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Ferrari international assistance is back (did it ever go away?)

Message from race control: Jump the start, knock other drivers out the way and shower the track and other cars in debris, we'll let you off comparatively

Vettel should've got a drive through and Leclerc should at least be getting a grid penalty for the next race for such dangerous behaviour

What's the point in going to the extremes in safety with the halo and other devices when the rules don't punish drivers for driving in a dangerous manner?
It's like giving with one hand and taking with the other

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RIP Birmingham Wheels: here's some of the crash videos I recorded when it was there:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIaKIE ... 5t9d5PvoHA

Twitter:

http://www.twitter.com/paulhadsley

now is just a small handicap to help them from themselves and their poor tactics

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Motorsports trend for 2024: everything is a bad taste joke now

What you mentioned made me curious and I opened the rulebook now, sporting regulations 2019 and they say



So I guess the FIA adhered to their own rules? Which then makes me question the transponders and how they function. It was more than obvious to everyone seeing Vettel start that he jumped but apparently the transponders speak a different language. I read another article that the transponders have a bit of a leeway when they go off because the cars might move slightly when drivers put a gear in. However, that jump today was more than putting a gear in if you ask me but oh well.

It is the FIA you are talking about there. Common sense and rational judgement are just vague concepts they have heard about.

About Vettel's jump-start: There is a tolerance for the gap between car getting in movement and the lights fading (as per Bottas start in Austria 2017) and another tolerance for how much the car moves in such situations. Vettel got away, but the fact these tolerances aren't written in rules and won't be disclosed makes this quite a shady decision. Sometimes, I think stewards are lenient with Vettel in the cases that are not blatant as if they feared another questionable penalty would make a star of the sport leaving F1.

About Leclerc's contact with Verstappen: I think he simply missed the apex in a mere driver mistake and had no intention of squeezing Verstappen out of the track - racing incident. But I can understand the stewards' view that he should be more careful in such a situation of a first lap and the penalty seems reasonable.

About Leclerc's damaged car: No question it was dangerous to have that car racing around in such condition - it damaged Lewis' car and Sainz had to detour from debris. But I think race direction could have done a better job here - Black and orange flag exists for such situations and there was more than enough evidence Leclerc should have his car taken to the pits. If we want safety, we can't leave teams and drivers to be the ones assessing if the car is in condition to race after a contact.

Finally, stewards cannot make silly mistakes like noting an incident, then investigate it and then take a final decision after the race. Even the best decisions won't be trusted if they show such a lack of confidence.

They should have held the meatball flag ready and waved it the second he didnt pit on lap 1.
Him ignoring the team is possibly the worst thing I've seen in a long long time. Its not that the team invited him in for a cup of tea and a chitchat. He had fucking contact and even if he couldn't see the extent of the damage he should have trusted the team's judgment on it.

There is absolutely NO argument against him being DQ'ed from the race and possibly even slapped with a race ban.
And everyone that thinks I'm overreacting is a fucking hypocrite because everyone and their sister would literally be calling for his head if the piece did (gravely) injure Hamilton or another driver.

There shouldnt be a difference in punishment. Willingly endangering other drivers and marchal's should be punished hard. With or without serious injuries as a result.

I've watched the replay's of Vettel's jump start, and it appears as though he got off because his car didn't go outside of the grid box. Some will say yeah fair enough, he stopped when everyone else went and got a crap start because of it, fair game. The problem is that seemingly obvious rules appear to be grey as all hell. This wasn't some millisecond movement that could hardly be measured, it was visually obvious. Crap start or not, he visually went before the lights went out. So what is the point of having rules when they are now apparently arbitrary???

It is simple really...did he move before the lights went out? Yes. Penalty. No. Fine. None of this built in latency garbage.

Vettels jumpstart

Charles was more concerned about other things except following team orders
Taking 130R flatout with your right hand crossed over to hold the mirror and a broken front wing.
But but the car is ok..... why calling me in for?

If anything that shows how 130R basically isn't even a corner any more.

Brundle agrees

insane to see the F1 twitter account applaud Charles for something that dangerous. Should have pitted to get it removed or fixed.

plus that chunk that got off his car could have gone into the gap halo leaves on Hamilton's car

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Motorsports trend for 2024: everything is a bad taste joke now

Kubica has been driving one handed the whole season.

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"Indy doesn't give you a second chance. You have to earn it."

In fairness to Ferrari and the damage, we have seen time and time again cars continue to run around with barge boards hanging off and not get called into the pits. But the pieces fell off running over the curbs so all good seems to have been the FIA's stance half the time.

There's no doubt there was a huge risk looming around. But I don't think it's totally down to Leclerc.

Expecting a driver to assess whether he can stay out or not is not the best idea. And I have just heard the radio conversation between Leclerc and Ferrari, and at a given point he asks to confirm if he has to pit and the team tells him to stay out. In this sense, you can put part of the blame on the team.

DQing Leclerc is indeed harsh here because it would make him the scapegoat, while it wouldn't address clearly the fair share Ferrari and FIA have on this. Such a harsh punishment would be a good statement for FIA to tell they're doing something while not solving much.

Fair enough if they messed it up during the race, but the FIA should at least give this the seriousness it deserves and make a strong statement about these situations for the future. They punish people for "avoidable" racing collisions, and here we had a completely avoidable situation where the top driver in the field almost got a sharp piece of carbon into his visor, all for everyone to see in super slowmo. It's crazy how casual the FIA is being about this. The message is to stay out, as it will cost 15 seconds less than a 25-second pitstop with a wing change. We've seen more drama from the officials towards Vettel for his tantrum at Baku 2017.

Setting the human aspect of it aside: had Lewis been hurt badly, through the oh-so-promoted HALO, by a car that was never instructed to stop by the officials, it would've been a blow to F1's popularity of similar proportions to Imola 1994.

I feel that F1's disciplinary strategy is often misplaced. It is leaning more towards ass-licking the teams, and self ass-covering under the guise of safety theater measures (HALO, VSC), but not towards respect for human life as such. It's weird.

That also only really applies to the superstar drivers too.
There were 3 F1 deaths between Imola 94 and Japan 14, but they rarely even get mentioned because they were "just" marshals and not drivers
They barely made any changes to the sport in the wake of them. I think they made the wheel tethers stronger by one tether (4 tethers instead of three) after the 2nd one in Melbourne, but, meh, they still come off so...

_________________
RIP Birmingham Wheels: here's some of the crash videos I recorded when it was there:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIaKIE ... 5t9d5PvoHA

Twitter:

http://www.twitter.com/paulhadsley

I don't think that's fair. They changed the gaps in the fences after Graham Beveridge died in conjunction with the improvements to the tethers. They genuinely made an effort to try and sort that out after two fatalities in quick succession, and it has made a huge difference. The third was just really unfortunate

thats whats pissing me off. They preach safety all the time but when there is a avoidable near miss you dont see or hear them.

Its like the pope telling the world they will stop priest from raping kids while raping a kid.

Comparing rape with dangerous racing, interesting.