken in isolation and there is no way a written set of regulations could adequately cover every point. They need some flexibility to handle the variations.

But from the comments here most people assume that what they are seeing is the same set of circumstances, and its not the same set of circumstances. Max on Hamilton is NOTHING like Sainz on Kimi a year earlier.
Not at all.
And my comment about it not being possible? You would have to look through everything Ive said in the last three days to put it all in context.....

[wnut]

Originally Posted by Born Racer

Thanks, Skam85, and that's a good comparison to see how Hamilton was pretty aggressive in how he squeezed Verstappen. It was a 'back off or we crash' philosophy, which has become too prevalent, but is partly a consequence of circuit design.

i do think that there is a case for applying the car width racing room philosophy rigidly. In this instance, if Hamilton had given Verstappen a car width on the inside of the corner and Verstappen runs into him, Verstappen's fault, no car width Hamilton's fault. This would still prevent someone dive bombing down the inside from miles back, because all that would be left is a car width, slide wide and face the penalties, cut the other car's nose off penalty.
This would cut down on incidents, and promote racing between cars imo.
We now have the means to assess these incidents, so I guess blame and running out of talent would be clearly determinable if there was a hard standard.

Perhaps penalties should be assessed by a standing panel/ court who assess the penalties that should apply and take points away for transgressions, this way you will end up with rational and clear and reasoned decisions, rather than knee jerk penalties assessed in the heat of the moment and applied to people without a means of redress.

[Teretonga]

Originally Posted by wnut

i do think that there is a case for applying the car width racing room philosophy rigidly. In this instance, if Hamilton had given Verstappen a car width on the inside of the corner and Verstappen runs into him, Verstappen's fault, no car width Hamilton's fault. This would still prevent someone dive bombing down the inside from miles back, because all that would be left is a car width, slide wide and face the penalties, cut the other car's nose off penalty.
This would cut down on incidents, and promote racing between cars imo.
We now have the means to assess these incidents, so I guess blame and running out of talent would be clearly determinable if there was a hard standard.

Perhaps penalties should be assessed by a standing panel/ court who assess the penalties that should apply and take points away for transgressions, this way you will end up with rational and clear and reasoned decisions, rather than knee jerk penalties assessed in the heat of the moment and applied to people without a means of redress.

If people knew how much time and effort goes into making the right decision they would understand how rarely anything is a knee jerk reaction by a stewards panel, and that is just from my experience at a national level.
In F1 nothing is a knee jerk reaction.
You may disagree with some decisions as we all do but it is not s group of blokes making off the cuff decisions with no justification.
The process at F1 level is rigorous, far more so than most of the people here on ten tenths realize.

[Born Racer]

Originally Posted by Skam85

Yes but your statement was that two cars cannot physically race side by side into the first chicane without someone going off track. That video clearly shows they can.

I would also accept that there are corners where drivers' lines and speed are compromised during an overtake - the question is where that acceptable point is and how the other driver compromises you (e.g. opening steering, not turning in on their normal apex to defend, etc).

[Sodemo]

I much preferred the older T1 chicane at Monza. No idea why it was changed as it’s certainly a less interesting corner now.

[S griffin]

Can't help but feel that what we're seeing with Lewis and Max, is what could have happened with Senna and Schumacher, had Senna not died. After all the scenarios in both are the same. The established great vs the young pretender trying to take away trying to dethrone him

[wnut]

Originally Posted by Teretonga

If people knew how much time and effort goes into making the right decision they would understand how rarely anything is a knee jerk reaction by a stewards panel, and that is just from my experience at a national level.
In F1 nothing is a knee jerk reaction.
You may disagree with some decisions as we all do but it is not s group of blokes making off the cuff decisions with no justification.
The process at F1 level is rigorous, far more so than most of the people here on ten tenths realize.

There was a howler with Bottas jumping the start a while ago.
The stewards said he did not jump the start, yet the in car video evidence clearly showed he both jumped the start and did not stop again at any stage.
This would not happen in if there was more time to make the decison.

Mazepin trying to kill Mick at Monaco by turning into him on the straight as he came up to overtake is another incident that should not have esvcaped notice.

The stewards are human and time pressure and overload results in wrong decisions.

Another joke is having to bring evidence that was not available to the stewards at the time of a decision to an appeal. At times the evidence may have been available to the stewards, but they clearly did not look at it, or misinterpreted said information. This should be admissible at an appeal.

[Teretonga]

Originally Posted by Born Racer

I would also accept that there are corners where drivers' lines and speed are compromised during an overtake - the question is where that acceptable point is and how the other driver compromises you (e.g. opening steering, not turning in on their normal apex to defend, etc).

Good question.
In Supercars it is the B pillar, the back of the drivers door, when you are coming in on the inside. So 'alongside' doesn't actually occur until your nose is alongside the drivers door. Until then he doesn't have to give you room.
In F1 you would need to be well alongside for peripheral vision so I'd think you'd need to to have your front wheels, at least in front of the side radiators, almost wheel to wheel.

In karting the rule of thumb was your nose cone level with the front wheels. Any further back you shouldn't have been in there.

SKAM85's Monza 2020 highlights showed Sainz on Kimi and Sainz on the outside at 100% alongside before turn in and I would think that was almost certain if the overtake was going to be successful.

View in modern cars is not great and if he cant see you chances aren't so good. The outside car also needs a performance advantage Such as Sainz had over Kimi at Monza 2020.

And that was in a straight line, before turn in, so Kimi knew he was being overtaken, and it wasn't difficult for either of them. But that is why there is so much confusion here about leaving racing room, particularly at Rettifilo.

What people are saying is alongside is NOT alongside under the principles of racing. Because brakes are so efficient and road holding so strong what was acceptable in the 80's in F1 isn't workable now.
Efficiency has its negative side and the standards have changed.

[Aysedasi]

Originally Posted by wnut

Mazepin trying to kill Mick at Monaco by turning into him on the straight as he came up to overtake is another incident that should not have esvcaped notice.

I don't think he was trying to do that, was he? The use of over-emotive descriptions really doesn't help that much. The move may have been crass but to imply more is just plain daft.

[wnut]

Originally Posted by Aysedasi

I don't think he was trying to do that, was he? The use of over-emotive descriptions really doesn't help that much. The move may have been crass but to imply more is just plain daft.

Mick's words.

[S griffin]

I think it’s Baku you are thinking of when that incident happened

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by Teretonga

Good question.
In Supercars it is the B pillar, the back of the drivers door, when you are coming in on the inside. So 'alongside' doesn't actually occur until your nose is alongside the drivers door. Until then he doesn't have to give you room.
In F1 you would need to be well alongside for peripheral vision so I'd think you'd need to to have your front wheels, at least in front of the side radiators, almost wheel to wheel.

In the context of this discussion, I think it is interesting to look at what has been removed from the regulation.

Up until 2017, the F1 Sporting Regulations contained the following statement:
'Any driver defending his position on a straight, and before any braking area, may use the full width of the track during his first move, provided no significant portion of the car attempting to pass is alongside his. Whilst defending in this way the driver may not leave the track without justifiable reason.
For the avoidance of doubt, if any part of the front wing of the car attempting to pass is alongside the rear wheel of the car in front this will be deemed to be a ‘significant portion’.'

This sat alongside the ISC that included:
'Any driver moving back towards the racing line, having earlier defended his position off-line, should leave at least one car width between his own car and the edge of the track on the approach to the corner.'

So if we were to look at an incident in the 2016 season, it seems to be that a driver can use the full track width unless another car has their front wing alongside your rear wheel (or further) up until the braking zone, at which point regardless of where another car is, if you are moving back to the racing line you have to leave a full car width.

From 2018 onwards, the definition of alongside was removed from the F1 Sporting Regulations at the same time as 'causing a collision' was added to the ISC. The effect of this is that it is now the judgement of the Stewards as to whether an attacking driver is far enough alongside that the defending driver is deemed to have caused the collision (if one occurs).

So looking at the recent T2 incident at Monza - the Stewards have determined that Verstappen was not far enough alongside going into T1 (as mentioned in their decision) and therefore Hamilton was not (predominantly) at fault for the collision in T2.

I'm not saying I agree or disagree with the decision, but I can see how it was logically reached under the current regulations.


EDIT: - lifted from another thread, I wonder if this is part of why the definition of alongside was removed because it was not situation-dependent?

Originally Posted by Mike Harte

There is a vast difference to being alongside going in to a corner if you are attempting a passing manoeuvrer on the inside to trying it on the outside. I would contend that if going down the inside then the car in front is required to at least try to make racing room or concede the corner, whilst if taking the outside route, it is your responsibility to leave the other driver racing room.

[Aysedasi]

Originally Posted by wnut

Mick's words.

Makes no difference. We both know that Mazepin wasn't trying to kill him.

[ascarracinguk]

Originally Posted by wnut

There was a howler with Bottas jumping the start a while ago.
The stewards said he did not jump the start, yet the in car video evidence clearly showed he both jumped the start and did not stop again at any stage.
This would not happen in if there was more time to make the decison.

Mazepin trying to kill Mick at Monaco by turning into him on the straight as he came up to overtake is another incident that should not have esvcaped notice.

The stewards are human and time pressure and overload results in wrong decisions.

Another joke is having to bring evidence that was not available to the stewards at the time of a decision to an appeal. At times the evidence may have been available to the stewards, but they clearly did not look at it, or misinterpreted said information. This should be admissible at an appeal.

Bottas didnt jump the start per rules. theres an inbuilt lag/margin of error built into the system so while it appears he jumped the start, he didnt break the rules so they made the correct decision.

Yes stewards are human, and yes they can make errors, but more often than not they make the correct decision, however from the outside when people think theyve made the wrong decision, you are basing that on having far less information than the stewards.

Take Turn 1 for instance with Max and Lewis. A lot of people cant understand why they penalised Max. The same people dont have all of the camera angles, throttle traces, brake traces, steering traces, previous laps to compare with etc etc etc.

While their decisions can sometimes seem interesting, when you have all of the information, the nuances of an incident start to come out.

[wnut]

Originally Posted by ascarracinguk

Bottas didnt jump the start per rules. theres an inbuilt lag/margin of error built into the system so while it appears he jumped the start, he didnt break the rules so they made the correct decision.

Yes stewards are human, and yes they can make errors, but more often than not they make the correct decision, however from the outside when people think theyve made the wrong decision, you are basing that on having far less information than the stewards.

Take Turn 1 for instance with Max and Lewis. A lot of people cant understand why they penalised Max. The same people dont have all of the camera angles, throttle traces, brake traces, steering traces, previous laps to compare with etc etc etc.

While their decisions can sometimes seem interesting, when you have all of the information, the nuances of an incident start to come out.

Hence the decisions should be documented and subject to appeal.

[Taxi645]

Originally Posted by Teretonga

If people knew how much time and effort goes into making the right decision they would understand how rarely anything is a knee jerk reaction by a stewards panel, and that is just from my experience at a national level.
In F1 nothing is a knee jerk reaction.
You may disagree with some decisions as we all do but it is not s group of blokes making off the cuff decisions with no justification.
The process at F1 level is rigorous, far more so than most of the people here on ten tenths realize.

Personally, I think there doing quite a good job and improving lately. They generally have to work with rules that I mostly, but not completely agree with for reasons explained earlier. In this case however I feel the verdict is quite bizarre and as said, does provide an extremely undesirable precedent.

I'll explain further. Reread this part of the explanation they gave:
“Car 33 [Verstappen] was on the main straight. At the 50m board before Turn 1, car 44 was significantly ahead of car 33.

“Car 33 braked late and started to move alongside car 44, although at no point in the sequence does car 33 get any further forward than just behind the front wheel of car 44."

Now keep this in mind and imagine for a second that Verstappen was on the inside instead of on the outside. So the guy on the inside was significantly behind, braked late and never got any further than just behind the front wheel of the guy on the outside, but an no point left insufficient space for the outside guy. Nothing further happened and they raced jolly on. A scene we have witnessed without ever giving it a second thought a hundred times, just normal racing.

Then after a while the guy on the inside out of the blue gets a 5 second penalty....

....everyone falls off their chair and goes: ""For WHAT!?

The explanation of the for the penalty reads:
“Car 44 [Hamilton] was exiting the pits. Car 33 [Verstappen] was on the main straight. At the 50m board before Turn 1, car 44 was significantly ahead of car 33.

“Car 33 braked late and started to move alongside car 44, although at no point in the sequence does car 33 get any further forward than just behind the front wheel of car 44."

Yes, the exact same section of the explanation given by the Stewards for the Monza incident.

Do you see what I'm saying? Everyone in the paddock and everyone on this forum would have called it a bizarre verdict. However, just because Verstappen was on the outside (starting on the race line BTW), this verdict is supposed to be logical?

The very undesirable precedent set by this verdict is thus in stead of protect the more vulnerable guy (the one on the outside), this verdict does the exact opposite and poses even stricter criteria on the outside car.

In stead of promoting people having to give each other racing room for the sake of fair racing and promoting wheel to wheel battle, someone is excused by the stewards for doing the opposite.

As said, both could've avoided the crash and I understand Lewis, because Verstappen would've probably left him no room on the the exit of T2 and the stewards would've done nothing about it quite likely as this allowed to happen far too often in my book. They just should've called it a racing incident and everyone would've been fine with it and it wouldn't have set such a wrong precedent.



Also compare it to the Perez Leclerc incident in Austria and especially look at the relative wheel positions at the apex and on the exit, it's almost an exact copy regarding their wheel positions: https://youtu.be/Dm4ZmUHdXUs?t=38

Austria: inside guy gets punished.
Monza: Outside guy gets punished.

It's obviously not completely comparable, but the verdict is the exact opposite, not even middle of the road.

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by Taxi645

Personally, I think there doing quite a good job and improving lately. They generally have to work with rules that I mostly, but not completely agree with for reasons explained earlier. In this case however I feel the verdict is quite bizarre and as said, does provide an extremely undesirable precedent.

Cut down your post for brevity, but I'll explain what I think you are missing in your reading of the verdict.
The description of entry into and through the T1 braking zone is setting up the situation for T2. It is the action(s) during T2 that the penalty was applied to.

The reference to T1 positions is (I think) to explain why 33's defence 'Car 44 opening the steering after Turn 1 and “squeezing” him to the apex of turn 2' does not hold up as sufficient reason for Car 33 to be given room on the inside of T2.

So in effect, it is the car on the inside that has been penalised - but for causing a collision, not for failing to leave room. They refer to Car 44's position (in T2) as being reasonable and that Car 33's manoeuvre was too late (in T1) to jutify racing room in T2.

[chillibowl]

FOM post footage from LH's 360 degree camera of the incident.

https://twitter.com/F1/status/1437794795192307722

obviously avoid the comments if you value your sanity.

[Anyopenroad]

My brain hurts.