2023 Australian Grand Prix - Melbourne, March 31 - April 02

[DChemTech]

Last Laps crapshoot aside, I don't understand all the complaints about stuff being boring. Max was on a 10s lead, a far cry from the 30s gaps that the MB heyday gave. There were overtakes for the lead, and many interesting overtakes and tense battles in the midfield. All cars were pretty much still on the lead lap before chaos ensued (max was just coming up on the backmarkers I think?), which is also a great sign that the whole pack is somewhat closer together. And, we saw mclaren back in action for points. Pretty decent session altogether.

[F1doc]

Thanks.

So just a little protest that will change those two - nothing major that’s going to change the position for a lot of drivers.

yeah, and I think it's unlikely to change the result, even if they are right, as the race continued after that (even if it was just a lap behind the SC). Would be a different story if that red flag had marked the end.

The Haas protest was duly dismissed.

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/arti ... SJOdd.html

[Mosin123]

Last Laps crapshoot aside, I don't understand all the complaints about stuff being boring. Max was on a 10s lead, a far cry from the 30s gaps that the MB heyday gave. There were overtakes for the lead, and many interesting overtakes and tense battles in the midfield. All cars were pretty much still on the lead lap before chaos ensued (max was just coming up on the backmarkers I think?), which is also a great sign that the whole pack is somewhat closer together. And, we saw mclaren back in action for points. Pretty decent session altogether.

Did he not open up a 1 - 2 sec gap in the rest of the lap after passing LH?

[Stu]

I think that Sainz could have negated his penalty…
Under SC rules he must keep a gap of at most 10 car lengths to the car ahead.
With the SC entering the pit lane, the lead driver ‘becomes’ the SC.
No overtaking until the line is crossed.

Okay, here goes….
Out of the final corner he keeps to 10 car lengths, then slows down before the finish line, then ‘crawls’ across the line.
He breaks the timing beam with his front wing and takes 3-4 seconds to finish crossing the line. At worst he loses one place, at best none at all. Better still, he has explicitly complied with all SC rules (no point chasing the line as there is no further racing to be done).


The ending spoiled a good race, what a FIAsco, shocking race stewardship.

[AR3-GP]

I think that Sainz could have negated his penalty…
Under SC rules he must keep a gap of at most 10 car lengths to the car ahead.
With the SC entering the pit lane, the lead driver ‘becomes’ the SC.
No overtaking until the line is crossed.

Okay, here goes….
Out of the final corner he keeps to 10 car lengths, then slows down before the finish line, then ‘crawls’ across the line.
He breaks the timing beam with his front wing and takes 3-4 seconds to finish crossing the line. At worst he loses one place, at best none at all. Better still, he has explicitly complied with all SC rules (no point chasing the line as there is no further racing to be done).


The ending spoiled a good race, what a FIAsco, shocking race stewardship.

If you slow excessively (As in crawling), it makes a case to assume "he has a problem" and to overtake him under the SC. That precedent has existed in F1. Otherwise everyone would park if someone had an issue on the track during the SC.

[RZS10]

The only bit about the usage of the red flag that i could find in the regs is from the sporting regulations 57.1

57) SUSPENDING A SPRINT SESSION OR A RACE
57.1 If Competitors or officials are placed in immediate physical danger by cars running on the track, and the clerk of the course deems circumstances are such that the track cannot be negotiated safely, even behind the safety car, the sprint session or the race will be suspended.
Should it become necessary to suspend the sprint session or the race, the clerk of the course will order red flags to be shown at all marshal posts and the abort lights to be shown at the Line.

The only condition is the part in bold and apparently gives the race director the liberty to subjectively decide when it is the case.

The Yellow Flag came out with the leaders between T10 and T11 on L7, the cars which were behind Albon (twelve) went through the gravel, partially at race speed, before the SC was called 14s later, clearing a visible 'lane' through the gravel


The field was not spread out yet so they were all behind the SC when they went past the scene of the incident (car was already being recovered), the SC lead them through the aforementioned practically gravel free lane


The race was then red flagged with the SC around T13 of L8, there was no visible damage to the barriers, no repairs to the track were needed or done.

It is baffling that Niels Wittich somehow believes that this was a situation in which the track could not "be negotiated safely" when the entire field had done just that on the previous two laps without any apparent issues or dangers posed to anyone.

The second red flag on L55 was for a tyre off the racing line after T2 and a car safely parked on the inside of T4 near the apex



Again, most of the field went past there, some of them at race speed (was there even a yellow flag on the stretch from T2 to T3?), then when the SC was called without having caught up yet


That one was clearly just so that they wouldn't have to finish the race behind the SC as there weren't enough laps left to go through the correct procedure including unlapping cars etc.

The third red flag was then obviously just a result of the second one, but there were only two cars near the barrier after the exit of T2


And two cars in the gravel far away from the track


Nothing would have stopped the safety car from picking up the leader in order to finish the race behind the SC.

In the past the red flag was reserved for situations like in Monaco 22, with Schumacher's car split in half and car parts all over the track or when the barriers needed repairs like in Bahrain 20.

Teams have to be able to rely on reasonable and consistent race direction as they base their decision making on it - when an incident which, based on past experience, does not require a red flag suddenly turns to one it only creates uncertainty, disadvantage some drivers even more than a (V)SC already does and makes the races more 'random'.

Unless that is exactly what they want.

[AR3-GP]

Last Laps crapshoot aside, I don't understand all the complaints about stuff being boring. Max was on a 10s lead, a far cry from the 30s gaps that the MB heyday gave. There were overtakes for the lead, and many interesting overtakes and tense battles in the midfield. All cars were pretty much still on the lead lap before chaos ensued (max was just coming up on the backmarkers I think?), which is also a great sign that the whole pack is somewhat closer together. And, we saw mclaren back in action for points. Pretty decent session altogether.

I think that's a bit deceptive. Max could put his right foot down whenever he wanted and we saw brief moments whenhe did. The rest of it was doing just marginally enough to maintain a gap to Hamilton. Partially for tires, but probably also fearing a regs change.

[f1jcw]

He seemed to pull upto 6 seconds in a couple of laps. And if we discount the 1st corner there I can only recall 1 pass for the lead.
It’s okay someone being happy with max winning but don’t ask me to enter into a self delusion that it was a fraught and highly contested race.

[f1jcw]

The problem with a lot of the decisions now, especially after AD21, you question if it is to benefit or spice up the show.

The 1st red didn’t seem necessary, why do it, it could have being covered under a traditional SC.
But then you have to ask what are they try to spice up or benefit who.

[Hammerfist]

Last Laps crapshoot aside, I don't understand all the complaints about stuff being boring. Max was on a 10s lead, a far cry from the 30s gaps that the MB heyday gave. There were overtakes for the lead, and many interesting overtakes and tense battles in the midfield. All cars were pretty much still on the lead lap before chaos ensued (max was just coming up on the backmarkers I think?), which is also a great sign that the whole pack is somewhat closer together. And, we saw mclaren back in action for points. Pretty decent session altogether.

I enjoyed most of the race. The red flag shenanigans ruined it for me though. Liberty Media needs to understand that they can't just appeal to the new DTS fans that are craving for drama all the time. You still have to take care of your purists. And the way to do that is to not interfere with the race as much as they are doing. I've just read on Twitter a stupid stat showing that there have been 19 red flags between 2000-2019 and 17 red flags since 2020. That is just ridiculous if true.

[Sevach]

The only bit about the usage of the red flag that i could find in the regs is from the sporting regulations 57.1

57) SUSPENDING A SPRINT SESSION OR A RACE
57.1 If Competitors or officials are placed in immediate physical danger by cars running on the track, and the clerk of the course deems circumstances are such that the track cannot be negotiated safely, even behind the safety car, the sprint session or the race will be suspended.
Should it become necessary to suspend the sprint session or the race, the clerk of the course will order red flags to be shown at all marshal posts and the abort lights to be shown at the Line.

The only condition is the part in bold and apparently gives the race director the liberty to subjectively decide when it is the case.

The Yellow Flag came out with the leaders between T10 and T11 on L7, the cars which were behind Albon (twelve) went through the gravel, partially at race speed, before the SC was called 14s later, clearing a visible 'lane' through the gravel
https://i.imgur.com/oC9ReFJ.png

The field was not spread out yet so they were all behind the SC when they went past the scene of the incident (car was already being recovered), the SC lead them through the aforementioned practically gravel free lane
https://i.imgur.com/ZIc00Ww.png

The race was then red flagged with the SC around T13 of L8, there was no visible damage to the barriers, no repairs to the track were needed or done.

It is baffling that Niels Wittich somehow believes that this was a situation in which the track could not "be negotiated safely" when the entire field had done just that on the previous two laps without any apparent issues or dangers posed to anyone.

The second red flag on L55 was for a tyre off the racing line after T2 and a car safely parked on the inside of T4 near the apex
https://i.imgur.com/EeGeYpN.png
https://i.imgur.com/mOxAOsv.png

Again, most of the field went past there, some of them at race speed (was there even a yellow flag on the stretch from T2 to T3?), then when the SC was called without having caught up yet
https://i.imgur.com/UN2cyOR.png

That one was clearly just so that they wouldn't have to finish the race behind the SC as there weren't enough laps left to go through the correct procedure including unlapping cars etc.

The third red flag was then obviously just a result of the second one, but there were only two cars near the barrier after the exit of T2
https://i.imgur.com/cZaUyxe.png

And two cars in the gravel far away from the track
https://i.imgur.com/1JfPR4C.png

Nothing would have stopped the safety car from picking up the leader in order to finish the race behind the SC.

In the past the red flag was reserved for situations like in Monaco 22, with Schumacher's car split in half and car parts all over the track or when the barriers needed repairs like in Bahrain 20.

Teams have to be able to rely on reasonable and consistent race direction as they base their decision making on it - when an incident which, based on past experience, does not require a red flag suddenly turns to one it only creates uncertainty, disadvantage some drivers even more than a (V)SC already does and makes the races more 'random'.

Unless that is exactly what they want.

I wish i could upvote this, cheers.

Last Laps crapshoot aside, I don't understand all the complaints about stuff being boring. Max was on a 10s lead, a far cry from the 30s gaps that the MB heyday gave. There were overtakes for the lead, and many interesting overtakes and tense battles in the midfield. All cars were pretty much still on the lead lap before chaos ensued (max was just coming up on the backmarkers I think?), which is also a great sign that the whole pack is somewhat closer together. And, we saw mclaren back in action for points. Pretty decent session altogether.

I think that's a bit deceptive. Max could put his right foot down whenever he wanted and we saw brief moments whenhe did. The rest of it was doing just marginally enough to maintain a gap to Hamilton. Partially for tires, but probably also fearing a regs change.

What he did after overtaking Hamilton was quite impressive, overtook him like lapping someone and opened 3s in no time.
After that, because Perez wasn't there, no reason to go beyond 10s(Perez progress was slightly underwhelming imo).

Everybody was administrating but Max does his administration going .5 quicker.
It did look like the gap shrunk, with Hamilton at times matching fastest laps but Red Bull had .5/6 easily in their pocket.

[Artur Craft]

I enjoyed most of the race. The red flag shenanigans ruined it for me though. Liberty Media needs to understand that they can't just appeal to the new DTS fans that are craving for drama all the time. You still have to take care of your purists. And the way to do that is to not interfere with the race as much as they are doing. I've just read on Twitter a stupid stat showing that there have been 19 red flags between 2000-2019 and 17 red flags since 2020. That is just ridiculous if true.

Liberty said they wanted to turn F1 into NASCAR and they´re being succesfull in that. Now they just need to introduce the GWC rule and imagine how much of a bigger farce this race could have turned into?

[cplchanb]

honestly the RD this year is either incompetent or comment removed. last race he threw that random SC for nothing and today, both red flags coudlve been covered under SC....

Mod edit

[chrisc90]

All Max had to do was match the same times as what Lewis is doing. He stayed .2-.3 ahead of the times that Lewis was doing. I bet there was at least double the gaps he stayed ahead of Lewis in the car,

[michl420]

When you rob the racing director options (no SC to the finish line, safety over all), than he has no options .