The F1 thread

boogieman

Teetonetal said:

I don't think you can expect Horner to do anything other than defend his driver and but pressure on the other. 

I suspect there will be a few more crashes, especially if it remains tight, given Max' history, Lewis will to win and how close the cars seem to be, it's inevitable.

I really do find Max hard to like though. 

Absolutely. I used to think some of his decisions was just his over enthusiasm or just him being a bit naive. Although he’s calmed down a bit he comes across as a spoilt child: super arrogant, aggressive and petulant. Most of the other drivers seem to be able to shrug things like yesterday’s shenanigans off and move on. I get the impression that he’ll have it in for Lewis for the rest of the season… look out for more barging and aggression. 

Horner hasn’t done himself or RB any favours with all the histrionics. I lost count of the number of times he said “ the main thing is that Max is ok” and “the punishment should fit the crime” inferring it was deliberate by Hamilton and that it was even a criminal act. He was like a bloody broken record. 

Cols

Teetonetal said:

I don't think you can expect Horner to do anything other than defend his driver and but pressure on the other.  

Yeah - you can bet that if the shoe was on the other foot Horner would have been out there saying “We want hard racing, we want exciting racing, Max was making a great move and Lewis should have given him racing room.”

sinbaadi

It's pathetic.  Everyone sees how biased his opinions always are, you can't expect anyone to listen if you're always so full of shit.

chillidoggy

The stewards felt it was Hamster’s fault, hence the penalty. I happen to agree with them in this case, and feel the win was soured by the incident. I’m relieved to hear Max is OK, I saw on the news this morning that the impact was an astonishing 51G!

Every cloud has a silver lining though, and it does at least mean the two main protagonists are closer in the points, thus creating more tension.

As for Horner, I blame the media, not the man. The sledging is all part of the act. They know they’re bound to get controversial comments from him, which makes for better headlines. If Horner was doing a bad job, he’d have been hoofed into touch years ago.

I’m now off to check my Fantasy F1 score……..

GoldenEraGuitars

I think it was Prost who once said of Senna, he put his car in a position where he’d pass the decision of whether or not there was going to be an accident on you. Senna also said he would always go for a pass if there was a gap. 

In this case, there was a massive gap. Enough for lewis to pull right along side about a second before the apex. And it’s not as if it was a clumsy lunge. They were racing, simple as that. Max wasn’t going to make the apex anyway so cutting lewis off was pretty pointless. 

There are flashes of brilliance from Max at times and undoubtedly his speed is not all down to the car (look at where his teammate finishes sometimes). I can see lots of parallels with a young Lewis but Max is still too hot headed right now to make the most of his raw talent imo. I suppose Horner is delighted to be competitive again and this race was meant to push them further ahead in the title chase. But that’s how it goes. It’s a real shame the race went like that as the racing on the first lap was world class but you can’t take anything away from Mercedes and Lewis, to drive a dozen or so quali laps to take the win was inspired. 

It’s all done and dusted now and anything in the media is hot air. I’m guessing max will be off to prove himself once again at the next race so it should be an interesting one.

sinbaadi

Looking at it again this morning, I don't think there's any way that either of them were going to stay on track on the exit of that corner, even if the other had backed all the way out of it.  

Lewis is wider than he wanted to be despite slowing down, probably because of all the crap he picked up on his tyres, but Max's defensive strategy is to be "forced" to run off, he's not slowing for anything and caution is not a word he's acknowledging at all.

Inevitable, both at fault in some way, and it wouldn't have happened like that if there was grass or gravel on the outside of the turn.

Fretwired

chillidoggy said:

The stewards felt it was Hamster’s fault, hence the penalty.

They didn't word it like that - what the stewards actually said:

"Car 44 was on a line that did not reach the apex of the corner, with room available to the inside.

"When Car 33 turned into the corner, Car 44 did not avoid contact and the left front of Car 44 contacted the right rear of Car 33. Car 44 is judged predominantly at fault."

So it wasn't cut and dried - both drivers were at fault - Hamilton more so. And a 10-second penalty isn't that harsh. There were no points on his Super Licence.

I tend to agree with this statement:

Aston Martin boss Otmar Szafnauer on Sky F1:

"I've watched it a few times now and to me, if that isn't a racing incident, nothing is.

"We've often talked about allowing the drivers to race over the first couple of laps for the benefit of the fans, and I think that's what happened there.

"To me it was 50-50 there. Max didn't have to turn in when he did and Lewis could have been further right, but to me 100 percent a racing incident."

The Telegraph has doubled-down on criticising Hamilton with a headline:

Lewis Hamilton has gone to the dark side - this was skulduggery of Schumacher proportions. The most biased article I've read in a long time. 

chillidoggy

Nonsense!

Schumacher was in a class of his own when it came to racing dirty.

Simonh

The media love a divisive headline though don't they, so you get Horner and Verstappen giving it large it is no surprise the media then amplifies that for clickbait headlines.

A few more drivers need to man up and not let Max get away with the bullshit he has been doing for years now as the video above showed. 

Fretwired

chillidoggy said:

Nonsense!

Schumacher was in a class of his own when it came to racing dirty.

Agree. I sense the journalist doesn't like Hamilton for taking the knee and his anti-racism drive - he has form with footballers in the England team.

Boromedic

Racing Incident, both of them contribute to the incident, neither driver takes the full blame as a result. However I take umbrage with the bell end Horner and Max's BS, Lewis is one of the fairest racers on track and Max has gotten away with some ridiculous moves in his entire career thus far. On the balance of probability, Max deliberately shutting the door contributed most to the accident, and his previous history backs up that he thought he would get away with it. Lewis keeping up the inside was fair enough tbh, and he was probably wide of the apex as he was on the dirty side and understeering. 

Still a racing Incident, Horner is still a douchebag, and Max is a hypocrite. The Telegraph probably couldn't wait to pile on, as will others, yet if it was Hill or Mansell it would've be a different tale. Schumacher level of dark arts, seriously go and f yer sen and have a word!!

skullfunkerry

I've been saying for a few years now that I want to like Max but can't - he's such a good driver, he doesn't need to be as aggressive as he is. At one point the other drivers were calling moving under braking "doing a Verstappen".

The other thing that's pissing me off about all this is the stuff about Lewis "hospitalising his opponent"... I'm not belittling Max's accident at all, 51G is huge and I'm glad he's okay, but "going to hospital to be checked out" isn't the same as being admitted to hospital. Michael Schumacher was hospitalised after he broke his leg... Romain Grosjean was hospitalised after his crash last year... Max went to hospital for some tests.

Simonh

I don't even rate Verstappen that high as a driver, his crash or pass approach has so far been largely successful and now his reputation means others drivers give him a much greater degree of latitude than he really deserves. Can you see any other driver wanting to go wheel to wheel with him up eau rouge like they would be able to with Alonso or Ricciadio for example?

If you can bear it pop over to the Planet F1 forum, P&E on here has nothing on those guys for being utterly intractable to either side of an argument!

stickyfiddle

Simonh said:

I don't even rate Verstappen that high as a driver, his crash or pass approach has so far been largely successful and now his reputation means others drivers give him a much greater degree of latitude than he really deserves. Can you see any other driver wanting to go wheel to wheel with him up eau rouge like they would be able to with Alonso or Ricciadio for example?

If you can bear it pop over to the Planet F1 forum, P&E on here has nothing on those guys for being utterly intractable to either side of an argument!

Completely agree, and interesting that my first thought re Eau Rouge was that it would never happen because he’d have you off at La Source before you had the chance…

HAL9000

Racing incident. I’d rather see drivers actually racing instead of relying on pit stop strategy for the pass.

not_the_dj

Two great drivers battling in the championship going wheel to wheel and sometimes making contact and one/both going off.

Bring it on!

GoldenEraGuitars

Hamilton has been racially abused in social media… Absolutely disgusting. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/57885011

Emiel

Cols said:

What a race!  And what a nail-biting finish - amazing how Hamilton hunted Leclerc down without killing his tyres.

The Verstappen crash was strikingly reminiscent of the Senna/Prost crash at the first corner of Suzuka.  Apart from that - right up to the crash, Max had (as usual) been defending right up to the very limits of staying within the rules.  He squeezed Hamilton up against the old pit wall and then chopped across him into the corner.

Max clearly knew Lewis was there, and expected him to back out of the move.  Which he didn’t...

Hamilton was predominantly at fault for the accident from a “rules” perspective, but Max was very much the architect of his own demise.

https://youtu.be/JknW7h8DS0s 

Well, although the (biased) Senna doc says otherwise, the 1990 crash is somewhat different. Prior to qualification, Senna lobbied unsuccesfully to have pole position to be moved to the left and onto the racing line. Pole position at Suzuka had been on the right-hand side of the track – off the racing line – for each of the three previous F1 races at the track and previously Senna had lost the lead twice at the start. Feeling he was loosing the championship and out of frustration with the rule makers, he then deliberately crashed into Prost.

What's similar to the Prost/Senna crash is that two cars were driving into each other in a high speed corner. I think people take too easily for granted that todays cars are 'safe'. People were doing 295 km/h at Cobs. I think it's a bit too optimistic to simply pull aside and expect one car to yield at those speeds. Yes, Leclerc yielded but he is not in a title fight and was racing against a superior car. Verstappen could have gotten seriously injured, thankfully he was unharmed. His engine and gearbox are most likely beyond repair though, so he is going to face future grid penalties...

sammysaber

Fretwired said:

chillidoggy said:

The stewards felt it was Hamster’s fault, hence the penalty.

They didn't word it like that - what the stewards actually said:

"Car 44 was on a line that did not reach the apex of the corner, with room available to the inside.

"When Car 33 turned into the corner, Car 44 did not avoid contact and the left front of Car 44 contacted the right rear of Car 33. Car 44 is judged predominantly at fault."

So it wasn't cut and dried - both drivers were at fault - Hamilton more so. And a 10-second penalty isn't that harsh. There were no points on his Super Licence.

I tend to agree with this statement:

Aston Martin boss Otmar Szafnauer on Sky F1:

"I've watched it a few times now and to me, if that isn't a racing incident, nothing is.

"We've often talked about allowing the drivers to race over the first couple of laps for the benefit of the fans, and I think that's what happened there.

"To me it was 50-50 there. Max didn't have to turn in when he did and Lewis could have been further right, but to me 100 percent a racing incident."

The Telegraph has doubled-down on criticising Hamilton with a headline:

Lewis Hamilton has gone to the dark side - this was skulduggery of Schumacher proportions. The most biased article I've read in a long time. 

Hamilton got 2 points on his Super License having come into this season with 6.

Best,
Sammy

Fretwired

sammysaber said:

Hamilton got 2 points on his Super License having come into this season with 6.

Best,
Sammy

Thanks - I missed that.