2021 Bahrain Grand Prix - Sakhir, March 26 - 28

[santos]

Seb is over. Binotto dishing out the insults.

What did he say?

It wasn't an insult... If someone consider that has an insult, must be some kind of snowflake.
He said Ferrari can count with both drivers. Looking at the performance of Vettel last season, we can understand that.

[Restomaniac]

Is it a tough decision? This year, currently, both are in with a good chance of the title(s). Next year, they might fluff it anyway and then be behind the front end of the grid. So it's a good chance this year or a possible chance next.

Or: Jam today, jam tomorrow.

I think Mercedes will want to get the title this year because, if for no other reason, it would mean they had all of the titles for this particular era. That is unheard of in the history of F1, isn't it? So they may be prepared to risk next year if it gets them this year in the bag.

Surely it isn’t like for like anyway. There are far more prescribed parts so I can’t see how it would take the amount of work as previously.

There are enough areas that a team can find an advantage. If it's a hidden/hard to see part of the car, it could take a season to overcome it.

I’m not saying that I’m saying that due to there being far more locked parts they literally have less work to do. Then add in a cost cap and/or reduced tunnel time which means there is literally less work they CAN do.

That was one of the reasons for it IIRC. To reduce the difference a team can make.

[lh13]

According to Helmut Marko, Max wasn't using full power as a precaution because of the problem with diff. So it remains to be seen if RedBull and Mercedes are actually close or does RedBull have more in hand.

[maxxer]

And yeah, sure, you can opt to allow one or two minor digressions and only give warnings, and only penalize the third, like is already done now in some cases. But that last part is where the problem is: now, it is in some cases. Which corners are monitored changes per race, and apparently, mid-race. There should be absolutely no ambiguity on track limits: you stay in the lines, whole track, every corner, unless you are pushed off or avoiding an incident - and warnings should add up over all the track, not on a per-corner basis.

It's the inconsistency that is the issue, not how the rule is applied. The drivers were told that Turn 4 is free game in the race. Some took that on board and drove accordingly, some didn't. But then to change the rule mid race was where it went wrong.

The irony was that it was Horner coming on the radio and making a big thing of telling Max to drive wide in Turn 4 that caused the race director to change his mind. Horner got his way because Massi changed the rule mid race. But it didn't help Max in the way that Horner hoped. That's a bit of karma, really, because Horner was trying to mess with the race in a non-racing way.

But Max's overtake was always going to be illegal and he would always have been penalised - either by a "hand back" requirement or a time penalty. Even if Max had ignored the "hand back" notice, I'm sure the stewards would have given a time penalty that resulted in him being second. Remember Kimi wandering in to the cool down room after the race a couple of years ago, Max asking him why he was there and Kimi saying "you've been penalised for your overtake" (with a smile on his face)?

True they said this during Qually that in those sessions you would lose your times but during the race they wouldnt unless gaining an advantage in position

[djones]

According to Helmut Marko, Max wasn't using full power as a precaution because of the problem with diff. So it remains to be seen if RedBull and Mercedes are actually close or does RedBull have more in hand.

And Mercedes was having derate issues with their engine.

[maxxer]

Seb is over. Binotto dishing out the insults.

What did he say?

It wasn't an insult... If someone consider that has an insult, must be some kind of snowflake.
He said Ferrari can count with both drivers. Looking at the performance of Vettel last season, we can understand that.

Guess driving in the back of someone and complaining about the other proved his point they had with him over the years

[One and Only]

According to Helmut Marko, Max wasn't using full power as a precaution because of the problem with diff. So it remains to be seen if RedBull and Mercedes are actually close or does RedBull have more in hand.

Horner not whining about track limits mess is indicative for me that they are confident they have advantage over Mercedes.

[DChemTech]

And yeah, sure, you can opt to allow one or two minor digressions and only give warnings, and only penalize the third, like is already done now in some cases. But that last part is where the problem is: now, it is in some cases. Which corners are monitored changes per race, and apparently, mid-race. There should be absolutely no ambiguity on track limits: you stay in the lines, whole track, every corner, unless you are pushed off or avoiding an incident - and warnings should add up over all the track, not on a per-corner basis.

True they said this during Qually that in those sessions you would lose your times but during the race they wouldnt unless gaining an advantage in position

That's true, but that's also the problem: the stewards should not be saying that to begin with. They should tell the drivers to stay between the lines, every corner, and not selectively allow digressions in some corners but not in others. Changing the rules during the race made it even worse, but whether you can cross some line should not be a question in the first place.

[lh13]

According to Helmut Marko, Max wasn't using full power as a precaution because of the problem with diff. So it remains to be seen if RedBull and Mercedes are actually close or does RedBull have more in hand.

And Mercedes was having derate issues with their engine.

Correct. Can't wait for the next round. 3 weeks is too long. But it'll give the teams a chance to resolve whatever issues they have, and perhaps Mercedes will also bring the upgrades (tokens spent).

[MattWellsyWells]

Here’s one. (and apologies if it’s been discussed and I missed it.) Been thinking about it since earlier and I genuinely don’t know the answer.

If Perez pulled over on the formation lap and then went into the pits at the end of the same lap, while all the other cars went round an additional formation lap which officially counted as lap one of the race- in effect lapping him, shouldn’t Perez have started one lap down on everyone else rather than the same lap? I really don’t know the rules surrounding it and whether there’s an allowance but I’m sure Perez only did 56 laps while everyone else did 57?

I suppose it's the same when a driver starts from the pitlane in more normal circumstances - they don't complete the formation lap so technically do a lap less than everyone else.

[Polarit]

Every driver and every team should be looking for ways to gain time. They always go wide and always cut corners as much as they can.... that's just racing. When it's not allowed they'll still do it a few times until they get warned. That's entirely normal.

If it were quicker for Verstappen to do it he would've done it. I think it depended on the car whether going wide was worth it or not. Red Bull would've seen it was helping Mercedes so that's why they brought it up. Not because they wouldn't of done the same thing if it helped them but they just wanted to shave some time off their rivals.

Overtaking outside of track limits is there for safety issues. It opens a can of worms if you started to allow that to happen.

[Juzh]

According to Helmut Marko, Max wasn't using full power as a precaution because of the problem with diff. So it remains to be seen if RedBull and Mercedes are actually close or does RedBull have more in hand.

And Mercedes was having derate issues with their engine.

I'm yet to see any clipping problems for mercedes, it's just more mercedes supposedly being underdog bull that we've become accustomed to from Wolf. Honda goes the other way and pumps themselves up whenever they can and this misleads everyday fan easily, especially when everyone that's not super merc hardcore fan want someone else to win.

Mclaren was easily the fastest car on the straights and hamilton regularly had more top speed than verstappen trough the race. That's with red bull running spoon wing.

[Vasconia]

We could see he had a slight stepping out at the back just after, might well be that his tyres overheated a bit, and when that happens, they lose out quite a bit.

Yeah, you may be right. Maybe, he was lacking some grip or correct tyre temperature and he needed a couple of laps to recover it, but it was too late.

[mzso]

What did he say?

It wasn't an insult... If someone consider that has an insult, must be some kind of snowflake.
He said Ferrari can count with both drivers. Looking at the performance of Vettel last season, we can understand that.

Guess driving in the back of someone and complaining about the other proved his point they had with him over the years

It was pathetic. It was painful hearing him whining about the other guy...

[El Scorchio]

True they said this during Qually that in those sessions you would lose your times but during the race they wouldnt unless gaining an advantage in position

That's true, but that's also the problem: the stewards should not be saying that to begin with. They should tell the drivers to stay between the lines, every corner, and not selectively allow digressions in some corners but not in others. Changing the rules during the race made it even worse, but whether you can cross some line should not be a question in the first place.

Yes they should. We've been having this moan on here for a long time. IMO (and i know other people feel slightly different) it should be the white lines on every inch of every track with no allowances anywhere and at least part of one wheel should always be inside those lines. Let's not pretend it's just suddenly an issue now, though.

The directives for the race were quite clear, that all drivers were told they were free to do exactly what Hamilton was doing, and numerous drivers have verified that. If Verstappen and RBR were not aware or chose not to do it, then that's an error on their part and there is no-one else to blame. The race director changing his mind mid-race is ridiculous, but had no impact on the result of the race.