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Max has hit such a low that it can only get better from here. If not, then he will miss out on championship winning cars in the future. That would be sad.
I was really huge fan of Max, but what he does lately is just immature. Red Bull should consider switching with Gasly for race or two, because with Max it's just getting worse every race.
I was really huge fan of Max, but what he does lately is just immature. Red Bull should consider switching with Gasly for race or two, because with Max it's just getting worse every race.
Hugely disappointing from Max today, slower than Dan in the race, banging into his wheels, running him out of track and then changing direction twice under breaking which ultimately cost the team a significant chunk of points!
RedBull really need to put Max in TR for a couple of races as punishment!
I was really huge fan of Max, but what he does lately is just immature. Red Bull should consider switching with Gasly for race or two, because with Max it's just getting worse every race.
Yes, lets replace him with someone, who crashed into his teammate while trying to switch positions under team orders.
I was really huge fan of Max, but what he does lately is just immature. Red Bull should consider switching with Gasly for race or two, because with Max it's just getting worse every race.
Yes, lets replace him with someone, who crashed into his teammate while trying to switch positions under team orders.
They should give Hartley a go in the top RedBull team, he's nice and stable and might surprise us in a top car.
I was really huge fan of Max, but what he does lately is just immature. Red Bull should consider switching with Gasly for race or two, because with Max it's just getting worse every race.
Yes, lets replace him with someone, who crashed into his teammate while trying to switch positions under team orders.
They should give Hartley a go in the top RedBull team, he's nice and stable and might surprise us in a top car.
Or maybe they shouldn't overreact and keep 2 of their best drivers in the top RedBull team.
Max needs to learn he can't drive the way he has been, he held up a faster Ricardo for half the race, he nearly caused 2 crashes with Dan before being the main catalyst for their actual crash - he needs a temporary demotion to learn some sense.
I haven't really commented on the Max/Dan incident yet, because I wanted some time to reflect on it.
IMO, there are multiple ways on how you can race. You can be hard, but fair, you can be smart or you can just be ruthless. In my opinion, Max is usually borderline ruthless. Which is fine, perhaps, when within the scope of the rules, but there is also a point where you are just taking it too far and perhaps defending a position that is not defensible, but you then resort to tactics that provoke a collision, for example like blocking.
In example: Two cars are on a straight, the car behind much faster. The car in front could then drive erratic and use himself as an obstacle to block the car behind. Such a tactic is of course unfair and forbidden by the rule that you can only make one defensive move. The one defensive move is also not a rule that enables you to "react" to whatever the car behind you is doing. It's a move a driver can do, to i.e. protect the inside-line of an upcoming corner and to force your overtaker to take 'the longer route around you on the outside'. If you leave that one defensive move too late, you are risking the car behind you (that is closing in quickly due to a higher speed thanks to tow and DRS) to either hitting you or having to take avoiding measures to avoid a collision. The bigger the speed differential between the two cars is, the more tolerance you need to account for, as you have a certain reaction time to account for. The higher speed delta also means that the car behind needs more room to brake or take avoiding action.
In the incident of Max and Dan, I feel Max was a little naughty in that he was clearly reacting to Dan in a "blocking manner". When Dan initially went to the right (the dummy), Max did too. A smart and fair racer should have simply stayed on the inside because that is the better line to overtake. Dan tried a few times around the outside and failed, thus keeping to the inside should have gave Max the best chance to defend his position. Perhaps he knew that with the amount of speed difference between himself and Dan, that Dan would surely make the move stick, so perhaps tried to "block" Dan by moving in front of him, hoping Dan would hit the brakes and back out (which by that time would still have worked, just). Dan however used this to go to the inside. Under the current rules of one-defensive-move allowed, Max should have then stuck to the outside. He didn't, and again, when he realized that Dan was going for the inside, he moved left and blocked him again. Then of course, the unavoidable happened and Dan was too close, too close to avoid and far too close for his brakes to have enough braking force to stop behind and without hitting him.
Now, one could argue that perhaps Max "mini move" to the right wasn't a move. Well, where does it start and where does it end? IMO, we love overtakes. The sport loves overtakes. We don't want races where a hardass can make it impossible for a car behind to get past. So there need to be limits in what and how far a defensive driver can go to defend his position. We want clean and respectful racing. We don't want a "do or die attempts". In my opinion, Max was playing with fire when he indicated moving to the right and then in another move to the left. With the speed differential Dan was carrying, a collision at some point was going to be unavoidable.
I'm glad the collision happened, because perhaps this way, the discussion around what is allowed under braking is clarified and everyone knows the limits on how far you can go to defend a position, possibly a position that is lost anyway. I can't blame Max for trying and the fact that he does defend his position like a madman sometimes is precisely why he is so exciting to watch. There is also a point though when you simply have to concede that a position is lost and that there are limits on how far you can go to use your own car as an obstacle.
It's easy to blame the guy behind because the onus on overtaking is usually on the car doing the maneuver, but at the same time, you can also be smart and take into account what the guy behind you is doing and how much space he needs to adequately brake before moving in front of him. Vettel did this in China when he left room when Max was coming in hot for example (but it wasn't enough).
As for Dan, I do think that some of his overtakes are at the limit too when "throwing it up the inside". As long as there is space and he can actually brake and make the corner (with sufficient space on the outside for any eventuality), I think he is in the right to do so, but as I said, there's a fine line there too in doing a masterful overtake vs. simply using your car as a rocket and leaving it to the other car to back out. But those moves only work when the car ahead fails to "defend the inside" anyway.
Not for nothing, Rosberg's Championship is the only thing that lends credibility to Hamilton's recent success. Otherwise, he'd just be the guy who's had the best car. — bhall II #Team44 supporter
Common guys VES is going nowhere.
RBR don't even blame him more than RIC "publicly". (I am sure internally they know very well who is more at fault and will certainly have a word with him and his father).
They want to protect their investment. Right now VES is a big investment. So he is protected.
FIA also protects him because with all his antics he is bringing value to the show. And they now need a good show more than ever. After all he still is a tremendous talent.
But other drivers won't protect him any more, or respect him, or excuse him.
At some point he will realize that having some basic respect from your fellow drivers in a race, its much much more important than just having the protection of the FIA and of your TEAM.
The soonest he realized that the better for him.
He is still the same driver that performed flawlessly in 2016...
No he isn't.
Not because his ability is any different, but because the circumstances are. He isn't the young kid parachuted into Red Bull who subsequently wowed all by winning his first race. He's now a relative 'veteran' of F1. Fair or not, expectations have changed.
Also, it's rather disingenuous to suggest he was flawless in 2016. One needs only consider his performance in Monaco (crashing in Free Practice, Qualifying and the Race), his run in with Sainz in Australia, and the incidents with Raikkonen in Spa and Hungary, amongst those I can remember offhand.
Last edited by Fulcrum on 30 Apr 2018, 15:56, edited 3 times in total.
I'm glad the collision happened, because perhaps this way, the discussion around what is allowed under braking is clarified and everyone knows the limits on how far you can go to defend a position
Nice summary. I'd love to be a fly on the wall at the drivers briefing in Spain when all the drivers lay into Max and/or Daniel under the guise of getting a 'clarification' from Whiting - my money would be on Grosjean (understandable as GPDA vice-president) with a follow up query from Hamilton/Vettel.
#aerogandalf "There is one big friend. It is downforce. And once you have this it’s a big mate and it’s helping a lot." Robert Kubica
Verstappen was already defending the inside line, Ricciardo just went for a gap that wasn’t there..
Also look at the onboards and the downshifts- no moving under braking.
Love you man. You're like Verstappen, better at attacking than defending.
Where do the words "under braking" appear in the regulation?
Article 20.3: 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.
- my money would be on Grosjean (understandable as GPDA vice-president) with a follow up query from Hamilton/Vettel.
