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Ferrari not making blunders this year probably because they fulfilled their quota by releasing the wrong driver.

Alonso, Vettel and Leclerc, but Ferrari latest champion is still Kimi. And probably Lewis will join this list. I'm starting to ask myself if the next Ferrari champion is even born.

What a form by Sainz. Big win, especially considering he had a surgery two weeks ago.

Sainth > 18 drivers on the field

As per the Alonso-Russell incident, it reminded me of this classic.

I really don't see the point of the penalty.

history will tell that it was well made forced mistake

plus Sainz today drove like a champ, remembered Alonso at his prime, consistent and no mistakes

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Maybe that´s the price Alonso pays for being around for so long. He used tactics that were perfectly OK when he began in F1. Younger guys grow up and learn different things, that are now the norm but will not be the norm anymore in 20 years. But they will not be in F1 anymore in 20 years.

yeah, like racing in the wet

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The crux of the issue in the Russell vs Alonso incident, is had Alonso not done what he did, Russell wouldn't have crashed. Full stop. And if you do something to end someone's race, you should be punished. Whether it be run them wide, weave, brake check, not give them racing room, it caused someone to avoid contact and ultimately they hit the wall, quite heavily. I wouldn't call it sporting from Alonso, and the fact he's lied about (the FIA didn't buy the "battery issue" he had) makes it malicious.

It's a great corner, but it's worrying how many fairly mild accidents result in cars bouncing back into the middle of the road. I do wonder if they will change it for next year, or wait until after somebody gets collected.

Kimi pits?

Unfortunately I don't think it's quite that cut and dry.
- Firstly, I don't think we can automatically assume that Alonso's ultimate goal with his little stunt, was to make Russell crash. Certainly he wanted to throw Russell off in an effort to fend him off at the next straight.
- Which leads to the other point. And that is, Russell actually didn't need to do anything to avoid contact. It looks like he braked as he normally would and simply lost the front end of the car. That is, Alonso's actions did not increase the risk of contact between the two. And thus, we can't take just carte blanche give Russell a free pass to say he had zero responsibility in him crashing. As Martin Brundle likes to point out, the throttle does indeed work both ways.
- And lastly, and this is what I think boils down to most people's concern with the penalty, including Alonso's based on his response. Which is, okay if you consider what he did to be malicious, where do you now draw the line? Apparently he decelerated 100m earlier than usual. If 100m is malicious, is 90m acceptable? Or is it 80m or 70m? You get where I'm going with this. Getting into the dangerous territory of dictating to drivers the specific parameters in which they can drive now.

To clarify, I certainly agree what Alonso did was slightly naughty. I'm just not a fan of the precedent this penalty may set in terms of confining drivers to a box on how they can defend.

Agreed, but he crashed regardless, because (see my next point)



Subjective - my opinion is that of the FIA - he lost the front end of the car in the dirty air/wake of Alonso's car. Which wouldn't have been there had he not braked 100m earlier that lap.

FIA have all the data on hand, they could have seen if Russell braked too late for the corner - then there would be no penalty. So the FIA probably saw his braking point was the same as the previous lap when he was unaffected by dirty air.



I called it malicious because he was clearly lying about having a "battery problem". Change the wording to deliberate.

Brake checking someone in a tight chicane or slow hairpin to limit their acceleration or hinder their exit speed is one thing, where you might put a front wing at risk, but this was a 230km/h 5-6th gear corner. What if Russell did miss his braking point and launched over the back of him? Being subjective goes both ways.

Also, this is my opinion, but Alonso is better than that. Russell I don't think would have cakewalked past him, it could have been a great side by side battle through those corners on the back side of the circuit.

True, but as the stewards noted, Alonso is not responsible for the effect of the dirty air/wake on Russell's car. For instance, what if Alonso had a poor exit the previous corner or missed a shift and ended up arriving at T6 slower than usual, would Russell have still barreled right up to his gearbox? Of course he wouldn't have. Similarly, if Alonso started to decelerate 100m earlier than usual, that ought to have been more than enough time for Russell to react and adjust speed given F1 drivers reaction times. The onus is on the chasing car to manage the gap appropriately (when able) rather than putting himself in a vulnerable position knowing the potential effects of dirty air on front end downforce going into a high speed corner. I think this puts a spotlight on Russell's experience and race craft in such situations once again.



For sure, it was definitely a tad naughty I don't disagree with you there, because going into a high speed corner like that Alonso's move relied on Russell having full control of his car. Unfortunately for Russell he didn't. But that comes back to the original question, what exactly is going to be the criteria for such penalties going forward? Where do we draw the line on the level of defensive maneuvers drivers can utilize now? At a time when everyone is harping on them to be more consistent with enforcing the regulations, the FIA have put themselves on a rocky slope with this.

I've always liked Alonso, but he 100% deserved that penalty. What he did was the very definition of erratic driving. Did he want to have Russell off? No, i don't think he did. Did he want Russell to check up and compromise his exit? Absolutely. Which resulted in Russell crashing.

The problem with that was that he braked, changed down gear, then accelerated, then slowed down again and speed up in an unpredictable manner, unlike anything he had done before, approaching a blind corner with minimal run off at over 200+ kph, in an area of the track that generates tunnel vision.

Easy to say it was stupid Russell for not anticipating or reacting quicker to it and causing his own crash, but when racing wheel to wheel at 200+ kph you need trust in your competitor to not do something erratic and stupid, and yes, you need predictable behaviours, otherwise there would be a series of fatal crashes at every race. That is why drivers get so pissed off and angry at moving erratically under breaking. I'm sure there are some people here that are go karter's and can attest to how dangerous that kind of driving is.

Alonso's approach to that corner was so unexpected and erratic and Russell's closing speed so great that he could not have predicted what Alonso was going to do.

The stewards knew Alonso was talking shit, and what he was trying to do, but couldn't conclusivley say he was trying to have him off. He is lucky it was only a 20 second penalty.

This is the more important point. Not long ago Hamilton put Verstappen in the hospital at Silverstone and got a 10 second penalty (I'm not arguing the legality or making a comparison. I'm saying they found him guilty and gave him this). Had Alonso got the same treatment here, it doesn't change the results, so they make it 20 seconds so he fell behind Stroll and Tsunoda. That makes zero sense.

Yeah fair points, good discussion mate

The stewards will always look at shenanigans in a braking zone differently than at other parts of the track, because a driver's options to react to the unexpected are very limited in those situations. Same reason while moving under brakes is (generally) penalised.

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Alonso did not force Russell into a crash. Russell did not have to choose between avoiding or hitting Alonso, the gap between them was too big.
Alonso did something different than the lap before, it caught Russell by surprise and he lost control of his car. If Russell hadn´t crashed, nobody would have taken any notice and everyone would have said it was good defending, like Perez in Abu Dhabi 2021. So the penalty was given considering the result and severity of the action, something they said they never do like in Silverstone 2021.

I wonder if we would have seen any kind of battle between Sainz and Verstappen, without Max's issues. Perez's race pace was poor. I expected him to easily make the podium, like the previous races. Did he just have a bad race, or are we going to see some circuits where the Red Bull isn't as dominant as first thought? Probably just Singapore...

Horner claims Perez had damage to the car which affected his downforce. Not sure if true or just a lie to protect Perez.

I still think Max would have easily won without issues. The brake played up almost immediately. Without it he would have driven away.
Still a stunning drive by Sainz and both Mercedes and Red Bull would be stupid not to go after him. Assuming Sainz doenst suddenly collapse and go full potato the rest of the season it would be the biggest travesty is he ends up without a proper drive next year.

If I was Red Bull I'd ban both Verstappen and Sainz Sr. from the pit and get Sainz jr back

Funny that stewards said it had nothing to do with the crash. Of course not

This is also similar to Monaco 92 in some sorts of way, where Senna did all the sort of shenanigans to disrupt Mansell (and quite surprisingly Mansell didn't crashed), that happening today would be DSQ right away

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