I know, I've seen you mention it here whenever safety calls come up. It's why I'm kinda surprised that you're seemingly not factoring in other aspects at play here, namely the corner itself, the nature of Max's incident, and the risks and likely outcome in the event of another car having a similar off at that same high-speed corner.
If another driver made a mistake and has an off at Turn 9 right after Max, and they were still maintaining a relatively high speed because it was only a single-yellow in that section, and therefore only needed to have a relatively small lift, where do you believe they are likely to end up? That's why I've been arguing that a double-yellow at minimum would've been the ideal call.
Also, I don't get why you're being hostile all of a sudden. I've been totally cordial with you in this discussion.
Apologies. I have just seen a lot of seriously dumb takes from people in the fallout from this incident and yours, though nowhere near "seriously dumb" seeming to insinuate that drivers should still drive in a manner that they can crash while in a single yellow was a bit of a breaking point for me, so I'm sorry you took the brunt for it.
Look, F1 for many years has tied itself into knots with yellow flag rules because they don't want to properly penalise or enforce an actual numerical reduction of speed beyond "discernibly reduced speed" within the regulations. It keep flip flopping from craziness like Hungary 2016 where Rosberg drove flat out through a Double Yellow zone (objectively wrong) and kept his lap, which brought in the Double Yellow lap deletion rule, to Verstappen also getting pole in Imola 2022 because he wasn't going faster in the yellow zone (objectively correct). But this seems to flip in the races as Norris in Qatar and Hadjar in Canada where they get a 10-second stop/go for not having a momentary lift in yellow flags in the race. Something isn't being conveyed well if it's the harshest penalty possible for the infringement in the races but allowed to stay in qualifying.
F1 actually asks for a reduction in Yellow Flag waving in qualifying sessions, and to only ever put them out when absolutely necessary, as they don't want to be deleting laps. Confusion for running a different set of rules in one session compared to the rest of the season will always cause chaos.
Regardless, that crash is still a single yellow. Single Yellow means slow down, no overtaking and keep full control of the car as you are entering a section where danger has occurred. The only thing Double yellow adds is be prepared to dramatically change direction. As much as Max hit the wall, there was no need for cars to dramatically change direction as it was far away from the track. That incident wouldn't be upgraded to double yellow until people started walking trackside at any normal event.
The learnings from this is F1 needs to be very clear what they expect to be single or double yellow flag in qualifying sessions, and they need to make it clear to drivers and fans what drivers are required to do in these situations. Bear in mind this decision has to be made by a marshal in less than a second and it can be hard to determine whether a car has stopped or hit a wall through a cloud of smoke or dust. Genuinely a few weeks ago the clouds of dust thrown up by cars in the gravel trap were so bad it took us a full minute for anyone to determine that there was a car stopped in the gravel trap. The answer is not to throw yellows "just in case", as false flags like that can be just as dangerous in a boy-who-cried-wolf situation. There is a careful balance there.
In the end, Russell (who I have often criticised for being one of the worst offenders for yellow flag infringements) did slow down enough for the flag he saw displayed for the stewards to not delete the lap. It turned a 0.5s pole gap into 0.2s as data printouts show the reduced speed until the green flag was visible. Whether that's how the FIA want it to be going forwards this is now the point they must decide.
