That new circuit was ace. Massa got to keep his win (but got a €10,000 fine - oh noes), so the championship could go down to the wire again.
Kimi driving over his pit mechanic was priceless
Kimi driving over his pit mechanic was priceless
It was an odd decision, but then I'd struggle to think of a fitting punishment. Docking points would be far too harsh at this stage of the championship, but fining Ferrari £7k? You might as well ask them for a cup of water.
The thing is harsher penalties have been given out for less serious infractions of the rules - The three drive through penalties given in France 2002 for crossing the exit lane line spring instantly to mind - another rule based on safety. The consistent penalty would've been a drive through penalty - Chandok recieved one for a similar, arguably less dangerous offence in the GP2 feature. One of the main threads running through recent seasons has been inconsistent application of the rules. (See also: the McLaren/Renault/Ferrari spy affairs last season, The various arbitrary grid drops due to impeding of qualifying - For instance, this "Impeding" of qualifying.)
Grim... wrote:
It was an odd decision, but then I'd struggle to think of a fitting punishment. Docking points would be far too harsh at this stage of the championship, but fining Ferrari £7k? You might as well ask them for a cup of water.
It's a good thing they don't have to think of one and the drive through penalty is established by both precedent and the rules isn't it.
This stage of the championship nothing, the entrant broke the rules, the entrant gets punished, just as Chanhock did in the GP2 race the previous day for the exact same thing as Mr Dave points out.
It depends I suppose if you think a championship artificially going down to the wire is a good thing. Several do, it's why Nascar invented the chase system in 2004 that's already cost Jeff Gordon 2 titles.
--
Also you're the person person I've heard think of the Valencia circuit as anything other than a boring processional mess. Hell, F3 cars couldn't pass there a couple of months back, what chance did F1 have.
Never mind it replaced the perfectly serviceable Valencia purpose built circuit.
Dudley wrote:
Grim... wrote:
It was an odd decision, but then I'd struggle to think of a fitting punishment. Docking points would be far too harsh at this stage of the championship, but fining Ferrari £7k? You might as well ask them for a cup of water.
It's a good thing they don't have to think of one and the drive through penalty is established by both precedent and the rules isn't it.
This stage of the championship nothing, the entrant broke the rules, the entrant gets punished, just as Chanhock did in the GP2 race the previous day for the exact same thing as Mr Dave points out.
It depends I suppose if you think a championship artificially going down to the wire is a good thing. Several do, it's why Nascar invented the chase system in 2004 that's already cost Jeff Gordon 2 titles.
--
Also you're the person person I've heard think of the Valencia circuit as anything other than a boring processional mess. Hell, F3 cars couldn't pass there a couple of months back, what chance did F1 have.
Never mind it replaced the perfectly serviceable Valencia purpose built circuit.
Yeah, dullest race thus far, especially with the added RED CAR BONUS given to Massa.
Never mind, at least we've got Spa to look forward to in just under two weeks, which rarely fails to provide an interesting race.
I completely missed the F1 weekend, but my american chum told me it was a boring race anyway. I'm glad to see that Ferrari International Assistance are staying true to form, though. 
Yes, it was dull - very processional. Sure Massa drove well, but he should have been penalised for that pit lane fuck up. And the introduction a few years ago of 8 points for second place means that if you're 8 points clear with a second in the bag why would you bother racing?
I seriously hope next years aero rules allow some more overtaking.
I seriously hope next years aero rules allow some more overtaking.
Valencia - dull, boring track. The only good point: the bridge. I can't believe we've got five more years of it - Alonso has a lot to answer for.
myoptika wrote:
Valencia - dull, boring track. The only good point: the bridge. I can't believe we've got five more years of it - Alonso has a lot to answer for.
It's only in it's first year. It certainly has a lot more promise than many of Tilkes efforts.
The sooner they (a)Get rid of Mosley and (b) Get rid of race fuel qualifying the better. And the engine freeze situation is a joke, and should never have been put in place to begin with.
I think the bridge is suicidal and shouldn't have been allowed, so I really hate the place.
Which? Tilke gets flack but almost all his circuits are either interesting or have overtaking.
Quote:
It's only in it's first year. It certainly has a lot more promise than many of Tilkes efforts.
Which? Tilke gets flack but almost all his circuits are either interesting or have overtaking.
So, my personal favourite track this weekend and some thoughts occurred to me. Wasn't it about this time last year that the overpaid Raikkonen started earning his pay? I'm not prepared to under estimate Massa this year as he seems to be ironing out all the wrinkles and is proving to be significantly more consistent this year but I still can't view him as anything other than fast in a good car.
So, my question is this - are McLaren going to throw Lewis's title hopes away like they did last year? Or is he going to do it?
So, my question is this - are McLaren going to throw Lewis's title hopes away like they did last year? Or is he going to do it?
Practice today did not look overly great for the McLarens. But it's always wise to take practice with some degree of salt anyway.
Oooooh that was all exciting!
If Valencia was "ace", then what was that?
Crikey.
What a finish! Lew managed to hold it together in the rain, and Heidfeld gained 6 places on the last lap to get on the podium!
They should make them race in slicks in the wet more often.
They should make them race in slicks in the wet more often.
Every time it happens, they say the same thing- "Install sprinklers at all F1 tracks, now!"
I've always said the FIA aren't Ferrari biased.
I'm starting to wonder.
Massa breaks a rule, gets away with it.
Hamilton doesn't break a rule, gets 25 seconds.
I'm starting to wonder.
Massa breaks a rule, gets away with it.
Hamilton doesn't break a rule, gets 25 seconds.
Ferrari's stewards have handed Hamilton a 25 second penalty, demoting him to third in the race and giving Massa the win.
Hardly surprising, but could the authorities at least make a little effort to show that they're not hideously biased, because at the moment it's getting ridiculous.
Hardly surprising, but could the authorities at least make a little effort to show that they're not hideously biased, because at the moment it's getting ridiculous.
This is fucking, fucking ridiculous. Fucking CUNTS.
That even the most die hard ferrari fans I know seem to think this is entirely screwed up really shows how dodgy it is.
RIP racing.
RIP racing.
That was an epic last couple of laps. Hamilton clearly cut the corner and then waited a long time for Raikonnen to pass back. The Ferrari was tremendously slow out of that corner, yet Hamilton waited.
However, all three of us in the room went "Argh!" when Hamilton and Raikonnen almost lost it right next to the spinning Williams!
However, all three of us in the room went "Argh!" when Hamilton and Raikonnen almost lost it right next to the spinning Williams!
Plissken wrote:
Hamilton clearly cut the corner and then waited a long time for Raikonnen to pass back.
That's crap. Hamilton hung around right on the Ferrari's arse, a position he wasn't in (and wouldn't have been able to get in) before he cut the corner.
I was saying at the time that something was going to be done about it.
Grim... wrote:
Plissken wrote:
Hamilton clearly cut the corner and then waited a long time for Raikonnen to pass back.
That's crap. Hamilton hung around right on the Ferrari's arse, a position he wasn't in (and wouldn't have been able to get in) before he cut the corner.
I was saying at the time that something was going to be done about it.
I cry bullshit as he was clearly quite a bit more in control and ergo faster than Raikkonen. The conditions were treacherous and he was racing. A 25 second penalty was fucking horseshit and you cannot really sit there and say anything else if you factor in all the other variables of Raikkonen taking himself out, Raikkonen nerfing him a couple of corners later, can you?
It didn't affect the outcome anyway. Raikkonen went off while in the lead not long after. Hamilton definitely slowed down. I expect McLaren will wave all kinds of telemetry at the appeal. Hamilton was all over him like white on rice on braking for the next turn. He just had a faster car in those conditions.
Grim... wrote:
Plissken wrote:
Hamilton clearly cut the corner and then waited a long time for Raikonnen to pass back.
That's crap. Hamilton hung around right on the Ferrari's arse, a position he wasn't in (and wouldn't have been able to get in) before he cut the corner.
I was saying at the time that something was going to be done about it.
He would probably have been, he had so much more grip out of the corner.
Nonetheless he didn't just give the position back, he actively got behind the Ferrari, which is more than most drivers have ever done and not been penalised.
Grim... wrote:
Plissken wrote:
Hamilton clearly cut the corner and then waited a long time for Raikonnen to pass back.
That's crap. Hamilton hung around right on the Ferrari's arse, a position he wasn't in (and wouldn't have been able to get in) before he cut the corner.
I was saying at the time that something was going to be done about it.
He cut the corner because he was LEVEL with the Ferrari, and had the track closed off to him. How does this equate to ot being able to get close?
Plus the telemetry shows that even after giving his spot back he was slower than the Ferrari, but the reason he got so close was that the Farrari was deliberately driving slowly because of the conditions... what's Lewis supposed to do, hang back and drive in second gear the whole time because Raikkonen is no good in the wet? Come on...
To be fair, he didn't have to cut it quite that much.
Raikkonen got some great momentum driving half a mile round the outside of a turn later on too, but I guess binning it meant he wouldn't be penalized for that.
Hamilton dropped his speed and gave back his place. Which is what he had to do. The only reason he made it through was that Raikkonen both messed up his exit of busstop, was terribly slow down the straight* followed by cocking up La Source spectaculary. Raikkonen was slower than Hamilton both before and after the incident - just look at how much more trouble he's having controlling the car. The McLaren car is just times better in conditions such as those, and you can pretty much guarantee that if he had been able to make it round the corner rather than being blocked, he'd still have been in such a strong position to overtake for these reasons.
* - Raikkonen was losing about a second a sector to Hamilton on the previous lap, and pressure aside wasn't posing much of a problem for Hamilton once ahead. He just didn't have the pace to keep his place. It seems likely that his tyres lost their heat much more than Hamiltons did. The only reason he was as close as he was when Hamilton encounterd Rosberg was that he'd run off the track and used the high friction tarmac runoff, which had more grip than the track. (What's that, going off track to gain an advantage, surely not. See also: Massa using the off track area at the end of Fuji last year to take a place off Kubica, where the tarmac off the road was much more grippy than the track. Was there any investigation? No.)
Besides he had no choice but to go over the chicane... To his right was the Ferrari, straight ahead was an extremely slippery curb/bump/turf area which would almost certainly have spun him into the ferrari and handed him a penalty for causing an avoidable incident, so the only option was to bump along the turf/tarmac/paint to his left (Look at the way the car travels, he isn't going over the tarmac by itself) which would preclude accelerating over the chicane anyway - if you listen to the engine, he's clearly not applying the throttle over the chicane.
But still, it's not like there's no precedent for this.Time and again, people have done pretty much the same thing (Give back a place and then retake it immediately) and yet this is the first time it's penalised? Indeed, it's hardly uncommon for someone to not be penalised for obvious infractions of these rules.
Meanwhile, Lauda - "This is the worst judgment in the history of F1. The most perverted judgment I have ever seen. It’s absolutely unacceptable when three functionaries (the stewards) influence the championship like this”.
And from the BBC podcast "The entire paddock was united in the view that Hamilton was totally innocent". And that's by no means the only source of that information. Ferrari didn't protest the manoeuvre.
But to look at what they've done fully.
-They've pretty much shat upon what could easily be the most exciting closing laps since France 79.
-They've pretty much ruled out any proper racing.
-They've demoted a man off the top step for a highly dubious racing offense, when in the previous race, they let someone off the winner off after having admitted that he was guilty on a safety offense. (While punishing 3 others for doing the same thing. Senna got done with a drivethrough this weekend in addition to the two at Valencia. He was quite clear when interviewed that it was not consistent with the Massa incident)
-Relatedly, they've shown complete disregard for consistency yet again. Since I can remember, all you had to do if you gained or held a position through cutting a corner is to give it back, not give it back and wait for your opponent to scamper off into the distance. People have always been allowed to cut corners should they have got sufficiently out of shape that it became necessary.
-They've opened themselves up to (more) accusations of corruption. And this time it's coming very loudly from supporters of pretty much every team. It's certainly seems to be a rare person who believes Donnelly to be at all non-partisan. It's not as if he wasn't regarded as dubious before Spa.
-Two races running, we've had to wait until considerably after the race to get the result. The first despite having many, many laps to go, and the second, despite the team asking it what they'd done was legal and getting a positive response. I can only remember this happening a few times before, usually red flag situations, but also Suzuka '89 (Although admittedly, there wasn't much of a wait there.)
Oh and as a parting shot... One of the stewards (Thatti) got into the motorsport news recently for this
Lovely, a man so stupid that I'd fail to trust him to do up my shoelaces, let alone judge on a race.
* - Raikkonen was losing about a second a sector to Hamilton on the previous lap, and pressure aside wasn't posing much of a problem for Hamilton once ahead. He just didn't have the pace to keep his place. It seems likely that his tyres lost their heat much more than Hamiltons did. The only reason he was as close as he was when Hamilton encounterd Rosberg was that he'd run off the track and used the high friction tarmac runoff, which had more grip than the track. (What's that, going off track to gain an advantage, surely not. See also: Massa using the off track area at the end of Fuji last year to take a place off Kubica, where the tarmac off the road was much more grippy than the track. Was there any investigation? No.)
Besides he had no choice but to go over the chicane... To his right was the Ferrari, straight ahead was an extremely slippery curb/bump/turf area which would almost certainly have spun him into the ferrari and handed him a penalty for causing an avoidable incident, so the only option was to bump along the turf/tarmac/paint to his left (Look at the way the car travels, he isn't going over the tarmac by itself) which would preclude accelerating over the chicane anyway - if you listen to the engine, he's clearly not applying the throttle over the chicane.
But still, it's not like there's no precedent for this.Time and again, people have done pretty much the same thing (Give back a place and then retake it immediately) and yet this is the first time it's penalised? Indeed, it's hardly uncommon for someone to not be penalised for obvious infractions of these rules.
Meanwhile, Lauda - "This is the worst judgment in the history of F1. The most perverted judgment I have ever seen. It’s absolutely unacceptable when three functionaries (the stewards) influence the championship like this”.
And from the BBC podcast "The entire paddock was united in the view that Hamilton was totally innocent". And that's by no means the only source of that information. Ferrari didn't protest the manoeuvre.
But to look at what they've done fully.
-They've pretty much shat upon what could easily be the most exciting closing laps since France 79.
-They've pretty much ruled out any proper racing.
-They've demoted a man off the top step for a highly dubious racing offense, when in the previous race, they let someone off the winner off after having admitted that he was guilty on a safety offense. (While punishing 3 others for doing the same thing. Senna got done with a drivethrough this weekend in addition to the two at Valencia. He was quite clear when interviewed that it was not consistent with the Massa incident)
-Relatedly, they've shown complete disregard for consistency yet again. Since I can remember, all you had to do if you gained or held a position through cutting a corner is to give it back, not give it back and wait for your opponent to scamper off into the distance. People have always been allowed to cut corners should they have got sufficiently out of shape that it became necessary.
-They've opened themselves up to (more) accusations of corruption. And this time it's coming very loudly from supporters of pretty much every team. It's certainly seems to be a rare person who believes Donnelly to be at all non-partisan. It's not as if he wasn't regarded as dubious before Spa.
-Two races running, we've had to wait until considerably after the race to get the result. The first despite having many, many laps to go, and the second, despite the team asking it what they'd done was legal and getting a positive response. I can only remember this happening a few times before, usually red flag situations, but also Suzuka '89 (Although admittedly, there wasn't much of a wait there.)
Oh and as a parting shot... One of the stewards (Thatti) got into the motorsport news recently for this
Lovely, a man so stupid that I'd fail to trust him to do up my shoelaces, let alone judge on a race.
AceAceBaby wrote:
Raikkonen got some great momentum driving half a mile round the outside of a turn later on too, but I guess binning it meant he wouldn't be penalized for that.
Wouldn't have mattered even if he hadn't binned it...
Massa usiing the off track area to beat Kubica last year
Obvious use of off track area to gain an advantage. No investigation. No Penalty. It happens time and again that going off track allows someone to launch an attack. Except it's only today that someones ever been penalised for it. Until today, it's just been an accepted part of racing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5UnPeyzcHM too
Yeah, the Alonso (and thus anti Lewis) fanboy on SA is denying that one until he's blue in the face despite the fact the rule in question is actually phrased "Must use the track and only the track" or words to that effect and has nothing about using a shorter route.
AceAceBaby wrote:
Raikkonen got some great momentum driving half a mile round the outside of a turn later on too, but I guess binning it meant he wouldn't be penalized for that.
Yeah, the Alonso (and thus anti Lewis) fanboy on SA is denying that one until he's blue in the face despite the fact the rule in question is actually phrased "Must use the track and only the track" or words to that effect and has nothing about using a shorter route.
The Metro has it right this morning:
'Massa started 2nd, dropped to 3rd, overtook nobody, and... won'.
'Massa started 2nd, dropped to 3rd, overtook nobody, and... won'.
Their report in general didn't even pretend to be impartial did it
The rules state he would have to get back to where he was before he went into the corner, which was about a second behind the Ferrari before he could challenge it again. Hamilton didn't do this, but that doesn't stop the rule being very, very broken (quite how much ground Hamilton should have given the Ferrari nobody really knows, but more that half a foot, I'd wager). Kimi made the very good point that he wasn't going as fast as he could on the entry to that straight because he was ready to get out of the way in case Lewis came back on on a collision course with him.
Grim... wrote:
The rules state he would have to get back to where he was before he went into the corner, which was about a second behind the Ferrari before he could challenge it again. Hamilton didn't do this, but that doesn't stop the rule being very, very broken (quite how much ground Hamilton should have given the Ferrari nobody really knows, but more that half a foot, I'd wager). Kimi made the very good point that he wasn't going as fast as he could on the entry to that straight because he was ready to get out of the way in case Lewis came back on on a collision course with him.
Hamilton let Raikonnen pass on his right, he was behind at the start/finish line then passed Raikonnen down the inside. It was a fuck load more than half a foot. And the pair were level, if not Hamilton slightly ahead on the outside line going into the chicane anyway.
Raikonnen was slow as molasses out of the bend and Hamilton still waited. The Ferrari was then tremendously slow and braked very early into the hairpin. You can't expect Hamilton to wait for that long.
Grim... wrote:
The rules state he would have to get back to where he was before he went into the corner, which was about a second behind the Ferrari before he could challenge it again. Hamilton didn't do this, but that doesn't stop the rule being very, very broken (quite how much ground Hamilton should have given the Ferrari nobody really knows, but more that half a foot, I'd wager). Kimi made the very good point that he wasn't going as fast as he could on the entry to that straight because he was ready to get out of the way in case Lewis came back on on a collision course with him.
He was level into the corner, without the presence of the Ferrari he had the grip to get round it so he didn't overshoot.
He gave considerably more than that back.
And he never used the slipstream, he was directly behind the Ferrari for about 0.0 seconds.
also the fact that their positions changed several times after the incident shows that no advantage was gained.
As someone else said, it's just making the Driver's championship going down to the last race as best they can. FIA do appear to dislike pubishing Ferrari though.
MaliA wrote:
FIA do appear to dislike pubishing Ferrari though.
Well, it would give the wrong message about drink driving
Dudley wrote:
Yeah, the Alonso (and thus anti Lewis) fanboy on SA is denying that one until he's blue in the face despite the fact the rule in question is actually phrased "Must use the track and only the track" or words to that effect and has nothing about using a shorter route.
I think it was at Hockenheim? Schumacher used to use the run-off from the hairpin to pass other cars, without penalty.
Grim... wrote:
The rules state he would have to get back to where he was before he went into the corner
Quite right.
McLaren Statement:
"From the pit wall, we then asked Race Control to confirm that they were comfortable that Lewis had allowed Kimi to repass, and they confirmed twice that they believed that the position had been given back in a manner that was 'okay'."
"If Race Control had instead expressed any concern regarding Lewis's actions at that time, we would have instructed Lewis to allow Kimi to repass for a second time."
This being the same race director who reported the incident to the stewards.
"From the pit wall, we then asked Race Control to confirm that they were comfortable that Lewis had allowed Kimi to repass, and they confirmed twice that they believed that the position had been given back in a manner that was 'okay'."
"If Race Control had instead expressed any concern regarding Lewis's actions at that time, we would have instructed Lewis to allow Kimi to repass for a second time."
This being the same race director who reported the incident to the stewards.
I quite enjoyed the race today.
As did I. Vettel was excellent, Hamilton was unlucky, and Massa was about as useless as I expected.
Speaking as a long, LONG term Minardi fan.
FUCK.
YEAH.
FUCK.
YEAH.
I'm beginning to swing my opinion of Hamilton to "Twat" at the moment, for various reasons.