2021 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix - Imola, Apr 16 - 18

[dren]

So, you can have an off, wreck your front wing, sit for half a minute, yet get back on track, pit, replace your front nose/wing and still finish 2nd. Hamilton's car isn't that fast. The rules are broken. This was a mess of a race. It's nice to see a Honda victory.

Those rules are made to keep the race exciting, but also keep things safe, so no they are not broken.

Two rules at play here. The first is the blue flags rule, which helped Max passed backmarkers when HAM was cutting into him like hunting knife. But also hurt HAM because he had to navigate off line - his mistake in not going slower - onto a damp patch which lead to his spin.

The second rule at play are unlapping rules. I remember this rules came as a result of Singapore and other races where it i hard to pass without causeing huge pile ups. And also it allows backmarkers to come back into play for points. So that one is a safety and entertainment.

Why are you mad all of sudden? These rules have been around for nearly ten years now?

It seems a lot of people are mad all of a sudden.

Not saying its the case on this forum, but elsewhere most of these people who are mad weren't watching F1 10 years ago.

I'm a Hamilton fan, a Mercedes fan (mainly cause it's the old BAR Honda team) and I've been watching F1 for much longer than 10 years. It just irritates me that we finally have what looks to be a good title fight and one of the drivers makes an error that should have put them out of the points yet they are able to finish 2nd due to getting lucky with the rules. Damn near everyone else during the race who had an off, and there were a lot of them, lost places.

Oh well, the race was a complete mess all around. On to the next one.

[SiLo]

Other cars got to unlap themselves, its not Lewis' fault that he was in a faster car and drove it better to recover to 2nd.

[ispano6]

FWIW I think the Leclerc Verstappen thing is a bit of a moot point. I think even if he'd lost a place or two from his little mistake, it's highly likely he'd have got them back without too much trouble and still won the race. Just by a smaller margin than he did.

Max made a masterful correction to prevent a spin, and even if Leclerc passed him he would have to give it back.

"Race director Michael Masi argues that if Leclerc had overtaken his rival Verstappen after his slip after the red flag, he would have had to let the Dutchman back in front. At The Telegraph Masi reports that the warm up before the rolling restart is seen as a formation lap. "

And even if Leclerc got past, Max would just overtake him anyway.

[214270]

FWIW I think the Leclerc Verstappen thing is a bit of a moot point. I think even if he'd lost a place or two from his little mistake, it's highly likely he'd have got them back without too much trouble and still won the race. Just by a smaller margin than he did.

Max made a masterful correction to prevent a spin, and even if Leclerc passed him he would have to give it back.

"Race director Michael Masi argues that if Leclerc had overtaken his rival Verstappen after his slip after the red flag, he would have had to let the Dutchman back in front. At The Telegraph Masi reports that the warm up before the rolling restart is seen as a formation lap. "

And even if Leclerc got past, Max would just overtake him anyway.

Masi is arguing that a lap which counts on the race tally is also simultaneously a formation lap. I didn’t know that I agree with that, it should have a different designation as it’s under race conditions

[Phil]

I'm a Hamilton fan, a Mercedes fan (mainly cause it's the old BAR Honda team) and I've been watching F1 for much longer than 10 years. It just irritates me that we finally have what looks to be a good title fight and one of the drivers makes an error that should have put them out of the points yet they are able to finish 2nd due to getting lucky with the rules. Damn near everyone else during the race who had an off, and there were a lot of them, lost places.

Given the length at which you watch F1, I'm baffled at how you would feel irritated over a rule that has existed for an entirety. It's what defines a safety car - it bunches up the field, thus any advantage any driver had previously driven out is nullified. Sometimes even to their detriment, if they are on old tires and can't pit vs others who have better tires with the gap reduced to zero. It happened to Hamilton in Bahrain 14 when he had to battle his team-mate on better tires.

Also, the unlapping is to nullify other advantages. You see, if they wouldn't unlap themselves, then they would effectively have less laps on their tires. How would you feel about the cars on the same lap being bunched up and their gap reduced to zero, while all the drivers a lap behind would stay a lap behind? Sounds completely stupid, because that's exactly what it would be.

If we didn't have racing on circuits but on stages from A to B, a safety car would do exactly the same thing; bunch up the field, regardless of the gaps.

Hamilton payed with his off - it took him completely out of contention for the win. If he hadn't previously lapped the cars, than he would have been effectively out of the race as he would have likely ended up far further back the grid. Because he drove such a stellar race up to that point is solely the reason how he was able to rescue himself up to P2.

[SiLo]

FWIW I think the Leclerc Verstappen thing is a bit of a moot point. I think even if he'd lost a place or two from his little mistake, it's highly likely he'd have got them back without too much trouble and still won the race. Just by a smaller margin than he did.

Max made a masterful correction to prevent a spin, and even if Leclerc passed him he would have to give it back.

"Race director Michael Masi argues that if Leclerc had overtaken his rival Verstappen after his slip after the red flag, he would have had to let the Dutchman back in front. At The Telegraph Masi reports that the warm up before the rolling restart is seen as a formation lap. "

And even if Leclerc got past, Max would just overtake him anyway.

So why did Perez get a penalty then?

[Hoffman900]

The reason for unlapping is so cars aren’t fighting to unlap themselves.

This is a common procedure in most racing series for the last 20 years. There have been some notable incidents in all the pro series of that happening leading up to these rule changes, which aren’t anything new.

Most race fans attention spans are 1 week long, so this conversation will go away and we’ll be on to the latest “controversy” in due time.

[DChemTech]

Unlapping from a regular safety car is somewhat different though - the cars never have enough time to eradicate the gap completely before the safety car is in, so there is still substantial distance between the unlapped cars and the leaders. In this particular case of a red-flag restart, the entire lap is nullified.

Anyhow, I think we should be able to agree that one can regard the rules as fine (and accept they are as they are) and still be irritated by a particular outcome. Hell, I guess that happens for most people every election outcome Acceptance and annoyance are completely different things.

[basti313]

Perez was pointing in more the right way than the wrong and didn't fully lose control of his car during the early safety car but the stewards did not care that two cars went by when they could have safely slowed to let him back infront.

While Max only had all 4 wheels off track for 0.2s or there abouts it was about 4 seconds from the moment he lost the rear to when he had all 4 wheels back on track and the car fully under control. Considering they were originally doing around 80 KPH into a 100+ KPH corner Charles had plenty of leeway to restart the race at that moment.

That then also adds in an element of if Max sees that what happens? Does his reaction to that actually fully induce a spin which would entirely clear Charles of any potential wrong doing or does he stay calm? So many unknowns in how it could have played out.

Yea but Perez was completely off track for so long (7s) that two cars easily passed him ...so it was a completely different situation?

And since he was penalized for retaking those positions it means that they were in the right, so passing a car that is completely off track is fine, in Max' case the absolutely safe window of opportunity was 0.2s.

If a car spun out completely whilst staying on track it would surely also be fine to overtake.

So the question would be:
- would it have been ok to overtake him during the 2.5s he spent in a drift before he left the track?
- would the entire 4s between him losing control and being back on track with all 4 wheels have been fine?
- or was it only ok to overtake him during the 0.2s he was properly off track?

Perez was a different situation of course but Gasly floored it to get ahead. He didn't just cruise along at normal speed he went for it and got the position.

I think it would have been fine to overtake him from the moment he lost the rear and was heading off track until the moment he has safely rejoined with all 4 wheels and is under complete control of the car. That means with reaction times and response times taken into account I think had Charles been prepping for a safety car restart he would have started to accelerate while Max is heading off track and he would have been ahead while Max is still saving the slide. I do not see how the stewards can penalise Charles (or any other car that goes past) for going past a car that is in the process of spinning.

This is 100% correct if normal safety car rules apply. The wording is "problem" and that starts when he lost the rear. I think it is this way. And if done so half the field would have passed.

If we read the restart rules by the word...I am not so sure if this is ok. There we find the "on track" wording.

[Shrieker]

I'm a Hamilton fan, a Mercedes fan (mainly cause it's the old BAR Honda team) and I've been watching F1 for much longer than 10 years. It just irritates me that we finally have what looks to be a good title fight and one of the drivers makes an error that should have put them out of the points yet they are able to finish 2nd due to getting lucky with the rules. Damn near everyone else during the race who had an off, and there were a lot of them, lost places.

Oh well, the race was a complete mess all around. On to the next one.

One could make an argument for Hamilton winning the race, if not for that mistake. So he did in fact end up losing something. He could've stayed on Ver's tail a good long while and tried forcing a mistake. He lost the chance to do that with his own mistake as well.

For example, when Max lost it for a brief moment on the restart. Hamilton might've seized the moment and bolted.

[SiLo]

We were a few degrees of spin more away from talking about Lewis winning this race and Max looking like an absolute fool.

[El Scorchio]

I am not 100% sure about this...the rolling start rule is very short on the safety car regulations. In my point of view they are still valid, otherwise there are too many unclear points. But anyways just thinking about the "if"...if Lec would have floored it at the moment Max was on the grass with the front wheels, which can already be counted as the "If any car slows with an obvious problem." wording in the FIA sporting regulations for the SC, then Lando and all others would have done the same. The additional second with Max on the grass would have ended with many cars, maybe even Lewis going past. Even if everyone of them would be given a penalty, the chance of winning would have been low.

But the cars which went past Kimi were not penalised, were they? (and rightly so) So I shouldn't think any cars theoretically passing Verstappen would/should have been either.

Kimi was far off. For Ves it was a bit of grey area. So yes...maybe they would not have received a penalty in case the SC rules apply or they may have received 10sec.

For me, I think Kimi losing places and Verstappen possibly losing places would have been punishment enough, and anything more imposed is overkill. It doesn't really make sense to me that an extra penalty is applied because a car lost places, but I probably don't understand the point of the rule fully. Absolutely there should be robust rules and sufficient penalties in place against gaining positions under a safety car where it's not because another driver has made a mistake.

[El Scorchio]

We were a few degrees of spin more away from talking about Lewis winning this race and Max looking like an absolute fool.

Very valid point- such are the margins.

[Hoffman900]

For those that know, when did they start allowing work on the car under a red flag?

F1 is one of the few, if only places, I know of that allow that.

This isn’t even just a Lewis thing, as RB was changing front wing plates, etc under it.

[Edax]

For those that know, when did they start allowing work on the car under a red flag?

F1 is one of the few, if only places, I know of that allow that.

This isn’t even just a Lewis thing, as RB was changing front wing plates, etc under it.

I am not sure, but is has been that way for as long as I remember. Hamilton had his RW replaced in Monaco (2011)

And in the time of spare cars they could even switch cars at the start.