F1

MegaSteve said:
Well, a great race for me... Lots of drama and controversy with ample overtaking topped of with Samba girls... What more could we ask for?
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Hamilton's car breaking down!
Oh, and I'd blame Verstappen for the accident, he clearly turned into a piece of track occupied by another car.
Drivers are allowed to unlap themselves, it's supposed to be a race.
 
Slime said:
Hamilton's car breaking down!
Oh, and I'd blame Verstappen for the accident, he clearly turned into a piece of track occupied by another car.
Drivers are allowed to unlap themselves, it's supposed to be a race.
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Well, Bottas has proven wholly inadequate in challenging Lewis using same kit... Just leaving breakdowns for non-believers to hope for 😉...
 
Dibby said:
Max hadn't just caught Ocon. Max had lapped Ocon a while earlier. Ocon pitted, got fresh tyres and was then at that time going faster than Max, so he caught him up, and then attempted to unlap himself. I doubt Ocon particularly cared about the battle with Max, or whether he was lapped, but was more interested in going fast and catching those he was racing for position with whilst he had fresh rubber on his car. Equally, Max was leading by such a margin that a slight hold up with lapped traffic was of no consequence.

As I said before, technically Ocon was in the wrong, but Max had more to lose and less to gain.
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I'm inclined to think that the stewards figured Verstappen was penalised sufficiently by losing 1st for 2nd after a daft re-take maneuver (if he knew Ocon was 'such an idiot' he should have been a bit less agressive), while Ocon was a bit (if not more) of an idiot getting involved with the race leader as he did. But that's probably not the way F1 Drivers think!
 
Winning is about making the right decisions at the right time. This season Vettel Haas been guilty of making bad decisions and in this instance so did Verstappen. A sensible choice would have been to let Ocon through. He was faster at that time and posed no threat to Verstappen. If Verstappen proved to be faster over the lap Ocon would have to let Verstappen through anyway. I admire Verstappen's skill as a driver but not his temperament or petulance.
 
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ger147 said:
My opinion concurs with that of the race stewards. Here is their official statemet:

Official verdict: 'The driver of Car 31 (Esteban Ocon) was a lapped car. The Stewards noted that he had new Super Soft tyres. Ocon attempted a pass on the leader, Car 33 (Max Verstappen) to un-lap himself at the outside of turn one. The Stewards determined that he failed to complete the pass at turn one, and as a lapped car, fought the leader for track position, causing the collision at turn 2 with the race leader.'

Open and shut case...

Could Max have avoided the collision? Of course he could have, as I pointed out above (see my earlier posts in the thread). But he did not cause the collision, Ocon did. Ocon was driving towards a space that was not going to be there when he arrived i.e. the apex of the corner. Verstappen took the normal racing line thru turn 2 and Ocon drove into the side of Verstappen.
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Fairly clear explanation but it doesn't detract from the fact that Verstappen as a hugely experienced driver could easily have given Ocon more room and avoided contact at all which would have left him in prime position to go on and win.
 
robinthehood said:
Still blaming Ocon?

https://streamable.com/fkpqj
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Both drivers got it wrong and unfortunately for max he suffered most. Firstly going into turn one max defends and moves over to the left, why he didn’t let him then go at that point who knows. He could have then towed behind to regain the lost time. Max then makes the mistake of chopping across at turn 2, a move which was unnecessary and what caused the collision.

Ocon is well within his rights to unlap himself, something Lewis has done before. However he is not entitled to ‘fight’ for the position. The expectation is that you make one move, if it is unsuccessful you then back out. He clearly didn’t do that as he fought into turn two. Maybe max knew this and hence why he cut across but I find it unlikely.

In the end it’s come down to two inexperienced drivers bringing an old feud to the track. Lewis made a point of telling max he should have backed out, but we all know no one would pull the same move on Lewis, certainly not Ocon.
 
The BBC article is interesting reading. Doesn't come across as much of a team player - including the team of people that are building his car.

Never liked him after the 2003 Brazil GP when he ignored double waved yellows and had a big crash. Don't care about him risking his own life, but double waved means there are probably marshals on the track. And then the 2008 crashgate incident cemented my feelings.
 
jim8flog said:
Great comment from Alonso " I have 1800 points" when his team asked him to try to gain 1 point with just 3 laps to go.
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Alonso is a great of the sport, and it’s a shame he’s not had the success his driving talent deserves. However I don’t like the man; crashgate, spygate, Mclaren Honda, he just seems to drag teams down and never seems to be his fault.

As for the races. Thank god that race is over, terrible circuit that should not be the season finale regardless of how much they pay. What the commentators were going on about with regards to LH being at risk I don’t know, but to my mind it never seemed in doubt. We all know it’s about track position and he was always going to end up back at the front for last 10/15 laps.
The crash was pretty unlucky, shows how lucky MV was in Brazil as well. I think that’s the worst case scenario for the halo and I’d be surprised if it doesn’t get looked at more closely, a burning f1 car with a driver ‘trapped’ is not good. Lucky it was the first lap so safety car was there and stewards bay was close by. Dread to think if that happened in spa.

Another poor race by Bottas, he seems devoid of confidence. Ocon could be in with a shout half way through next season and it would be a good story if he did and went up against a resurgent red bull and max.

Countdown on now until next season, hopefully the changes are a success, I doubt it will give people what they want but hopefully 3 competitive teams (maybe a 4th out of Renault/Mclaren) will provide excitement in the title race if not the individual races.
 
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