I know Zak Brown is outraged. Outraged! As I recall from when I followed F1 in the 90s this is kinda how the game is played. Those grey areas in the rules are open to all kinds of exploitation/interpretation, until they aren't.
I know Zak Brown is outraged. Outraged! As I recall from when I followed F1 in the 90s this is kinda how the game is played. Those grey areas in the rules are open to all kinds of exploitation/interpretation, until they aren't.
Oh, yeah, it's kind of at the heart of how the game of car development is always played -- but the devil is always in the details of how creatively you are working to interpret the rules in innovative ways (ie, find legitimate loopholes and unique interpretations) vs blatantly breaking the rules and trying to be creative about avoiding detection. And really, it's one of the things I love about the sport, and I don't see how you can't have teams doing cool things in the first category without allowing that the second category is going to come into play from time to time.
Like, things like the Brawn GP double diffuser and Mercedes' DAS system are amazing, and the sport would be a lot less fun if they weren't possible. And really, I'm actually kind of inclined to see this latest thing (the ride height adjustment mechanism) as being more in that category -- if you believe their version of things, it sounds like they found an innovative way to reduce the time and stress involved in working out the details of a setup for the weekend, and even if that's less showy than a weird way to use a steering wheel, that's a legitimate way to improve your team's performance. (Of course, if they were using it during parc ferme, that's a very different matter.)
The brake pressure thing read a bit more borderline to me though. As discussed in the rumor mill, it was a spectacular piece of engineering, and in some ways was absolutely in the spirt of what F1 car development is supposed to do -- inspire creative approaches to solving problems to make a car better. There was a beauty in the way they were making it happen, you know? But, part of that beauty was about it happening in a way that was intentionally hard to see, which veers more in the territory of being innovative about avoiding detection because you know you are more violating than reinterpreting the rules in what you were doing. (Ie, Ferrari's "creative" design of fuel flow sensors in their 2019 engines.)
Crazy!
Kind of bullshit officiating today, yeah?
Kind of bullshit officiating today, yeah?
You talking about the 5 minute Norris penalty? I don't know enough about the sport, but it would have seemed to me that Verstappen pushed him out maybe.
It was a McLaren f*ck up unfortunately. The F1tv commentary explained it pretty well. There would have been some doubt if Norris was ahead at the apex, but he wasn't.
If Norris was ahead the call would have gone the other way.
If his engineer had given him the correct info he could have given the place back and challenged again.
Yet again McLaren shoots themselves in the foot. The stewards were not playing with that particular infringement all weekend.
Maybe they hoped they would be able to open up a gap so the penalty wouldn't matter. After all it's what Verstappen would have done.
I have no doubts that Verstappen played Lando like a fiddle. He knew that hairpin was the best chance to pass and that he could force Lando to pass him off the track just hard enough that he would not be called for pushing another driver off the track. He's the best at doing that stuff and it worked.
Maybe the officiating was a bit inconsistent but Lando did complete the pass off the track and that should not be allowed.
I went to bed straight after the race last night so I didn't watch the post race show. I watched this morning and Piastri brought up his penalty in the Sprint for what he said was doing the same thing to Gasly as as Max did to Lando.
I struggled to find a clip and I needed a VPN to see any of it but I think it was a pretty different move. Piastri's was up the inside and Gasly was mostly ahead when Piastri rubbed elbows with him, so a pretty different situation.
Sorry for the Twitter link.
https://x.com/SkySportsF1/status/184...
I also didn't see the podium so I missed the weirdness with the trophies.
Yeah, maybe if looked at closely it would all make a bit more sense, but it just felt like officiating of incidents at that corner was ALL over the place this weekend. Completely ignored for like the first quarter of the race, and across the rest (and the sprint before) it felt like a bit of a coin flip -- or at the very least, WILDLY differing interpretations of where the apex was and what counted as being sufficiently ahead at it.
Also, the official document describing the finding for the Norris/Verstappen incident indicated that Norris' actions justified a ten second penalty, but that they reduced it to five due to Verstappen's behavior justifying a five second penalty for forcing another car off the road. So, why not issue two findings and a penalty to each of them so that Verstappen can receive direct notice about his VERY habitual behavior of strategically forcing drivers off when he knows it will make them choose between an accident and a penalty for track limits and/or leaving and gaining an advantage? (And also, a bit fairer to other drivers -- Piastri, for example, would have taken the podium had they done a more direct apportioning of blame there.)
I did miss the bit about the two penalties and that is some bullshit. If it should have been 10 and 5, they should have issued a 10 and 5.
I think I disagree with the weighting. Forcing a car off the track is much more dangerous behaviour than leaving the track to gain an advantage. I would expect the forcing a car off the track to have a larger penalty. Is this not how the FIA see things? The relative dangers rather than the penalties.
I've been looking to see if there are any reasons for why penalties have certain lengths and I can't find anything specific.
I suspect that despite sounding rather dramatic 'forcing a driver off the track' isn't actually particularly dangerous in most cases.
Most tracks have run off sections on overtake zones and on those that don't the driver on the outside will be far more circumspect, so there's an element that even if the person on the inside is judged to be mostly at fault there is an element of 'it takes two to tango.'
Whereas 'leaving the track to gain an advantage,' despite sounding pretty anodyne is straight up cheating.
Heh, would be fun if they were enforced.
I enjoyed this.
Heh, would be fun if they were enforced.
Turns out, it's very fun.
Yeah, the race was too late for me last night so I got up and watched it first thing today, was a great time. A few more consequences for Verstappen and he may start racing more cleanly.
The F1TV commentators mentioned that the driver's briefing was a very long one this weekend and a lot of drivers complained about the enforcement of overtaking rules. So maybe the FIA is starting to adjust enforcement.
The issue is highlighted too when you contrast a race with Verstappen and the one between the Mercedes drivers. That was good clean, fair racing.
It's highlighted when Max is racing a non threat to his championship. No way Max would have let Lando do what Sainz did.
Holy shit! That qualifying was insane.
Holy shit! That qualifying was insane.
Wait till you see the attempt to start the race. 
Holy shit! That qualifying was insane.
No kidding!
Just a shame Williams didn’t have the parts to get Albon on track.
Race was wild too. *I'm* exhausted!
Unlucky timing on that VSC and red flag really screwed Lando and George, but great result for Alpine.
And love him or hate him Verstappen really is a next level talent.
Due to being on the West Coast and the change in timing of the race, I opened up the F1 app this morning expecting the race to be done. Instead, they were on lap 55ish, and I was shocked at what I saw.
And love him or hate him Verstappen really is a next level talent.
Absolutely -- although it would just be nice if he could also not drive like an asshole (and not work for several of the biggest shit heels in a business full of them).
But yeah, that's more or less the driver's championship sorted. Not that Norris didn't make some mistakes before and after, but in many ways is it all comes down to that one rough strategy call.
People are going to jump all over Norris going off and other driving mistakes, but some of the best and most experienced drivers in history were having a terrible time. Half a wheel on the paint and you're in the wall.
That false start thing though, who knows what the result of that going to be.
Absolutely -- although it would just be nice if he could also not drive like an asshole (and not work for several of the biggest shit heels in a business full of them).
I mean, agreed, but (and I am a casual) weren't most of the all-time greats (Schumacher, Senna) also just incomprehensible assholes?
I probably wouldn’t have been terribly impressed by them either. 
I'm a bit surprised there's no chatter about this news yet.
https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/a...
So Cadillac, without Andretti, is approved for 2026.
I had a feeling something was up when he was announced as stepping down from operations in his company.
Yeah, I did see the headline but didn’t have time to figure out it was, like, real or REAL real.
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