if you hit them it's your fault.
In my opinion, this is the fundamental mistake by the stewards.
Antonelli hit Piastri.
The onboard video you linked shows it clearly that the front of Antonelli's rear tyre hit the rear of Piastri's front tyre.
Piastri's car was in control and throughout the situation from when they were side by side was always moving relatively away from Antonelli and to avoid possible contact.
Antonelli could have left just 40cm more gap on the inside and he would have swung around the outside of Piastri and held position.
It is ironic that if Piastri just used less brakes and kept his front wheels along side Antonelli and just shoved him across the track it would have been better? It likely would have been a bigger contact between Antonelli and LeClerc and they might have both been out of the race.. And there still would have been a penalty because Piastri is not Verstappen.
It appears that Piastri did get far enough alongside at one point but not at the apex, the only point that currently matters. With these current rules if you make a move down the inside you have to be sure you'll be ahead at the apex or you'll get pinged. Come off the brakes as Max frequently does, be ahead at the apex and overshoot to the outside of the track.
I just don't understand the whole "at the apex, the only point that currently matters"...
The driver on the inside if they get alongside approaching the breaking point has earned the right to the inside line of the corner for most of the history of motorsports as far as I know. It's just common sense, I don't think it ever needed to be written into rules as it is mostly based on laws of physics.
The "ahead at the apex" as far as I can tell is a new thing for the situation that the driver on the inside is not along side approaching the corner but dives in deep. This was a new rule making malarkey for the facilitation, allowance, justifificatio of sensationalism (Verstappen) passes - specifically I think it was invented by the stewards at the US Grand Prix at Austin.
The stewards have now added this "
prior to and" wordage in there to allow them to selectively apply the apex rule to a penalise a driver that already earned the point to the corner.
There's caveats that a driver can't get along side and then run a driver off track etc etc... but that is not the situation, it is clear Piastri was always going to be able to make the corner.. he was clearly trying to avoid contact...
It is a total stitch up, same sort to shenanigans that race director at Silverstone didn't broadcast safety car ending message until the cars were accelerating on Hangar straight with only 1 corner before safety car leaves the track.
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I will still take Le Clerc's opinion as the most important as he was involved and the victim and he could see it was Antonelli's fault.
The steward are allowed to get it wrong. Fans don't need to justify the stewards getting it wrong. I don't even care if the stewards make blatantly biased decisions - it's just comedy at this point.
www.bbc.co.uk
