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@niky There's no doubt Nico's penalty in Austria was just. What I'm arguing is that by the logic you just outlined, Lewis should have received a penalty in Austin last season, as Nico had his nose in front heading into turn one. Or, in other words, he was ahead on the outside. Yet the lack of a penalty for Lewis in Austin demonstrated how inconsistent the stewards are, which is why the drivers see it fit to keep using the tactic in question; they know they can potentially get away with it.
 
Nico would be an excellent coach driver around the city.

Verstappen and Ricciardo got very close at the start, not even a cigarette paper would fit between them.
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And this just shows how inept the FIA is
Max exceeded the track limits to make an overtake, he didn't give the place back or get a penalty/warning.
Yes Lap one, turn one is the most hectic of the GP, but the FIA needs to have rules that stick.
 
Not buying Rosberg's excuses to be honest. It really looks like he left the turn in very late. Shutting the door on corner exit is acceptable, but Rosberg just seemed to intentionally avoid attempting to turn in, push Verstappen wide, and essentially shut him out mid corner.

It's not acceptable to just throw yourself down the inside of someone, and then run them off the road. I knew immediately as I saw it that he was in trouble, which is a shame because he really caught Max sleeping there.
 
Not buying Rosberg's excuses to be honest. It really looks like he left the turn in very late. Shutting the door on corner exit is acceptable, but Rosberg just seemed to intentionally avoid attempting to turn in, push Verstappen wide, and essentially shut him out mid corner.

It's not acceptable to just throw yourself down the inside of someone, and then run them off the road. I knew immediately as I saw it that he was in trouble, which is a shame because he really caught Max sleeping there.

Hopefully the 3 extra seconds he waited will teach him a lesson.

I doubt it.
 
And this just shows how inept the FIA is
Max exceeded the track limits to make an overtake, he didn't give the place back or get a penalty/warning.
Yes Lap one, turn one is the most hectic of the GP, but the FIA needs to have rules that stick.
The new track limits were extended to the edge of the blue and white kerb, but you can be forgiven for not knowing that as the rule changed at least 4 times in the GP Weekend.
 
And this just shows how inept the FIA is
Max exceeded the track limits to make an overtake, he didn't give the place back or get a penalty/warning.
Yes Lap one, turn one is the most hectic of the GP, but the FIA needs to have rules that stick.
The new track limits were extended to the edge of the blue and white kerb, but you can be forgiven for not knowing that as the rule changed at least 4 times in the GP Weekend.
The stewards also tend to be a little bit more lenient on the opening lap. Since it's really the only place where everyone is in the same place at the same time, they acknowledge that there is a greater chance of an incident. Thus Verstappen's running wide was not acted upon.
 
The stewards also tend to be a little bit more lenient on the opening lap. Since it's really the only place where everyone is in the same place at the same time, they acknowledge that there is a greater chance of an incident. Thus Verstappen's running wide was not acted upon.

True, but on other laps I saw them going wide on turn 1 as well.

As for the rule changes the FIA needs to stop giving in to the drivers, they want the track limit to be miles wide if it means they dont have to reduce speed.

I have a feeling they(FIA) will put their foot down on track limits when it comes to monza.
 
@outlaw4rc The Imola 2004 incident between Schumacher and Montoya that you've shared, is a different sort. There Michael shut the door on Juan as they exited a corner; a move that has long been regarded as tough, but fair. However Nico yesterday (and in Austria), as with Lewis in Austin last season, blocked their opponent from turning in on entry. Thus, forcing them off. Difference is Rosberg received a penalty for it, and Hamilton didn't. Yet if it is so frowned upon, it should be a penalty every single time, regardless of who does it.
@niky There's no doubt Nico's penalty in Austria was just. What I'm arguing is that by the logic you just outlined, Lewis should have received a penalty in Austin last season, as Nico had his nose in front heading into turn one. Or, in other words, he was ahead on the outside. Yet the lack of a penalty for Lewis in Austin demonstrated how inconsistent the stewards are, which is why the drivers see it fit to keep using the tactic in question; they know they can potentially get away with it.
I have to assume you're referring to this:



I'd say the rain conditions played a big part in that and even then, Hamilton managed to arc the car around the apex. Also considering it was the race start, I'd say this is more of an apples to oranges comparison.
As @outlaw4rc says... the interpretation is always that the driver ahead is entitled to the line at corner exit. This is what justifies the penalty on Rosberg in Austria (because Lewis was ahead on the outside), and the expected lack of penalty on Rosberg here (because Nico was ahead on the inside).

Lewis in Austin was marginal, but Lewis was slightly ahead at the apex, which is likely why they let it go.


Here, it's a bit of a conundrum, because Nico is fully ahead by that apex, and even if he is pushing wide, he is in front of Max and Max has the choice to back away rather than to go wide.

EDIT: Regarding turn-in... the leading driver gets to dictate the turn in as long as he leaves at least one car's width of space at the apex.


The only issue, really, is, as Christian Horner puts it, that Nico just didn't sell that move very well. From Sky:




If Rosberg had just locked his tires a little bit, he could have sold that move. Of course, he could have just slowed a bit, angled for a better corner exit, waited for Max to jump, and run him off the edge in a smoother and more steward-acceptable fashion.
From my perspective, Max is still entitled to have racing room until reaching the corner exit to make that decision, especially since Rosberg is the one trying to overtake in this situation. Convince the stewards you tried to give them that room and you might get away with it. If I was a steward, I wouldn't be because he got ahead only because he went into the corner too hot.

Oddly enough, I had been an actual steward for a similar situation that unfolded in a GT5 race. The only difference was that the "Max" driver had turned in and a collision occurred. The other two stewards blamed Max while I went the complete opposite direction. I'd like to think that at least my opinions for the real life incidents are consistent with my prior decision in the virtual one.
 
I'd say the rain conditions played a big part in that and even then, Hamilton managed to arc the car around the apex.
He has done a similar thing in the dry - like Suzuka last year and Montreal this year. Once is an accident and twice is coincidence, but three times is a pattern.
 
@niky There's no doubt Nico's penalty in Austria was just. What I'm arguing is that by the logic you just outlined, Lewis should have received a penalty in Austin last season, as Nico had his nose in front heading into turn one. Or, in other words, he was ahead on the outside. Yet the lack of a penalty for Lewis in Austin demonstrated how inconsistent the stewards are, which is why the drivers see it fit to keep using the tactic in question; they know they can potentially get away with it.

If the track was greasy and wet, with both drivers having snap understeer under braking sure, Lewis should have got a penalty. However, the Stewards take in conditions as well when making judgement and saw that as a racing incident, where this was more over driving and causing avoidable collisions. Though I do agree that this case here was on both drivers and that @niky is probably correct (as I said prior) that Nico is under a lens more so now. Which if so is actually consistent.
 
If they were consistent, they would be penalising Hamilton for regularly forcing drivers off at the first corner.

Sure PM, anyways what I was talking about with consistency is when a driver does something that gets penalized once and then is more likely to get penalized again with the same driver if similar incident happens. Even if said driver isn't always at fault. 2011 with Hamilton, springs to mind, and 2012 with Maldonado most coming during quali for example. Same here, Nico made one bad move now he'll be watched, does it a second time, and now he'll be more so.

That's the consistency I'm talking about, the stewards seem to fix in on a driver rather than anything else.
 
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@niky There's no doubt Nico's penalty in Austria was just. What I'm arguing is that by the logic you just outlined, Lewis should have received a penalty in Austin last season, as Nico had his nose in front heading into turn one. Or, in other words, he was ahead on the outside. Yet the lack of a penalty for Lewis in Austin demonstrated how inconsistent the stewards are, which is why the drivers see it fit to keep using the tactic in question; they know they can potentially get away with it.
Your missing that whilst the stewards will investigate an incident it is up to the team to report it. If they don't then no action will be taken usually. Mercedes are NOT going to report on their own driver. That sort of thing is dealt with internally.
 
That's the consistency I'm talking about, the stewards seem to fix in on a driver rather than anything else.
I get what you're saying, but the stewards were wildly inconsistent across the entire weekend. They don't just watch over the Grand Prix, but the support races. In GP2, they invented a penalty for Sergey Sirotkin and ignored consistently dangerous driving from Ollie Rowland while immediately penalising Nabril Jeffri for a racing incident. In GP3, they ignored Jake Hughes passing under the virtual safety car. About the only penalty they got right was for Antonio Giovinazzi forcing Arthur Pic off at the start, which highlights how inconsistent they were.
 
I get what you're saying, but the stewards were wildly inconsistent across the entire weekend. They don't just watch over the Grand Prix, but the support races. In GP2, they invented a penalty for Sergey Sirotkin and ignored consistently dangerous driving from Ollie Rowland while immediately penalising Nabril Jeffri for a racing incident. In GP3, they ignored Jake Hughes passing under the virtual safety car. About the only penalty they got right was for Antonio Giovinazzi forcing Arthur Pic off at the start, which highlights how inconsistent they were.

Okay, once again my consistency talk (though you get what I'm saying) is spelled out in the post. No where do I say they aren't inconsistent on a general GP weekend, actually I say the opposite that they are. What I give them sarcastic praise for, is trying to make repeat offenders out of drivers at times.
 
If Nico had locked up or as in the video of Hamilton, actually turned the car, he'd have been fine. The fact he just drove straight on is why they've given a penalty.
Having said that, had he not done the same thing in Austria and already been warned about it, he would probably have gotten away with it.
 
Yeap, like most people already said, he did the same thing again like in Austria with Hamilton, you can't just drive straight on like that with an opponent next to you, so the stewards were really consistent here. What I don't understand is why Rosberg even tries this stuff, there was no reason for this, he could have gotten Verstappen probably in the next corner, if a normal overtake didn't work in this corner - thing is, he didn't even seem to try, just run opponent off, done. He seriously seems to lack any racecraft and that's weird, you'd think they learn this in the other series before getting to drive a formula one car...


And yes, pretty much any other driver would have locked up their wheels trying such a maneuver, not Rosberg... probably didn't want to ruin his tires or something. Just weird.

He was really down after the race in an interview though, so I feel a bit sad for him, but even then he just didn't seem to get it, was talking something about "full steering lock yada, yada" does he not know there are cameras all around the track, lol?
 
Anyway in other news Hamilton turned his engine down on.....lap 2.

http://www.espn.co.uk/f1/story/_/id/17186024/lewis-hamilton-turned-engine-second-lap-germany
I turned down my engine pretty much from the second, third lap, I think it was. From very early on I had already turned it down and then when he said 'it's hammer time' I was able to switch it back on and eek out the gap when needed."

Still very easy for the Mercedes although it of course begs the question why Rosberg couldn't make up ground.
 
Well, Christian Danner said these cars are made to drive in clean air and it costs about 1 second / per lap, if they don't. Then you calculate in missing "racecraft", that's already 2 seconds?

I'm not really buying it and I think he mostly said this as an excuse, but maybe there's some truth to it?

He also also said that's why Webber was consistently slower than Vettel at Redbull.


But, yeah, the Mercedes are so much faster than the other cars, I'm not surprised Hamilton went into cruising mode early on.
 
I'd say the rain conditions played a big part in that and even then, Hamilton managed to arc the car around the apex. Also considering it was the race start, I'd say this is more of an apples to oranges comparison.

If the track was greasy and wet, with both drivers having snap understeer under braking sure, Lewis should have got a penalty. However, the Stewards take in conditions as well when making judgement and saw that as a racing incident, where this was more over driving and causing avoidable collisions. Though I do agree that this case here was on both drivers and that @niky is probably correct (as I said prior) that Nico is under a lens more so now. Which if so is actually consistent.

Lewis was smart to make it look like understeer had forced him out wide on that occasion but, to the trained-eye, he was obviously only using about half of his steering lock. Even Martin Brundle, as biased as they are towards Hamilton at Sky, said Lewis could have turned in a lot more. And sure enough once Nico was off, and he had the lead, Lewis gave it an armful of lock to stay on track. It was no accident. But as he knew the steward’s inconsistent stance on the matter, he was in his rights to try it. So the steward’s need to make their minds up, once and for all. Blocking an opponent’s turn into the corner is either illegal, or it isn’t. Penalize all cases from now on, or penalize none. But stop ineffectively flip-flopping!

Your missing that whilst the stewards will investigate an incident it is up to the team to report it. If they don't then no action will be taken usually. Mercedes are NOT going to report on their own driver. That sort of thing is dealt with internally.

Problem with the steward's of late is that they rarely investigate incidents, until a complaint is made by one of the teams/drivers. And that's why the racing etiquette is so skewed; they're letting the teams/drivers dictate what should be allowed, and what shouldn't. But that way of working is flawed from the ground up, as teams/drivers will always look after their best interests. Instead it should be up to the steward's if an incident needs investigating, complaint made, or not. After all, they are there to uphold the racing law! Now if only they could decide what that law is exactly...
 
The problem is we keep saying "the stewards" but they are not the same people at each race. It's impossible to be consistent when it's different people interpreting any rule that is opinion based and not black and white like pit lane speeding.

In Germany it was Paul Gutjhar, Jose Abeb and Fittipaldi. In Austria it was Garry Connelly, Radovan Novak and Martin Donnelly. In Hungary it was Gerd Ennser, Baham Lekhal and Alan Jones. It's not just one change, every race is an entirely different line-up although of course they are re-used throughout the year.

Especially with the historic driver representation their style and opinions are bound to vary wildly. If it's someone who was a hard racer themselves they're probably more likely to suggest a move was hard but fair, if it was a more conservative gentlemanly driver they'll probably suggest the same move was too hard.
 
The problem is we keep saying "the stewards" but they are not the same people at each race. It's impossible to be consistent when it's different people interpreting any rule that is opinion based and not black and white like pit lane speeding.

In Germany it was Paul Gutjhar, Jose Abeb and Fittipaldi. In Austria it was Garry Connelly, Radovan Novak and Martin Donnelly. In Hungary it was Gerd Ennser, Baham Lekhal and Alan Jones. It's not just one change, every race is an entirely different line-up although of course they are re-used throughout the year.

Especially with the historic driver representation their style and opinions are bound to vary wildly. If it's someone who was a hard racer themselves they're probably more likely to suggest a move was hard but fair, if it was a more conservative gentlemanly driver they'll probably suggest the same move was too hard.

That is a fair point, though it's also why I believe we need permanent driver stewards, as opposed to alternating personnel. Consistency with rules and penalties has been an issue for quite a few years, and it's about time it was sorted out.
 
Hamilton's win yesterday further fueled my already strong hopes that, next season, no team has a clear advantage. We saw it with Rosberg as well in China, and again in Azerbaijan; once one of the Mercedes is out of position then, providing there's no mechanical issues, the other has a clear run to the chequered flag. Thankfully the support races were an absolute blast, otherwise it would have been a really dull weekend.
 
What kind of support races are there for F1? Other than GP2 that we sometimes get to see on TV here in the states.
 
What kind of support races are there for F1? Other than GP2 that we sometimes get to see on TV here in the states.

GP2, GP3 and Porsche Supercup are the main consistent support series although they're not all present at each event. This year GP2 are at 11 events, GP3 and Porsche Supercup are at 9 events.

Other than that it's usually something minor and/or local, like V8 Supercars in Australia for example.
 
What kind of support races are there for F1? Other than GP2 that we sometimes get to see on TV here in the states.

As well as GP2, they also show the GP3 races on Sky F1. During the second GP3 race yesterday, an Indian rookie called Arjun Maini got a great start, and jumped into the lead. Unfortunately for him he got passed just as the Virtual Safety Car came out, and then he completely fluffed the restart, dropping him down the field even further. Not what you'd call a good day at the office! :lol:
 
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