Racing: 2021 Formula 1 Season

[PanniniClaus]

I do want to see Max win this years title...he had to know Lewis was going to race him as hard as possible with the title slipping away and the race being in Britain. So caution would have been the prudent route... pick Hamilton off later and win the race... Fighting Lewis like that was just unnecessary.

 

[Vasilevskiy]

Punt your championship rival off the road with a move that was never on (he was never going to make the apex which he realised and did try to back off and understeered into Max) and barely punished and go on to still win.

What a joke.

Webber and the other Channel 4 commentators all thought it should have at least been a stop-go

And if his car had any damage red flag and he can repair it.
It's a joke

 

[Havre]

Clearly pure luck that he was left with a functioning car. So hardly something Hamilton could have planned. If both cars had been smashed then Vertappen would have "benefitted" in the sense that there would have been one less race for Hamilton to catch him.

I don´t think they would have given a random driver at 13th a tougher penalty if this had happened in the "bunch".

 

[SoupyFIN]

Any opinions on that one then chaps?

Shades of 2016, this should be good. I think the incident was fine, RB arguing was pathetic. If you're in the championship fight, you know, maybe don't take that risk when you're going side by side?

Bottas is so bad. Will be pretty dissapointed if Merc resigns the guy just because he's a beta and doesn't mind playing second fiddle to Hamilton.

Getting mugged by Leclerc on the first start, then by Norris on the second start, then blowing up his tires and sucking wind for the last part of the race...

If it wasn't for Norris' slow stop he would have been off the podium even with Max and Perez out of the picture.

Starts are always about luck, all the drivers have super human reflexes.

Also I guess you missed Alonso's defensive work yesterday, Silverstone is one of the worst tracks on the calendar to follow and overtake. The teams are so close in performance these days, that you just can't get past without a clear tyre advantage. See: Leclerc/Hamilton on first stint.

 

[Siamese Dream]

The spectrum of opinions from Hamilton stans to Hamilton haters ranges from "racing incident" to "disqualify him"

That tells you that the correct answer is somewhere in the middle

 

[PanniniClaus]

Ted is trying to get Horner to say something controversial..

 

[NyQuil]

Well, Hamilton has discovered the secret to winning this year's championship.

I thought both drivers were a bit reckless which actually made for quite an exciting start until it happened.

 

[NyQuil]

Would be interesting to see Toto´s email though.

 

[Ceremony]

He actually sent several e-mails

 

[Siamese Dream]

Just watched it again

Verstappen leaves more than enough room on the inside but Hamilton realises he's not going to make the corner from that angle because he's too far to the inside and won't hit the apex so he backs out just before they reach the corner and then just understeers too much across. I expect if he stays alongside then Verstappen probably doesn't turn in like that but he would probably end up forcing Verstappen off the road on the outside in that case.

It's not a malicious incident like some would claim but it was clearly a mistake to position the car there going into Copse.

 

[MXD]

Saw the start again, didn't change my mind :
A penalty on its own, due to recklessness, with two mitigating circumstances : Early race AND (more importantly), the only reason there was a fight at this point was Verstappen's violation of track limits.

I'd really like this point to be raised in future meetings. You cannot NOT penalize Hamilton due to this, and Verstappen obviously didn't take advantage ultimately, so that's a bad case to make a point. But this incident doesn't happen if Verstappen stick to track limits in the first lap.

 

[dechire]

I'm biased as a Max fan but what the f*** was that

 

[NyQuil]

I'm biased as a Max fan but what the f*** was that

Prost vs. Senna 1989:

 

[Canadienna]

Also I guess you missed Alonso's defensive work yesterday, Silverstone is one of the worst tracks on the calendar to follow and overtake. The teams are so close in performance these days, that you just can't get past without a clear tyre advantage. See: Leclerc/Hamilton on first stint.

I didn't miss it, that's exactly why if Bottas didn't get extremely lucky with Norris' slow pit stop he wouldn't have even made the podium - with both RBs out of the picture.

I don't hate Bottas the person or anything but it irks me that a team would keep a guy around for reasons other than his ability to drive the car - or at least focus more on those reasons than his pace.

Also Bottas doesn't seem to be so "I need to be more selfish" these days now that his seat may be in jeopardy.

 

[NyQuil]

I don't hate Bottas the person or anything but it irks me that a team would keep a guy around for reasons other than his ability to drive the car - or at least focus more on those reasons than his pace.

They keep him around because he's content to be a #2.

 

[Transplanted Caper]

Toto should be fined for pulling the call with "I just sent you an email". Unforgivable office ethics.

 

[JoVel]

I always love myself a fair bit of controversy so I think this is exactly what this title fight needed. I was getting rather tired of Max and Lewis constantly giving each other fake compliments. In the end I'd rather see Max win it all but I hope it stays close. Rather have Lewis win the title by 5 points than Max by 50 points.

Just annoyed Charles couldn't pull off the win. At least he got a long overdue podium.

 

[Swervin81]

I view it as a 60/40 or 70/30 Lewis' fault. He slightly misjudged, understeered, and ended up getting into Max. It was a justified penalty that penalized the action and not the outcome.

That said, neither driver was doing the other any favors with the aggressiveness in the last few corners and Max was already abusing track limits and being seriously aggressive in defense. Even heading into Copse, they were basically level at the entry of the corner and Max tried to outbrake Lewis and hoped Lewis would relent like he did in previous races. He didn't, Lewis made a slight mistake at high speed, and it burned Max. It was just mostly a racing incident where one guy had a bit more of the blame to share than the other and got rightly penalized. That's it.

 

[SoupyFIN]

I didn't miss it, that's exactly why if Bottas didn't get extremely lucky with Norris' slow pit stop he wouldn't have even made the podium - with both RBs out of the picture.

I don't hate Bottas the person or anything but it irks me that a team would keep a guy around for reasons other than his ability to drive the car - or at least focus more on those reasons than his pace.

Also Bottas doesn't seem to be so "I need to be more selfish" these days now that his seat may be in jeopardy.

Mercedes would've probably tried to overcut Norris without the pitstop issue, no idea if that would've worked, but that's the only spot where you're overtaking.

I'm not a Bottas fanboy either, but the guy does consistently finish top3 and that's what Mercedes wants for the constructors championship. Bottas isn't the most media sexy or flashy driver on the track, but he gets the job done. Keeps the team and Lewis happy, I can't fault Mercedes for re-signing him year after year.

I actually think the lack of selfishness now has to do with RB's emerge as a constructors challenger. The previous years they could take more risks and still worst case scenario finish top5, but now they need both cars finishing near the top consistently to beat RB. Especially in a race like this when Verstappen DNF'd and RB royally screwed up Perez's strategy (why pit him so early on hards?).

 

[MXD]

The spectrum of opinions from Hamilton stans to Hamilton haters ranges from "racing incident" to "disqualify him"

That tells you that the correct answer is somewhere in the middle

Alonso, Leclerc and Bottas consider Hamilton-Verstappen crash a racing incident - RaceFans
Hamilton "went in too hot" in Verstappen collision - Ricciardo · RaceFans

As far as I'm concerned, there can, and probably should, be penalties for honest mistakes and overly optimistic moves. It's safe to say Lewis did an honest mistake here by being (slightly) overly optimistic into Copse - he wouldn't have crashed on his own, but with a driver beside of him, the risk was always there.

But I'll say it again : the only reason Verstappen was ahead of Hamilton leading up to Copse is the fact he put 4 wheels off-track at Abbey, enabling him to get more grip and to beat Hamilton to reacceleration.

 

[Khelandros]

 

[JoVel]

Apples and oranges. Goes without saying but it's much easier to hit the apex on one of the fastest corners of the calendar when the guy in front isn't squeezing you to the inside wall right before you're supposed to start turning. Same goes for anyone who's made the comparison to the Hamilton-Bottas battle in 2019.

Still, in my eyes it's 50-60% on Hamilton, 40-50% racing incident.

 

[Khelandros]

Apples and oranges. Goes without saying but it's much easier to hit the apex on one of the fastest corners of the calendar when the guy in front isn't squeezing you to the inside wall right before you're supposed to start turning. Same goes for anyone who's made the comparison to the Hamilton-Bottas battle in 2019.

Still, in my eyes it's 50-60% on Hamilton, 40-50% racing incident.

I don't know man. Looks to me like Leclerc is squeezing Hamilton way more that Max was.

 

[NyQuil]

This is some funny stuff right here from a completely unbiased observer:

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Red Bull joined Mercedes and F1 in condemning the abuse on Monday, while team principal Horner also felt personally moved to post a message on social media, saying: “Whilst the rivalry is intense on track, highly-charged emotions should never cross the line into racist abuse”.

But Hain, a Labour peer who lobbied for Hamilton’s Knighthood and served as a cabinet minister in Tony Blair’s government, told the PA news agency: “Racists had an excuse to let fly their vitriol and evil at Lewis after what I thought was a very ill-judged, intemperate and plain wrong attack on him by Christian Horner.

“I am not suggesting for one moment that Christian Horner was implying anything racist in what he said. He was talking in pure racing terms and not racist terms and that is obvious.

“But most Formula One drivers said that it was a racing incident. These are two absolutely top drivers battling for the crown and Lewis has had to give way to Max before when Max was being aggressive, and I think Lewis decided that this time he wasn’t going to bullied out of the way.”



Horner accused of giving ‘racists an excuse to let fly their evil’ at Hamilton

A racing incident?

Er, wasn't it the stewards who gave Hamilton the penalty?

Doesn't that mean that they're empowering racists?

 

[Albatros]

I dare to suggest that the abuse Hamilton received had mostly to do with his defense of England footballers and those who attacked him don't even have a faintest idea who Christian Horner is. To blame Horner or Red Bull for this is almost as abhorrent.