Formula 1 Pirelli Gran Premio Del Made In Italy E Dell'emilia Romagna 2021Formula 1 

  • Thread starter Jimlaad43
  • 371 comments
  • 16,154 views
F1 has always had some stupid rules. Lapped drivers being allowed to unlap themselves before the restart after the red flag is way up there in my book.
 
Many incidents today. Very eventful race. Fight for the WDC should be a treat.

Very pleased with Norris. Podium! Wanted Ricciardo to finish higher. McLaren's fight with Ferrari is looking to be tight this year.

Pretty disappointed with Perez and Tsunoda. Little brain farts here and there were costly.
 
Hats off to Norris for making those soft tires last throughout the second half. Well-deserved podium. Hamilton's luck leaves me dumbfounded, just like last year at the same track. Massive lead for Verstappen as he crossed the line, making sure Mercedes have their work cut out for them this season. What a race.
 
Jimlaad43
Rules are good/bad depending on if your drivers benefits or loses out. Stop moaning because when it screws Lewis over in the future you'll be like "greatest rule ever". Grow up.
Click to expand...

Not really. I've never liked the rules allowing for lapped drivers to unlap themselves and I don't have a driver, so there's that.
 
Jimlaad43
Rules are good/bad depending on if your drivers benefits or loses out. Stop moaning because when it screws Lewis over in the future you'll be like "greatest rule ever". Grow up.
Click to expand...
False. It's a bad rule period. It gifts people with poor cars, bad starts, mistakes and accidents with a second chance. I don't care who it benefits or hurts. It's an idiotic rule that has no place in racing. Same with NASCAR's "lucky dog" rule.
 
When there are only 3 cars on the lead lap, and a midfield driver in 4th suddenly gets a mega run on a restart and passes all of them, will you then be bemoaning the fact that the lapped cars weren't allowed to be unlapped?

Swings and Roundabouts. It allows battles through the pack like Lewis's worth watching and not just 7th place unlapping themselves and ruining a fight for the podium. It's a rule that works and is only controversial because of blind Hamilton haters again.
 
Jubby
False. It's a bad rule period. It gifts people with poor cars, bad starts, mistakes and accidents with a second chance. I don't care who it benefits or hurts. It's an idiotic rule that has no place in racing. Same with NASCAR's "lucky dog" rule.
Click to expand...

It's basically setting two restart times - the "official" one for the drivers on the lead lap and an earlier one for those not on the lead lap.
 
Famine
That rule about cars unlapping themselves under SC/red flag is going to be analysed a lot today.
Click to expand...

To be honest, if Hamilton wasn't the beneficiary then I am not sure it would get as much (or any) attention. The rule has been there for at least 7 years now so it isn't like it should be news to anyone.
 
Rangeraus
To be honest, if Hamilton wasn't the beneficiary then I am not sure it would get as much (or any) attention. The rule has been there for at least 7 years now so it isn't like it should be news to anyone.
Click to expand...

Sorry I'm late to the sport?
 
Even if luck was a factor here for Lewis, that was still a great recovery drive by him to still finish 2nd and keeping the lead of the championship, the guy is a beast.

One could argue that Max won that race at T1 and on the first lap. He drove virtually error free to win this one. Really great work!

I really hope the season keeps going like this because this is exciting. 2 races so far and its been thoroughly entertaining
 
Jimlaad43
Rules are good/bad depending on if your drivers benefits or loses out. Stop moaning because when it screws Lewis over in the future you'll be like "greatest rule ever". Grow up.
Click to expand...

@Touring Mars asked how, after sliding off the track, striking the armco, getting stuck, reversing, pitting and finding himself a lap down, Lewis Hamilton was only 9.5 seconds off the race lead. So I answered that it was luck. It was lucky that a red flag happened on the very next lap (or at all). If there wasn't a red flag and a restart, he'd have stayed a lap down. That's it.

His talent had nothing to to with what was originally asked. In fact, Hamilton finishing 2nd after restarting 9th was the least surprising thing about this race.
 
Rangeraus
To be honest, if Hamilton wasn't the beneficiary then I am not sure it would get as much (or any) attention. The rule has been there for at least 7 years now so it isn't like it should be news to anyone.
Click to expand...
Quite so - though I think it came in for the 2012 season, so this is the tenth season it's been in effect, and there were questions about it back then too. I'm not sure anyone ever envisioned a situation where a driver could unlap themselves under red flag and then finish second :lol:


The rationale behind it is pretty tough to explain to a layman though. Imagine telling a football fan that if there's a head injury during the game, the losing team gets a goal back.
 
Last edited:
Jimlaad43
It's a rule that works and is only controversial because of blind Hamilton haters again.
Click to expand...
"Blind Hamilton haters". Written by the guy who is so over the moon by everything that Hamilton does that it's borderline unbelievable.

I'll tell you one thing you may not have known this far: not everyone likes the same things, and your opinion isn't the only one allowed. As much as you have a right to unconditionally adore Hamilton, everyone else has a right to dislike him. Deal with it without resorting to name calling, so do the rest of us.
 
barak181
F1 has always had some stupid rules. Lapped drivers being allowed to unlap themselves before the restart after the red flag is way up there in my book.
Click to expand...
That rule looks stupid at first glance, but what about having a restart with plenty of cars under blue flag ? How is this supposed to work ?
Removing that rule would mean that a driver lapped by the leader before the red flag should slow down to be overlapped by the whole field right from the start.
 
Milouse
That rule looks stupid at first glance, but what about having a restart with plenty of cars under blue flag ? How is this supposed to work ?
Removing that rule would mean that a driver lapped by the leader before the red flag should slow down to be overlapped by the whole field right from the start.
Click to expand...

Not if everyone starts in their race order. You could fill the grid P1-P20 in formation and the lapped drivers are in their position behind the leaders but one lap behind. They're not under a blue flag to anyone - the leaders will have to complete a full lap to lap them again. Sure, the lapped drivers will have to pass the race leaders to get back onto the lead lap but they'd have to do that anyway if the red flag never came out.
 
Bottas' fault for being in that position in the first place, being attacked by the very person who might replace him in an inferior car.

If Russell was in that Mercedes & Bottas in the Williams then the only time they would meet on track is when Russell is lapping him.
 
Last edited:
LordExia
Probably an unpopular opinion - if they get rid of the rule that allows car to unlap themselves after SC and RF...how about getting ride of blue flag?? :P
Click to expand...

I guess the rules are somewhat consistent in terms of making the front runners race each other.

I'm always iffy about un-lapping or re-ordering the pack after a safety car. Everybody is in the place that they got to in the normal course of the race, so why start re-shuffling just because there was an incident? Seems like it's mainly for entertainment purposes.
 
barak181
Sure, the lapped drivers will have to pass the race leaders to get back onto the lead lap but they'd have to do that anyway if the red flag never came out.
Click to expand...
That's not the problem. The problem is that since the red flag / safety car is squeezing gaps, a lapped car would become de facto under cascading blue flags and have to slow down to let everyone pass it immediately.
 
Last edited:
Milouse
That's not the problem. The problem is that since the red flag / safety car is squeezing gaps, a lapped car would become de facto under cascading blue flags and have to slow down to let everyone pass it immediately.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I didn't think that through before I said it. Like I said, I'm new to the sport.

Edit again: Thinking through this more again - and people who have been following the sport longer and are more informed correct me - but under my scenario they would not be under cascading blue flags from the restart.

If everyone is allowed out of the pits in race order - regardless of actual track position, just in order - before a rolling restart or before being formed into a grid restart nobody is going to be under a blue flag on the restart. The race leaders are at the front of the pack when the race restarts.

As I thought about it more, I understand the argument (that no one's really made) that allowing the lapped drivers out of the pits first simulates a safety car situation on the formation lap. But a red flag isn't a safety car or yellow flag. Suspending a race is a different situation than slowing the pace to allow stewards to create a safe racing environment. Just my uninformed opinion.
 
Last edited:
The bit on Hamilton being allowed to unlap himself... I dunno. To me it just reeks of Monza 2020 again, back when Stroll was allowed to change tires during a red flag, and yet that counted as a mandatory pit stop. A red flag means the race is paused, and so when the race does get resumed, everything should be exactly right where they are before. We're not getting a second race or race #2, we're just continuing on. My impression is that, after the red flag, Stroll should have been forced to do a mandatory pit stop back then, and Hamilton should have still been 1 lap behind.
 
Last edited:
barak181
Sorry I'm late to the sport?
Click to expand...

Sorry, I didn't mean for that to come across as gatekeeping... but like most/all rules in F1 it was a cumulation of different situations/incidents that led them to introduce it. They didn't just create the rule out of thin air.

Since the Safety Car was re-introduced in the early 1990s there would be situations where cars would not be in race order on the restart, and you would get lapped cars inbetween cars who may have otherwise been battling for the lead/podium. It meant that what may have otherwise been a close race for the lead could quickly be over, because lapped traffic cost the chasing cars on the lead lap precious seconds. Those cars would just get constantly blue flagged as well. The crowd at the track would also not really know who was actually battling for position.

So eventually in 2012 (or 2013?) they decided to allow lapped cars to un-lap themselves under the Safety Car. So cars were in their correct order on restarts, allowing actual racing without having to navigate a train of backmarkers. As a secondary effect it also provided those previously lapped cars a chance to gain more positions than they otherwise would have.

The situation that happened today, where the championship leader ended up in the fence and a lap down, and was then able gain the lap back and to fight back to P2, is extremely uncommon, and definitely not the reason/intention of that rule was introduced. But it is what it is, and Lewis/Mercedes took full advantage of it.
 
Last edited:

Latest Posts

Back