Someone is going to get seriously injured one day unless Max changes his driving style, its been talked about for years but doesn't change, hes been let off with quite alot in recent years compared to other drivers down the years.
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I wonder what the odds are on both Hamilton and Max making turn two in Abu Dhabi.
Additional ten second time penalty and two license points for Max for causing a collision.
Been watching this back and forth all season long, it's a really interesting watch, don't want to see either driver deliberately try to take the other out in order to win the championship, could the FIA threaten full Championship Disqualification for the guilty party? I understand that it's been done before, but do the current rules allow for the governing body to lay down such a decision?
Hopefully it's a good clean race next weekend and we don't see any shenanigans from either driver
Really interested in how the 2022 Championship is going to shape up with the new regulations
Max very often treads the line between hard racing and dangerous driving, and I think that this was the most obvious race where he overstepped the mark. The non penalty in Brazil set this up and max pulled the same move a few times this race where he just drove the other driver off the road despite being behind going into the corner. The only reason he got a penalty this time is because he went off the track and cut the next corner, not for driving the other driver off the track. The collision was a misunderstanding IHMO, Lewis clearly didn't know what was happening and Max was desperate not to be in front at the DRS line, so suddenly braked harder than he was doing. The standard practice when giving a place back is to slow gradually and move off the line a bit to let the other driver by, but Max was moving around quite a lot and then had a sudden deceleration to try to make sure Lewis passed him before the DRS line. It was right to give the penalty in this case and he's lucky that the damage wasn't worse than it was and they were both able to finish.
I think Red Bull might have turned their engine down once they got the 5 second penalty, knowing they weren't going to win to try to save a bit for the next race.
Provided they can both stay on the track it should be an exciting finale next week. Hopefully the track changes at Abu Dhabi make overtaking a bit easier this year.
I’m a bit more cynical about the collision
As you said, when letting another driver through, generally the car in front slows and moves to one side of the track (sometimes making sure the passing driver has to go on the dirty side of the track). In this case, MV stayed very central, right up to the point of the collision. I think he did that to make sure that LH had to move around him more, thus compromising his entry into the corner ahead, in the hope that LH would not only not get a smooth entry and exit at the corner, but would also be ahead at the detection line.
I do think LH was unsure of what was happening and also aware of not wanting to be ahead at the detection line, and all of those things led to the collision.
I do think MV has been treated quite leniently on a few occasions this year, which has fuelled his desire to push the hard driving/dangerous driving line too far at times. I do think Horner’s comments of ‘2 drivers went off the track so how do you penalise just max’ was pretty pathetic, it’s quite clear that by MV going wide he was going to push the car outside of him off too, or collide.
That said, I think it was right that LH was given a verbal warning about doing something similar later, which I suspect was to try to lay down the law to both of them.
Hopefully this weeks race will just see some clean fair but tough racing, and not any nonsense. The FIA/Michael masi/stewards might be well advised to give both of them a private warning that any shenanagins could be dealt with by championship disqualification, lest we end up with a dangerous incident
I agree with you on that, much as we all feared about Mazepin's driving standards in F1 but he's not been anywhere as bad as Max this season. He's a danger and could have caused multiple collisions, almost all of them with Lewis and isn't learning lessons, if anything he appears emboldened with the lack of FIA action.
At a track like the one yesterday it could have ended very badly indeed.
There’s no doubt in my mind that Max will do anything he can to win the championship, that includes taking Hamilton out if he has to. People are being very naive if they think that Hamilton or any other driver on the grid wouldn’t do the same thing. Hamilton wasn’t exactly a saint with his driving yesterday. I don’t think it will be anything as bad as Prost Senna at the first corner, something like that would lead to a penalty that would involve a points deduction or disqualification. If Max is ahead late in the race and Lewis cruise’s up behind him and goes for an overtake , Max will 100% try and run him off the road or take him out.
The Senna / Prost thing is interesting as it’s often forgotten that Prost did it to him the year before…basically Senna was just getting him back and was far from happy after he had done so a sit went against his ethos. That said he still did it!
Schumacher obviously did the same thing at least twice and tried and failed another time. No hand wringing from him though at any point.
This time there is no doubt Max will do the same if it comes to it…yesterday was confirmation of that, if any was needed! Masi needs to have strong words before hand if that is to be avoided.
I’m pretty certain though that something is going to happen. Max and Lewis are so well matched for pace that it’s highly unlikely they won’t end up on the same piece of track at some point!
Some fair points - if Max is reading this thread (?) he should consider that former F1 champion Michael Schumacher was disqualified completely from the 1997 competition after his "misdemeanour" with Villeneuve, i.e. trying to run him off the track by hitting him - Schumi was stripped of all points for the season as a whole.
Best to race fairly IMO ... hope Lewis wins myself ...
I started the season leaning towards Red Bull and Max for the title but as the season has wore on I’ve moved very firmly into the Lewis camp.
Max, to my mind, has been overly aggressive and at the weekend was just a downright cheat. It’s a shame as he’s a brilliant driver in a class of two with Lewis this season but his antics have turned me right off him and I rarely like to see cheats prosper.
Not me, I wanted Lewis to break Schumi's record -
Red Bull and MV claimed that the telemetry data would prove that he hadn't braked just before Lewis ran into him, yet it seems (according to my German newspaper) that the data actually showed he had indeed ..."applied 69 bar of pressure to the brake pedal" and had braked pretty hard (as it seemed to me on the tv) - no need for that, especially as Hamilton had - at that moment - not yet received the news that MV would move over on the radio ...
It's been a great season and just hope we have a "fair" race on Sunday - and Lewis wins
Max didn't know Lewis hadn't been told though. If I'm racing behind someone and I see them slow down my immediate thought is "he's got a problem, lets get past" so I've absolutely no idea what Lewis was doing fannying about behind him for so long as there was PLENTY room on the left hand side to get past and make the corner on the racing line.
Anyway, what makes this season so great is that lots of differing opinions of who's the best, who's at fault, why did this happen, how did that happen. It's been the best season I can ever remember and may the better driver win. Like everybody else, I want a nice clean weekend, but the exciting thing about it is that nobody knows what the hell will happen with these two! I love Lewis, but I also really love Max's driving style. Carbon copy of Schumacher, takes no prisoners, win at all costs and in this sport, I love that because it makes it great to watch. All in my humble opinion of course.
Max applied 63 bars of pressure on the brakes at close to the same time Hamilton sped up to pass him. The telemetry shows it. You can also see Max take up the centre of the track.
I disagree with you, it was needlessly dangerous. If Lewis passes before the DRS line and Max just speeds right back ahead again afterwards then IMO he's still gained an advantage from his initial move.
Thinks it's actually a wee bit more complicated than "just passing him" - think there was an issue with the DRS sections, which meant if Lewis passed Max at one of these sectors, Max would then simply use the DRS slipstream effect to simply slip past him again almost straight away - and that's what he actually did too once he had let Lewis pass him ...
You have a hatred of Verstappen that clouds your judgment on all of this, you says he’s in the wrong in every single instance, even when Hamilton is penalised. Of course Verstappen was breaking in the hope the Hamilton would pass before the drs line and has been penalised for it, but Hamilton was also breaking so that he didn’t pass before the drs line. If that was any other car in front, Hamilton would’ve breezed past, he was playing the game just like Verstappen.
He could have been breaking down for all Lewis knew in that split second if he hadn’t had a radio call to say he was being allowed to pass, seems odd that he slowed down with him. He was in an obviously faster car and doubt max would have got passed him if ahead.
Yeah, Verstappen is on his level in pace but in terms of driving standards is on the level of Mazepin.
I’ve got several friends and family members who compete or have competed in SMRC level events, Isle of Man TT and more and not only do they think that Verstappen got off lightly, they did say that a drivers level of aggression will affect the manner in which you race wheel to wheel. Hamilton saw through Max trying to get DRS advantage but didn’t see him slamming on the brakes or moving to the middle of the track.
Max pushes the boundaries of what’s cheating and what’s not. I can only liken it to Neal and Plato in BTCC - drivers who hate each other and it ends up in a toxic fashion. This time it’s one racer way more culpable than the other.
Max pushes the boundaries of what’s cheating and what’s not.*
So just like every other aspect of F1 then?
I don’t see it that way at all. We have one young up and coming driver against a complete legend, the young guy is always going to be that bit more desperate and do questionable things, just like Hamilton did when he was young. If Hamilton was defending a lead he wouldn’t think twice about using any tactics he could, the season’s with him and Rosberg fighting it out showed that. He shunted Alex Albon of the track twice last season in a desperate attempt to recover from mistakes.