Formula 1 2020/2021: Shits getting crazier

[Tywin et al.]

Is it fair to call that one a boring race?

[polishgenius]

22 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Red Bull need just one upgrade or step up to be able to compete on an even keel, otherwise they might be left hoping for a Hamilton DNF or some kind of crazy incident as their best chance to win the driver's championship. 

 

Final race of the season, Hamilton qualifies p1 and Bottas p3, and for once in his career Bottas gets a good launch and smashes straight into the back of Lewis. 

[Werthead]

39 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Is it fair to call that one a boring race?

Nowhere near as boring as a typical "boring" race (like France every year before this one, or Monte Carlo most years). The battle between Alonso and Perez for P3 was pretty interesting, and the Alpha Tauri/Alpine, Mercedes/Red Bull and Ferrari/McLaren battles for coming out ahead in the constructors added some interest. The tyres then blowing up one after another in the final few laps added some spice, plus it was a new track which is always interesting to watch bed in.

If you mean boring because Hamilton was never under imminent danger of being overtaken, sure, although it was unusual in that Hamilton was able to open an okay-ish gap (8-9 seconds) but then couldn't pull any further away. If he had that pace advantage, you'd assume they'd use it to try to get much further ahead, and if Red Bull could match them, why didn't they do that when the gap was lower?

[williamjm]

6 hours ago, Werthead said:

Good to see Alonso on the podium again.

It's definitely been a while. I think a significant portion of the audience probably spent the last 10 laps being very fixated on the continued structural integrity of Alonso's front left tyre.

The battle for the lead was lacking in tension but there was some decent action behind that.

As new tracks go it seemed fine but nothing particularly notable about it. I that when the Qatar GP becomes a permanent fixture they'll use a street circuit instead so maybe we won't see it again.

[Werthead]

Alonso and Ricciardo watching Verstappen's lap in awe and then reacting to the crash. Owch.

Mercedes feeling very lucky today, but also aware that Verstappen starting 3rd with what appears to be a significantly faster car on this circuit is still going to be a monster threat. Perez also out of position in 5th and can be a major threat as well.

Mercedes might be hoping the Verstappen has damaged his gearbox and will need to take a penalty to get a new one that would drop him back to #8. Even there I wouldn't rule Max out from finishing 2nd or 3rd, which would set up a showdown for the ages in the final race of the season.

[Werthead]

Bonkers race so far. Three standing starts, two red flags, hugely controversial arsing around by Hamilton on the restart, even bigger controversial cutting up from Verstappen, one awesome restart by Hamilton, one awesome restart by Verstappen and the double-overtake move of the season by Verstappen.

And there's still 25 laps to go. Anything can happen.

[polishgenius]

The guy who designed this racetrack...

[Werthead]

Going for the safety car and virtual safety car record in one race, half thanks to Raikkonnen and Tsunoda tearing bits off Vettel's car through the race.

JFC, that was a narrowly avoided crash from hell.

ETA: Not so avoided. WTF?

[Werthead]

The post-mortem on that race is going to be pretty intense.

I get Verstappen slowing down to let Hamilton past, but he did it in the middle of the track in the second-narrowest track on the F1 calendar and Hamilton had no idea whether to go left or right, so went into the back of Max rather than taking a punt on one of the lines. Then Max gave the place up in a bit of a shitty manner but then that was fine and then let Lewis past anyway. Then his tyres died so the whole thing ended up being for nothing.

They go into the final race absolutely level pegging on points which is crazy.

[BigFatCoward]

Sounds like a race I should have watched rather than following via updates. Because I had no clue what was happening. 

[Werthead]

Verstappen summoned to the stewards to answer for the brake-testing thing. If they're not satisfied, Verstappen could be disqualified on the spot, which would effectively give Hamilton the championship by default (unless Hamilton had a DNF in Abu Dhabi).

They might give him another time penalty, which would likely drop him behind Bottas and Ocon, and would mean that Verstappen could only win the championship by winning in Abu Dhabi (which Red Bull absolutely bossed last year, but Hamilton was still broken from COVID) and Lewis having some sort of massive problem and finishing five or six places down.

Commentators seem puzzled by why Lewis didn't just pass Verstappen, and there seems a feeling that it was a genuine mistake. Verstappen didn't deliberately brake-test him, which would have been psychotic.

[polishgenius]

3 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

Sounds like a race I should have watched rather than following via updates. Because I had no clue what was happening. 

Don't worry, I watched it and I had no clue what was happening either.


 

 

8 minutes ago, Werthead said:

 

I get Verstappen slowing down to let Hamilton past, but he did it in the middle of the track in the second-narrowest track on the F1 calendar and Hamilton had no idea whether to go left or right,

He'd given space as they came around the corner to be fair (for what space there was to be had) and seemed to have slowed but what happened at the corner is just baffling. Certainly Hamilton didn't know what was happening, but whether Verstappen went 'fuck it you're not coming past then I'm taking the line again' or what, if Hamilton just misread Verstappen not accelerating when he ordinarily would have done as a brake-test (we'll find that out from the steward's reaction to the data I guess), if Verstappen didn't know where Hamilton was and slowed even more without being aware of the surroundings - fuck knows.

[Wilbur]

The course in Saudi Arabia isn't great for racing, and it also seems to have some odd safety issues.  But the biggest drawback was the audio quality, as it sounded like Croft was calling the race from the inside of an empty shipping container.  So tinny and echo-y!

[Werthead]

13 hours ago, Wilbur said:

The course in Saudi Arabia isn't great for racing, and it also seems to have some odd safety issues.  But the biggest drawback was the audio quality, as it sounded like Croft was calling the race from the inside of an empty shipping container.  So tinny and echo-y!

Yeah, the track needs something of a redesign to address the safety issues. They need more run-off and they probably need a couple more kinks to bleed off the speed from getting too dangerously high. The first and last corners are pretty good though, they can stay.

It might also improve with practice: Singapore, Canada, Azerbaijan and Monaco all throw up similar problems and they solved those partly through redesigns (introducing the kink after the tunnel in Monaco when they realised the extreme danger of carrying all that speed down the hill and straight into the end of the barriers in a 90-degree impact) and partly through the drivers just getting on with it, such as with the steadily declining number of drivers stacking it in the castle entrance in Baku despite that section not being changed at all.

[Daeron the Daring]

Well, I might have an unpopular opinion, but here's the thing:

This is F1, the 'clash' of Hamilton and Verstappen. Both are fenomenal drivers, no doubt about it. Watched the race, saw the accident of Max and Hamilton, and I still have the impression (and had it from the beginning) that Hamilton knew what was going on. Does anyone tryna tell me a F1 driver ain't gonna take the chance to pass another when a situation is given? The FIA in their report admitted that Hamilton had enough time to react and evade Max, but there were still fouls in the action, accordint to them. Now if you think about it, is there a chance a world class F1 driver doesn't see such a gap? I don't think so. If you on a race, you pass someone when he stops. Hamilton knew (whatever the situation behind all of this is) that once he takes the spot, Verstappen could pass him, and he choose not to do what he was meant to do there, whatever he may or may not knew about what instructions Max received. 

The decisions are questionable, the discussions about the start after the red flag is just disgusting, and the whole thing seemed very rigged, from both sides sometimes (I'm talking about the tension creation, not the outcome). 

Not gonna lie, I enjoyed the race while it lasted, but it left behind a very bitter taste for me, and not because Verstappen didn't win it. Not that I deny that I'm rooting for him this year. 

Hamilton achieved everything. If this is how he (still) wants to continue, then I'm rather sad than mad. But we'll see what happens this weekend.

[baxus]

I'm not a fan of F1 in general, haven't watched it for close to 20 years and caught only a few races this season, so I might be missing some knowledge of the rules and stuff like that and I could be flat out wrong, but from my perspective Verstappen made an asshole move.

Verstappen was told to give up the position to Hamilton in order to avoid investigation and possible sanctions for an earlier incident and he waited to do it until the DRS zone where he could use DRS to overtake Hamilton immediately. Hamilton wouldn't fall for that and it resulted in contact and damage to Hamilton's car.

From a neutral spectator's position, I'm loving that the title will be decided in the last race and I find Hamilton winning the record-breaking title and Verstappen beating one of the greatest ever (if not the greatest ever) to be equally appealing sport stories. I'd just love to see it won fair and square.

[Werthead]

Interesting stat: only once in F1 history have drivers gone into the final race tied on points: 1974, when Emerson Fittipaldi won over Clay Regazzoni.

55 minutes ago, baxus said:

I'm not a fan of F1 in general, haven't watched it for close to 20 years and caught only a few races this season, so I might be missing some knowledge of the rules and stuff like that and I could be flat out wrong, but from my perspective Verstappen made an asshole move.

Verstappen was told to give up the position to Hamilton in order to avoid investigation and possible sanctions for an earlier incident and he waited to do it until the DRS zone where he could use DRS to overtake Hamilton immediately. Hamilton wouldn't fall for that and it resulted in contact and damage to Hamilton's car.

From a neutral spectator's position, I'm loving that the title will be decided in the last race and I find Hamilton winning the record-breaking title and Verstappen beating one of the greatest ever (if not the greatest ever) to be equally appealing sport stories. I'd just love to see it won fair and square.

Yup. Giving the place back in a shitty, unsportsmanlike way is actually not allowed under the rules (Hamilton himself has run afoul of that in the past), but Verstappen successfully argued that he was trying to give the place back immediately, resulting in the impact. Hamilton seems to have argued that he wasn't sure what Verstappen was doing and with Verstappen's car drifting across the centre of the track it was unclear whether he should go left or right, and had microseconds to make a decision. Whether Hamilton even had time to think "he's giving the place up but I have to wait until I cross the DRS line" is questionable.

I think Vestappen was to blame for not giving the place up in a clearer manner, but I think Hamilton was also to blame for having a brainfart at the wrong moment rather than taking advantage of the moment.

[polishgenius]

1 hour ago, baxus said:

Hamilton wouldn't fall for that and it resulted in contact and damage to Hamilton's car.

 

If Hamilton not falling for it had been the reason, it'd be on him, coz making someone overtake you when they don't want to is a  much lesser crime than crashing into them to prevent it. Like Wert said though, I don't think he had time to think about it, he was just going 'what the fuck is he doing pick a fucking side aaa contact'.

I do believe that Verstappen didn't mean to cause it either though, even he's clearly happy to cause contact if he thinks it necessary and put himself in a position to do so at least once in this race and several times this season. They both just had a bit of a brainfart.

 

3 hours ago, Daeron the Daring said:

If you on a race, you pass someone when he stops.

 

He didn't stop, he slowed down. Hamilton didn't know why, and he's already been on the hook this weekend for not seeing yellow flags. He doesn't know what's ahead of Verstappen. I'm as big a critic of Hamilton as anyone but you're wilding out on this one. There's no benefit to him hitting Verstappen - a DNF is far too big a risk to him.

[Daeron the Daring]

31 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

He didn't stop, he slowed down. Hamilton didn't know why, and he's already been on the hook this weekend for not seeing yellow flags. He doesn't know what's ahead of Verstappen. I'm as big a critic of Hamilton as anyone but you're wilding out on this one. There's no benefit to him hitting Verstappen - a DNF is far too big a risk to him

Sure, he didn't stop, but the meaning stays. And as I said, the FIA, in their report, admitted Hamilton had the time to evade the contact. If, let's say, Verstappen have had a reason to slow down, with that reason being virtual safety car (when you have to reach a lower avg speed), that would've not happened in that tempo. Then such contacts would happen all the time when virtual safety car comes in. The thing is, he slowed down, Hamilton had the time to evade him (confirmed by FIA's report on the penalty given to Max), and still. We can even argue Max slowing down wasn't that fast, since why would he in his right mind would do that, once he assumes Hamilton will pass him with close to top speed. If someone slows down at such pace, you don't follow him, and that's how it is. Not to mention that in really similar cases from the not distant past the pilot that was given a penalty was the one in who's stead Hamiton was. As I said, this whole race started to feel to me (when it ended) as the first wrestling match I've seen knowing it's scripted. 

[kungtotte]

Hamilton doesn't pass Verstappen there because if he does then Verstappen will just re-pass him again using DRS, something which we've seen happen frequently (a good example is Monza this season). If you give a position up and time it so you get DRS, you're effectively cheating your way past the guy in front, albeit by a roundabout way.

This was noted in the stewards' decision.

I know full well why they didn't touch it given the title battle, but brake-checking like Verstappen did should always and unequivocally mean you are DSQ from the race. It is always a dangerous move and should be strictly enforced. But given that they don't bother to enforce their own rules, or don't bother to enforce them consistently, I am not surprised they went the way they did. And I am sure that Liberty Media are rubbing their hands over a tied WDC battle going into the final round, which hopefully has had no impact at all on the stewards' decision throughout the season but it wouldn't be the first time they were less than neutral.

 

Also an interesting stat that I found out the other day: 30 out of 71 times has the WDC been decided in the final race, a number which is higher than I expected especially given that we've had several years where one team/driver has been head and shoulders above everyone else (Schumacher, Hamilton, Vettel to some degree).