2024 Mclaren Formula 1 Team

[FittingMechanics]

Unfortunately it is in the Gray area of the rules in the way that he pulled across, that it is hard to say it isn't squeezing. Weaving is normally to block someone, but in this instance he wasn't blocking Lando, just reducing the space he had to get into slowly and aggressively and earlier than you normally would.

The stewards were deliberately vague as they knew anything could become inflammatory, but the document spoke specifically about the action being when Lando was alongside Max and therefore the penalty is not about moving under breaking, which happened before Lando was alongside.

There is an issue here in that once a driver is alongside you've always been allowed to move back across to squeeze a bit, even if you've already moved once in the braking area. He's done exactly that here, but started the move earlier but without overtly closing the space before Lando was in it. This is why the punishment is only for what happened when Lando was alongside Max. Which is the squeezing.

If he does this again I hope the punishment is more severe.
if he resorts to pure blocking as a result, I hope he gets punished.

But what could be dealt with today, in this incident, was dealt with in the right way, in my view, based on what has happened in the past.

I would agree that they need to tighten up the regs about not being able to move twice into a squeeze until the car is alongside though, because the intent is to move Lando into a worse position before he's alongside, which in my view should now also be called blocking.

But Lando is alongside while on the brakes. They haven't turned in, both of them are on the brakes. Verstappen moves on the brakes to squeeze/open up the corner, he hits Norris. It's not like he brakes, turns in and then squeezes someone on the exit. What is there to debate?

And the stewards made the decision based on the Infringment of this article Appendix L, Chapter IV, article 2d - https://www.fia.com/regulation/category/123
https://www.fia.com/sites/default/files ... lision.pdf
"Causing a collision, repetition of serious
mistakes or the appearance of a lack of control over
the car (such as leaving the track) will be reported
to the Stewards and may entail the imposition of
penalties up to and including the disqualification of
any driver concerned."

At the same time, they had the ability to use article 2b.
"More than one change of direction to defend a
position is not permitted.
Any driver moving back towards the racing line,
having earlier defended his position off-line, should
leave at least one car width between his own car
and the edge of the track on the approach to the
corner.
However, manoeuvres liable to hinder other
drivers, such as deliberate crowding of a car
beyond the edge of the track or any other abnormal
change of direction, are strictly prohibited. Any
driver who appears guilty of any of the above
offences will be reported to the Stewards."


So it is very clear you are wrong in your assessment. The stewards did not punish Verstappen for squeezing, they punished him for causing a collision. If they wanted to punish squeezing or crowding they would have used article 2b.

[FittingMechanics]

On a positive note, McLaren is P3 in the championship at the moment where wind tunnel time allocation is calculated. Good stuff with this momentum. They have top 2 car but P3 for the wind tunnel time.

[mwillems]

Unfortunately it is in the Gray area of the rules in the way that he pulled across, that it is hard to say it isn't squeezing. Weaving is normally to block someone, but in this instance he wasn't blocking Lando, just reducing the space he had to get into slowly and aggressively and earlier than you normally would.

The stewards were deliberately vague as they knew anything could become inflammatory, but the document spoke specifically about the action being when Lando was alongside Max and therefore the penalty is not about moving under breaking, which happened before Lando was alongside.

There is an issue here in that once a driver is alongside you've always been allowed to move back across to squeeze a bit, even if you've already moved once in the braking area. He's done exactly that here, but started the move earlier but without overtly closing the space before Lando was in it. This is why the punishment is only for what happened when Lando was alongside Max. Which is the squeezing.

If he does this again I hope the punishment is more severe.
if he resorts to pure blocking as a result, I hope he gets punished.

But what could be dealt with today, in this incident, was dealt with in the right way, in my view, based on what has happened in the past.

I would agree that they need to tighten up the regs about not being able to move twice into a squeeze until the car is alongside though, because the intent is to move Lando into a worse position before he's alongside, which in my view should now also be called blocking.

But Lando is alongside while on the brakes. They haven't turned in, both of them are on the brakes. Verstappen moves on the brakes to squeeze/open up the corner, he hits Norris. It's not like he brakes, turns in and then squeezes someone on the exit. What is there to debate?

And the stewards made the decision based on the Infringment of this article Appendix L, Chapter IV, article 2d - https://www.fia.com/regulation/category/123
https://www.fia.com/sites/default/files ... lision.pdf
"Causing a collision, repetition of serious
mistakes or the appearance of a lack of control over
the car (such as leaving the track) will be reported
to the Stewards and may entail the imposition of
penalties up to and including the disqualification of
any driver concerned."

At the same time, they had the ability to use article 2b.
"More than one change of direction to defend a
position is not permitted.
Any driver moving back towards the racing line,
having earlier defended his position off-line, should
leave at least one car width between his own car
and the edge of the track on the approach to the
corner.
However, manoeuvres liable to hinder other
drivers, such as deliberate crowding of a car
beyond the edge of the track or any other abnormal
change of direction, are strictly prohibited. Any
driver who appears guilty of any of the above
offences will be reported to the Stewards."


So it is very clear you are wrong in your assessment. The stewards did not punish Verstappen for squeezing, they punished him for causing a collision. If they wanted to punish squeezing or crowding they would have used article 2b.

I said it was the squeezing that led to a collision that he was punished for. I also said squeezing is allowed, irrespective of whether you are under braking or not.

I explained why they couldn't use 2b as his move was in the gray area. This is why I separate his squeezing of Lando from the double move.

When he squeezed Lando he went too far, and was punished for causing an incident when squeezing Lando. He only has to be guilty of one of the criteria for 2d. Causing the collision.

As I said. They aren't stupid, they know this is a can of worms and left it deliberately vague. They didn't say he was out of control, for instance. Nor was he. He was fully in control and fully going over the edge of what is allowed. He wasn't carrying more speed than he was able to shed before a corner, he just decided to force Lando off the track to defend his space and prevent the switchback.

[Balalu]

The main thing is that the punishment did not affect Max to the slightest! Worse still, he ruined Lando's race while actually benefiting from it in both championships. I hope karma bites back soon (if such a thing exists).

[FittingMechanics]

I said it was the squeezing that led to a collision that he was punished for. I also said squeezing is allowed, irrespective of whether you are under braking or not.

I explained why they couldn't use 2b as his move was in the gray area. This is why I separate his squeezing of Lando from the double move.

When he squeezed Lando he went too far, and was punished for causing an incident when squeezing Lando. He only has to be guilty of one of the criteria for 2d. Causing the collision.

As I said. They aren't stupid, they know this is a can of worms and left it deliberately vague. They didn't say he was out of control, for instance. Nor was he. He was fully in control and fully going over the edge of what is allowed. He wasn't carrying more speed than he was able to shed before a corner, he just decided to force Lando off the track to defend his space and prevent the switchback.

But that is exactly my point. He was not punished for squeezing Lando off the track or for moving in reaction, he was punished because he hit Lando. If Lando made avoiding action and went wide, Verstappen would not have been punished even though it is reckless and dangerous (and in my opinion not allowed).

I don't think Verstappen will learn anything from that punishment. He will do it again and hope Lando goes offtrack. Maybe if Lando holds his ground once again the learning may start. I hope that Piastri and Lando can start to challenge Verstappen at every race so that Verstappen learns through repetition.

[Emag]

Forget about it now. It's how it has been for a while and it will not change until he retires.

To be honest, even if these incidents end up costing them WCC positions I wouldn't care because it means they get more wind tunnel time for next year. If you aren't first, you're just fighting for the best loser's positions. Bragging rights for finishing second is not something I indulge in and the team is doing just fine financially.

It's important to keep this level of pace up for the rest of the season now. Discounting Max, relative to other closest competitors, McLaren has been the most consistent from a relative pace perspective. Actually consistency since Miami has been top notch and as I said before, this consistency is much more important than random bursts of performance only to be relegated to lower point-scoring positions later on. They need to carry this momentum going forward and actually start next year with a car that allows them to fight from the get go. By the time the upgrades arrived in Miami, Ferrari and RedBull had gotten way too many points. Can't allow that next year if they seriously want to mount a proper title challenge before the new rules (potentially) shuffle everything.

[LionsHeart]

I don't see the difference. Do you?

[BassVirolla]

The worst of all this was the dangerous and anti-sportive blocking Verstappen did twice after the collision.

In mi view, this alone should be a direct black flag.

[mwillems]

I said it was the squeezing that led to a collision that he was punished for. I also said squeezing is allowed, irrespective of whether you are under braking or not.

I explained why they couldn't use 2b as his move was in the gray area. This is why I separate his squeezing of Lando from the double move.

When he squeezed Lando he went too far, and was punished for causing an incident when squeezing Lando. He only has to be guilty of one of the criteria for 2d. Causing the collision.

As I said. They aren't stupid, they know this is a can of worms and left it deliberately vague. They didn't say he was out of control, for instance. Nor was he. He was fully in control and fully going over the edge of what is allowed. He wasn't carrying more speed than he was able to shed before a corner, he just decided to force Lando off the track to defend his space and prevent the switchback.

But that is exactly my point. He was not punished for squeezing Lando off the track or for moving in reaction, he was punished because he hit Lando. If Lando made avoiding action and went wide, Verstappen would not have been punished even though it is reckless and dangerous (and in my opinion not allowed).

I don't think Verstappen will learn anything from that punishment. He will do it again and hope Lando goes offtrack. Maybe if Lando holds his ground once again the learning may start. I hope that Piastri and Lando can start to challenge Verstappen at every race so that Verstappen learns through repetition.

Then I feel like this is splitting hairs as I thought
I said that I was referring to the collision as a result of the squeeze when I first started talking about this. It was then boiling it down and labelling it as the squeeze event vs move under breaking event as two separate things. I'm on my phone so I try to minimise typing and thought I'd made it clear I was talking about the collision from the squeeze at the start. I'll bear it in mind in longer messages, for clarity.

[SiLo]

The worst of all this was the dangerous and anti-sportive blocking Verstappen did twice after the collision.

In mi view, this alone should be a direct black flag.

Driving Norris off the road half way down the straight was ridiculous.

[101FlyingDutchman]

The worst of all this was the dangerous and anti-sportive blocking Verstappen did twice after the collision.

In mi view, this alone should be a direct black flag.

Driving Norris off the road half way down the straight was ridiculous.

To be fair to VER. he took little issue with NOR basically pushing him onto the grass at race start in Barcelona.

What I don’t like to see is running people out road like VER did here to NOR. No intention of actually taking the corner until very late. Deliberately overrunning it to squeeze.
For the same reason PER move on PIA needed actioning. If we want to encourage racing and we can’t endorse racing that either results in a) running off the track b) collision

[Balalu]

I'll just park this here:

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/jDv5qRNaAkHoZms6/

[LionsHeart]

I would like to point out a couple of things that are very important, but which were overlooked due to the collision between the two fastest drivers at the moment.

The top speed is still very much lacking. We need to continue to solve this problem. And also prepare an effective package for low downforce tracks.

With a higher top speed, Lando would have been able to catch up and pass the Red Bull earlier, making it easier to pass his rivals. In fact, this is now the main weak point of the car. If it had the efficiency on straights of the 2020 and 2021 cars, it would be priceless.

[mwillems]

The worst of all this was the dangerous and anti-sportive blocking Verstappen did twice after the collision.

In mi view, this alone should be a direct black flag.

Yes, there were many other things outside of the collision as a result of being squeezed.

As I said before, moving under breaking needs to be addressed fully by the FIA and I don't blame the stewards for not wanting to address it.

As does Squeezing on a straight, because that is about nothing more than threatening someone with your car and nothing to do with track position other than - you are being forced off it.

As does turning a low speed corner into a high speed corner because he was outbraked and outmanoeuvred.

On these last two points, the stewards lac of action was disappointing.

[mwillems]

I would like to point out a couple of things that are very important, but which were overlooked due to the collision between the two fastest drivers at the moment.

The top speed is still very much lacking. We need to continue to solve this problem. And also prepare an effective package for low downforce tracks.

With a higher top speed, Lando would have been able to catch up and pass the Red Bull earlier, making it easier to pass his rivals. In fact, this is now the main weak point of the car. If it had the efficiency on straights of the 2020 and 2021 cars, it would be priceless.

Do you have examples?

The tops speed across many laps between the two drivers when DRS is not in use was very similar when I looked.