2018 VTB Russian Grand PrixFormula 1 

  • Thread starter Jimlaad43
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Jimlaad43
It's amazing that we know F1 is a team sport, Bottas has said he'll be a rear gunner now he's out the championship and still people are surprised by the most obvious radio call ever.
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I'm not surprised, not at all. That doesn't mean I agree though. It's a dirty thing to do, and whether it's an obvious move and a legal move doesn't change anything about that.
 
PaMu1337
See my previous post. Note that your previous post doesn't invalidate anything I said.
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It invalidates everything you said about it being unethical - it's within the sport's ethics.

Why is it dirty?


Also, Force India has now done it twice in this race...
 
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Famine
It invalidates everything you said about it being unethical - it's within the sport's ethics.

Why is it dirty?
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Your argument is basically that it is not literally forbidden, therefore it is not a bad thing.
It is wrong because it is ruining the main part of the sport: racing.
Also to the argument that F1 is a team sport: It is only partially. We have a drivers championship too. Now the drivers championship is being ruined by the manufacturers championship.
This is racing. Fight it out on the track. Not in a meeting room.

Also note that in other sports, this would be called matchfixing, and be illegal.
 
If Bottas had any balls left he should have been a bit more stern in his radio messages.
 
Toto: Difficult day for you, Difficult for us.

Yeah it wasn't difficult for the team it will still would've been a 1-2 finish if they gave the place back.

It is like when Barrichello had to give his place to Shummi.
While yes Shummi gave him the victory in the following race, this was done by shummi alone, not a team order.
 
Max spiced up this race. We had one moment of HAM-VET and a moment of OCO-PER-GRO. HAM added 10 points to the gap with VET.
Mercedes team orders not my personal favorite but fully understand it in the light of the WHC and the $$. Toto already kind of apologized publically.

These were the highlights of this 2018 Sochi race.
 
PaMu1337
Your argument is...
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Nope. I'm asking you to make your case for why it's "unethical" and "dirty", as it doesn't seem to meet either quality.

Why is it unethical/dirty to do something explicitly allowed in the rules.
PaMu1337
It is wrong because it is ruining the main part of the sport: racing.
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It's part of racing. How can it ruin racing when it's part of it?
PaMu1337
Also to the argument that F1 is a team sport: It is only partially. We have a drivers championship too. Now the drivers championship is being ruined by the manufacturers championship.
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The drivers are part of a team. The team wants to with both championships, so it can display both trophies in its HQ.

The order of first and second doesn't affect the manufacturers' championship, the change in positions of the drivers doesn't affect it at all, so it can't "ruin" the drivers' championship for the manufacturers' one. It's a move designed to ensure they have the best chance to take the drivers' championship too.
PaMu1337
This is racing.
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And team orders are part of racing.

And Mercedes did it once. Force India did it twice in this race. And neither did it by "unexpectedly" mucking up a pit stop.
 
Great drive by Max, those first few laps were something else. Good job also from Charles.
Understandable by Merc, but still not a fan of TO's.
Nice by Ferrari to have a good strategy for a change (or rather Merc messing up).
Famine
And Mercedes did it once. Force India did it twice in this race. And neither did it by "unexpectedly" mucking up a pit stop.
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If Mercedes did it twice, nobody would complain about it :P
 
Force India were under team orders to stop Perez and Ocon crashing into each other again. Merc had no reason to swap with Hamilton's points and on-track advantage over Vettel. If points were closer and it was the last couple of races, then there may have been some leeway, but not here.
 
Not the best race, but good by Sochi standards. Good to see Lewis and Seb get wheel to wheel.

Bottas playing the team game, fair enough. He can’t cry about it too much, Merc have an open policy to allow their drivers to race each other. Bottas just needs to step up his game and be comparable to Lewis over a season.

Famine
It invalidates everything you said about it being unethical - it's within the sport's ethics.

Why is it dirty?


Also, Force India has now done it twice in this race...
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Yeah, but obviously two unethical things cancel each other out, its just maths.

AudiMan2011
Merc had no reason to swap with Hamilton's points and on-track advantage over Vettel.
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Yeah they did, Lewis now has a 50 point advantage. So he can have two DNF’s and Vettel has to win those two races in order to make them even.
If Bottas doesn't want to be a second driver, he should do a better job (over a season). If he can’t match Lewis, then what does he expect?
 
Well, that was half an interesting race. And half a procession.

Lewis Hamilton - Boo. Hiss. Team orders suck. Still, he did the job he needed to do. Drove well, and when Merc got out-strategized by Ferrari (that once in a blue moon thing), overtook Vettel on track.

Valterri Bottas - Great job all weekend long. Played a good one-two with Lewis at the start to contain Seb. Got shafted, but that happens. It's a team sport. If he'd done a better job at the start of the season, he wouldn't be in a position where they'd feel okay with doing this to him.

Sebastian Vettel - Great job in qualifying. Great start to the race, great work getting that undercut. But that Mercedes was just way too fast this weekend. Ferrari have to pull a rabbit out of the hat these next few races to win this WDC.

Kimi Raikkonen - Neither here nor there. Bit of bad luck in qualifying put him on the second row when he could have been on the first row.

Max Verstappen - What a race. That pace on the Soft tires was fantastic. But it became obvious in his long delayed second stint that the car was much better optimized for the softs than anything else. Still, great race from him.

Daniel Ricciardo - damage at the start of the race limited his own charge, but damage minimization, he ended up only one position behind Max. C'est la vie.

Charles LeClerc - proving he deserves that Ferrari drive, once again. And showing, once again, how good that Ferrari engine is. Best of the rest led by two Ferrari-powered car.

Kevin Magnussen - Held off the charging Force Indias handily. Good job in an otherwise uneventful race.

Ocon - Perez - Playing nice! Nice!

Nobody else matters.
 
AudiMan2011
Force India were under team orders to stop Perez and Ocon crashing into each other again.
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They swapped the cars over twice. The first was for Perez to get past Ocon so he could attack Magnussen, because he couldn't get past Ocon without help. The second was to swap them back again because of the first swap.
AudiMan2011
Merc had no reason to swap with their points and on-track advantage over Vettel. If points were closer and it was the last couple of races, then there may have been some leeway, but not here.
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There are only five races left after this, and 125 points remaining. A 50pt lead is enough that the old engines and gearboxes can have one complete failure and still leave an entire race's advantage. A 43pt lead isn't. It just gives Mercedes enough freedom to take a gamble with engine life, and with possibly changing parts for a grid penalty or two and still have both titles. It makes sense.

None of us have to like it, but it's part of the sport and part of the consequences of having these heavily aero-dependent cars with regulated component life and penalties for not meeting them. It's legal, fair, and at least Mercedes and Force India played it out openly and honestly.
 
Famine
Nope. I'm asking you to make your case for why it's "unethical" and "dirty", as it doesn't seem to meet either quality.

Why is it unethical/dirty to do something explicitly allowed in the rules.

It's part of racing. How can it ruin racing when it's part of it?

The drivers are part of a team. The team wants to with both championships, so it can display both trophies in its HQ.

The order of first and second doesn't affect the manufacturers' championship, the change in positions of the drivers doesn't affect it at all, so it can't "ruin" the drivers' championship for the manufacturers' one. It's a move designed to ensure they have the best chance to take the drivers' championship too.

And team orders are part of racing.

And Mercedes did it once. Force India did it twice in this race. And neither did it by "unexpectedly" mucking up a pit stop.
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You know what? Let's get rid of the cars and the drivers. Let's put all of the team managers in a meeting, and have them together decide the outcome. Because that is part of racing.

Your argument is still only: it isn't literally forbidden, so it's ok.
My arguments are:
  1. It goes against the spirit of the sport (which is racing, not team management. Note that spirit and rules are two different things).
  2. If Lewis was faster, he should have passed Bottas.
  3. If Lewis was threatened by Vettel, but faster than Bottas, then Bottas should have been threatened by Vettel. He wasn't.
  4. Lewis is much safer in his championship battle than Bottas is.
  5. Swapping the cars makes no difference for the constructors championship.
  6. The experience for the fans is ruined.
  7. Bottas is being treated as an inferior driver, while he has clearly been strong all weekend.
  8. Even Lewis clearly wasn't happy with the decision in his interview.
  9. Again, in other sports this would be called matchfixing, and be illegal (not just by the sports rules, but by law). Why would F1 be different?

I'm done with this discussion. Unless you can provide a proper counter argument, I won't be responding anymore.
 
PaMu1337
He is, with Kimi for the third place
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:lol:

Q. Who the **** cares about 3rd place?
A. Not Mercedes.

They want to win, so they maximised their points positions. End off.

If Bottas is upset, he should use this as a motivator, Nico did. He’s not been good enough to challenge Lewis for the title, so he’s a number two for the rest of the season. Same as Kimi at Ferrari.
 
It's surprising that a lot of people will change their minds had that team order was made by Ferrari rather than Merc.

It's understandable if the gap in points were tiny, but there's huge difference in points, and most importantly you will still gain on your main rival.

Another point is that it is become sad how media and "some fans" have no "sporting spirit " nor respect towards sportsmen. Ferrari and Vettel gave us one of most enjoyable seasons and it's sad to see the lack of respect and appreciation.
 

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