Why those "marshalls" really do that?
Harsh decision or everything "normal"?
What if Nico Rosberg was a Formula Indy Driver? Death penalty?
First thing:
I realise Giorgio referred to them as marshalls too, but I think its best to differentiate between
marshalls who help keep the track clear and warn drivers of track conditions and
stewards who ensure the races are run within the rules and all competitors comply with the rules.
Otherwise it gets really confusing in certain scenarios when people refer to almost everyone involved as "marshalls".
Secondly:
Why? Well Indycar had rather idiotic stewards and race control chiefs involved the past few years who introduced stuff like "no defending the inside line" rules etc. Fortunately they've got rid of these people and these stupid rules this year.
Certainly a harsh decision but I don't really see the relevance of Nico Rosberg - Rosberg last weekend was defending to an extreme before a corner whereas here Giorgio was overtaking in a corner and running wide either on purpose or through momentum.
To be honest though, its kind of good to sometimes see stewards taking a hard line on drivers that do what Giorgio sort of did here - overtake and then run wide on the exit to push the other driver off the track or back off. While its fair as far as rules go, its not especially "sportsman-like". But its a difficult one really as I also think it would be farcical to force drivers to leave room on the outside all the time as they would inevitably struggle to make late-braking moves stick at all if they had to always take a tighter line to give the space.
Really I think the age-old F1 rule of "one move to block in the braking zone" is a good enough rule, just to make it clear to the driver behind which line you are taking in the braking area as this is the area where the driver behind must decide where to place their momentum and cannot drop out of a move they start. Changing line and direction during the corner or on corner exit becomes a little more difficult to really regulate against and isn't really that dangerous as long as both drivers give each other room to stay on the track.
For example, I don't see anything wrong with Schumacher's moves defending from Hamilton at Monza 2011 (where he made his move to defend but then returned to the optimum racing line as they left the braking zone and entered the corners). And for the best example of changing lines but still only making one move in the braking zones, look to Senna vs Mansell Monaco 1992.
I personally think weaving on straights to break slipstream tows isn't something that should be penalised but its certainly not nice racing ettiquette.
It seems a lot of people can't see the difference between only making one move in a braking zone and weaving all over the place - especially when its a series of corners like Esses or something where each corner feeds into another and a defensive line requires the driver to move from one side to another. Even some of the drivers seem to moan when a driver in front is supposedly "weaving all over the place" when they are actually taking perfectly fine defensive lines into each corner.
But anyway, this thread is kind of silly now that they've changed a lot of the silly rules and got rid of some of the silly stewards in Indycar. Though there are some ill-thought-out penalties still in place like the unnecessary engine penalties.
