TFSA wrote: ↑04 Sep 2023, 18:14
ringo wrote:Cs98 wrote: ↑04 Sep 2023, 17:11
I don't disagree. But why can't you see that same logic applies to Lewis and how he chose to complete that overtake by cutting across Piastri? It was a huge risk (and completely unnecessary), and it put him as the responsible party if anything went wrong.
I think if we break down the incident. Both Hamilton and Leclerc did the same thing. Line up for entry into the chicane. Both cannot see how close the other driver is along side. So that is their full responsibility and awareness.
The only difference between both incidents is what the car on the outside does, which was outside of Leclerc's control and outside of Lewis' control in each case. So, I believe the same precedent applies as both did the same exact thing, only that in Hamilton's case, the outside car, in his own independence decided not to move. And this is impossible for the guy on the inside to see. It should have been a black and white flag for both, a 5 second penalty for both, as both did the exact same thing. It can even be argued that Leclerc had more intent to block Hamilton.
I disagree. You're missing a crucial difference: who the overtaking car was.
In 2019, Hamilton was the car behind, attempting an overtake on the outside. It's perfectly reasonable for Leclerc to have missed him on the outside when lining up for the corner since Hamilton didn't manage to overtake him.
Yesterday, however, Hamilton had just overtaken Piastri on the inside. Therefore, there's no way Hamilton didn't know he was there on the outside, as he had just passed him.
I agree with this, its just not good enough from a multi championship winning driver, with all the accolades given about him by his ultimate manager, to then make such a bad job of clearing another driver. He didn't need to go back on that line, had already passed Piastri and no further interaction was necessary. Jinking to make the other driver take his foot out of throttle early should be seen for what it is, amateurish in the extreme, juvenile in expecting experienced observers to take that excuse and faux apology at face value.
An ominously poor trajectory by the MB team, with GR doing more or less the same action in deciding to "take" a penalty for intentionally crossing the chicane and avoiding getting stuck behind another competitor to obstruct HIS race plan.
Is that how they are now planning their races ? Cutting corners and deliberately obstructing other drivers that did nothing wrong, by already accepting they had better chance in being able to mitigate the small penalty in time.
Ominous in the extreme, and should be seen as such. Highly unprofessional.
The evidence against LH is that he is, throughout his career, a very "clean" driver, almost impeccably. If he wants to now convince the public that these mistakes are indeed genuine, that background of extremely low fault rate during very tense racing shows it as fallacy.
They really do need to wake up at MB and act as they always profess to do, with honesty and humility. This level of behavior is particularly poor. Other's will ultimately be the judge of them, not their protestations of innocence.