2021 Italian Grand Prix - Monza, Sep 10 - 12

[PlatinumZealot]

Stewards made their ruling, Horner and Marko seemed to accept without protest which is really unusual for them. Dead horse is dead. Discussion has served it's purpose. No one is changing their minds. Let's move on.

They were never going to argue that one, due to the nature of the crash i.e. tyre near Lewis's head area. I'd say Max is lucky he only got a 3 place grid drip. It's a 3 place grid drop, not a race ban for those not happy with the stewards decision. If Max and Lewis continue as is, there will be a more serious accident. The stewards I think had little choice but to give Max a slap across the wrists. If he learns from it or not ? Who knows. He's yet to learn the skill of knowing when it's better to back off, to fight another day.

I'm a McLaren fan at heart, so I have no real preference for who wins the drivers title between Lewis and Max. I just worry the aggression is going to boil over into something that should and must be avoided. I will never forget the weekend when Ratzenberger and Senna died, It's seared into my memory. It wasn't that long ago that we lost Jules Bianchi and almost lost Grosjean. F1 is safer than ever, but the risk remains. Which is why my heart was in my mouth as soon as I saw Max's car going over the top of Lewis's car.

They will crash again yes. Maybe in the last race. The good thing with this is that they don't hate each other outside of the car. Different phases of career, difference in achievements might have something to do with them having no animosity towards each other.

If Max was fighting against a Leclerc or Norris I think we would see way more fireworks! Fighting to be the best of their eras.

[Ryar]

IMO is always Max fault, not by being dangerous driver, but for not being rational driver. On British GP if he were more rational, he should let Lewis pass, on Italian GP is the same thing. Max is calling "all in" in every GP and it can cost him the championship.

Oh boy does somebody have this wrong. They are in a close race for the championship. You don't win championships this close by finishing behind your opponent. That exact same argument can be used for Lewis and his championship chase as well. These accidents can cost him just as much as Max and so your argument can apply to Lewis more then Max especially as Lewis has more experience in this regard.

Anyway I am on cloud nine because with those 2 taking each other out my guy Daniel won the race and boy am I happy.

That somebody is you. To win an F1 race sometimes you have to go all in. To win an F1 championship, drivers quickly learn that they have to pick their battles and take a loss when necessary. Despite Horner and co. always talking about how mature Max is, he thus far hasn't learned how to not go all in. He thinks every corner is his and every overtake attempt on him should be blocked somehow. Beyond that he is delusional. Both in Silverstone and Monza, prior to those incidents, he ran Hamilton wide. In those prior incidents Hamilton had the wisdom to back off a bit. Ironically, Max seems to forget all the times that he doesn't leave other drivers space. I guarantee that if the Monza/Silverstone situations were Hamilton vs any other reputable driver on the grid (Alonso, Vettel, Sainz, Ric, Lando, Kimi, Schumi) there wouldn't be a crash. Yet, if it was Verstappen v any of those drivers fighting for the WDC like LH, there'd probably be a similar incident.

If Max doesn't win the WDC this year despite having the best car, it'll be because of his over aggressive, all-in, never back down mentality costing him the needed points. He was quite fortunate that he landed on top of Hamilton's car.. if he had just bounced off into the gravel there Hamilton would be leading this WDC by a healthy margin, just like after Max threw away 25+ points in Silverstone.

If anything the most possible importance and weight was given to the stewards' decision. They know that their decision could alter the WDC results and that a penalty would thus be extremely harsh given the impact. Yet, they still gave Max a penalty. Despite what all of us keyboard warriors type, they still give Max a penalty. That is the final word.

Penalty is a goid precedent. It would ensure that next time when Max is ahead Lewis doesn't try the same move, like he always does. But i won't be surprised if Max gets penalized again, despite the situation is reversed as FIA seems to be in Toto's pockets. So no point using this penalty to prove Max is always wrong. That's just naive.

[xaero]

Penalty is a goid precedent. It would ensure that next time when Max is ahead Lewis doesn't try the same move, like he always does. But i won't be surprised if Max gets penalized again, despite the situation is reversed as FIA seems to be in Toto's pockets. So no point using this penalty to prove Max is always wrong. That's just naive.
[/quote]
As always nothing factual, only propaganda.

[langedweil]

I don't know why some people can't grasp the concept that you have to be alongside your competitor at the right time to be entitled to space.

Well, Silverstone moved the goalposts on that one at least .. despite the 10s penalty.

It gets even more complicated when you have a tight complex like turn 1 and 2. Turn 2 has no braking zone, and your line entering turn 1 pretty much dictates your line exiting turn 1 and entering turn 2.

In principle that's correct, however the outside line of T2 is definately the quicker one as was shown a couple of times on Sunday.
Not saying he shouldn't have taken the line he did, but there and then Lewis chose to do exactly that what 90% of the forum is blaming Max for .. and with all his experience he would have known it was a do-or-die action (again, couldn't blame him for that) and he apparently was in good spirits with the possible outcome.
They both were just dorks in that chicane, and the endresult was as predictable as avoidable as unnecessary. Neither of them will want to miss out on any wdc point, so it might get a lot uglier.

[dans79]

I don't know why some people can't grasp the concept that you have to be alongside your competitor at the right time to be entitled to space.

Well, Silverstone moved the goalposts on that one at least .. despite the 10s penalty.

Yea, The stewards reasoning/explanation in silverstone was crap imo. A driver doesn't have to hit the apex, and Max had plenty of room to his left.

What they should have said imo, is that they didn't think Lewis did enough to avoid the collision or something similar. That would have lead to a lot less controversy.

[ringo]

Are you serious? this season is littered with incidences of Lewis backing out, not just Imola but Barcelona, Silverstone, and lap one here at Monza. even when racing Alonso in Hungary Hamilton was backing out of moves in order to preserve his car. You have to ask yourself honestly if that was Verstappen and Alonso in Hungary would we have had the clean racing we ultimately saw?

We already saw how he reacted when racing a much slower Haas. He crashed into Shumacher when he tried to force his way onto the racing line after Shumacher was holding him off expertly. Max has zero race craft.
Maybe he should have done more time in single seaters or in the midfield before being elevated to redbull. But we see other drivers managing risk throughout the field. Max just does not seem capable of doing it. And it could also be a redbull culture.
Perez seems to be encouraged to force his way through and ignore penalties.
There was a time when Vettel used to force his redbull through the field and bounce into other cars.
As for those who think Lewis need to leave space they dont understand racing. You can leave space on entry to the chicane not in the middle. If the challenging car gets its nose ahead and pointed at the racing line and can make the corner the defending car lifts. If it not ahead the defender can close down and claim the corner.
Lewis even took an avoiding stance as seen by the stewards to be extra careful not to crash. There is just too much evidence that Max was just doing rubbish in thar corner and he knows it. He could even have seen the sausage curb and know the car would never drive over them without bouncing. At what point does he becomes a calculating, clinical and tactical driver? He is still behaving like the crashstappen of old.

[Ryar]

I don't know why some people can't grasp the concept that you have to be alongside your competitor at the right time to be entitled to space.

Well, Silverstone moved the goalposts on that one at least .. despite the 10s penalty.

Yea, The stewards reasoning/explanation in silverstone was crap imo. A driver doesn't have to hit the apex, and Max had plenty of room to his left.

What they should have said imo, is that they didn't think Lewis did enough to avoid the collision or something similar. That would have lead to a lot less controversy.

One can say the same about Monza's reasoning/explanation.

[DChemTech]

The point is that you are implying that the contact is always Max' fault, by staying that 'whenever max and lewis come together it's because Max can't close race'. It isn't. And its not just you doing this, it's many - so my comment was more meant as a general statement.

IMO is always Max fault, not by being dangerous driver, but for not being rational driver. On British GP if he were more rational, he should let Lewis pass, on Italian GP is the same thing. Max is calling "all in" in every GP and it can cost him the championship.

"If max is ahead and lewis tries a dangerous overtake, max should yield"
"If lewis is ahead and max tries a dangerous overtake, max should yield"

Yeah, sure.

[ringo]

I'm betting on a Max Norris crash. Or Max Perez. He may find one of these drivers in his way for too long and get angry and push them off. But these two guys dont yeild either.

[the EDGE]

I'm betting on a Max Norris crash. Or Max Perez. He may find one of these drivers in his way for too long and get angry and push them off. But these two guys dont yeild either.

It won’t happen while he’s fight Lewis for the championship, he knows he can’t afford to only take himself out of the race

[Fulcrum]

Was Bottas' drive really anything special though? He started from P19, which became P18 after Tsunoda started from pitlane. Then when GIO went round it became P17. He then overtook some really uncompetitive and slow cars which really didn't stand a chance against him.
The only 2 semi-competitive cars he overtook were both ferraris, but those were very slow on straights and he was on faster tyre.
He was then unable to overtake Perez who didn't have that good pace and only got podium via 5s penalty.
Meh..

By that logic most drivers were mediocre.

Overtaking appeared to be very difficult this weekend.

This probably contributed to the coming together between Verstappen and Hamilton, as both new it might be their only chance to get ahead.

I've checked bottas' race onboard footage and none of the overtakes he did were difficult. His car was just so much faster than others he just flew by all of them and none tried to defend it's position up until ferraris. Trouble for ferrari was their engine/car combo got exposed as complete dud on this track and they were sort of not even in the same league on straights compared to mercedes. Bottas even got told by his engineer he will have a big advantage over them and it showed. He actually overtook both without DRS (image that) and then overtook leclerc once again with DRS on the next lap after leclerc retook his position with cutting T1-2 chicane.

Bottas basically hit brick wall against perez despite being in a faster car on faster tyre.

My point was, practically no-one managed a 'difficult' overtake. Norris mugged Leclerc, and Hamilton passed Norris, but only after following him for 20 laps. I don't think Bottas' lack of overtaking had much to do with his inability TBH.

[Ryar]

I'm betting on a Max Norris crash. Or Max Perez. He may find one of these drivers in his way for too long and get angry and push them off. But these two guys dont yeild either.

Like he did to Ricci in Monza? Or did I miss too many races where Norris and Perez won that they are now championship contenders? Or did I miss races where Norris or Perez took Max out making him hard nosed?

There are more chances of Lewis taking out a driver like he did in Brazil'19, Austria'20 and Britain'21, if the car's livery look anthing remotely like a Red Bull.

[Wouter]

Max has zero race craft.

Maybe he should have done more time in single seaters or in the midfield before being elevated to redbull.

.
Thats why Max had no penalty points for a long long time and is leading the championchip.

Just like your hero, he also had no penalty points for a ...... oh, wait, and is leading the championship ..... oh, wait.

Licence point end of the 2020 saison.

[mclaren111]

Penalty is a goid precedent. It would ensure that next time when Max is ahead Lewis doesn't try the same move, like he always does. But i won't be surprised if Max gets penalized again, despite the situation is reversed as FIA seems to be in Toto's pockets. So no point using this penalty to prove Max is always wrong. That's just naive.

Very True...

The FIA has sold out to Big Business a long time ago... It's quite clear Toto & Hamilton are getting preferential treatment...

[adrianjordan]

Oh boy does somebody have this wrong. They are in a close race for the championship. You don't win championships this close by finishing behind your opponent. That exact same argument can be used for Lewis and his championship chase as well. These accidents can cost him just as much as Max and so your argument can apply to Lewis more then Max especially as Lewis has more experience in this regard.

Anyway I am on cloud nine because with those 2 taking each other out my guy Daniel won the race and boy am I happy.

That somebody is you. To win an F1 race sometimes you have to go all in. To win an F1 championship, drivers quickly learn that they have to pick their battles and take a loss when necessary. Despite Horner and co. always talking about how mature Max is, he thus far hasn't learned how to not go all in. He thinks every corner is his and every overtake attempt on him should be blocked somehow. Beyond that he is delusional. Both in Silverstone and Monza, prior to those incidents, he ran Hamilton wide. In those prior incidents Hamilton had the wisdom to back off a bit. Ironically, Max seems to forget all the times that he doesn't leave other drivers space. I guarantee that if the Monza/Silverstone situations were Hamilton vs any other reputable driver on the grid (Alonso, Vettel, Sainz, Ric, Lando, Kimi, Schumi) there wouldn't be a crash. Yet, if it was Verstappen v any of those drivers fighting for the WDC like LH, there'd probably be a similar incident.

If Max doesn't win the WDC this year despite having the best car, it'll be because of his over aggressive, all-in, never back down mentality costing him the needed points. He was quite fortunate that he landed on top of Hamilton's car.. if he had just bounced off into the gravel there Hamilton would be leading this WDC by a healthy margin, just like after Max threw away 25+ points in Silverstone.

If anything the most possible importance and weight was given to the stewards' decision. They know that their decision could alter the WDC results and that a penalty would thus be extremely harsh given the impact. Yet, they still gave Max a penalty. Despite what all of us keyboard warriors type, they still give Max a penalty. That is the final word.

Penalty is a goid precedent. It would ensure that next time when Max is ahead Lewis doesn't try the same move, like he always does. But i won't be surprised if Max gets penalized again, despite the situation is reversed as FIA seems to be in Toto's pockets. So no point using this penalty to prove Max is always wrong. That's just naive.

Lewis might try the same move, but when he does and realises that the other driver isn't going to "work together", he backs out and lives to fight another corner.

From reading the Stewards decision, Max was going too fast to make T2 without running wide anyway, so unless Lewis literally stood on the brakes and stopped, they were always going to collide. If Max had thought beyond that single complex, he would have realised that he had warmer tyres than Lewis so could follow him through, take a wider line through T2 and get a run on him down into T4....

Max was too hasty trying to make that move. The stewards agree and, most telling, Red Bull aren't protesting the penalty or even arguing it that I have seen!! That says it all really.