Tvetovnato wrote: ↑27 Feb 2022, 13:11
NathanOlder wrote: ↑27 Feb 2022, 11:48
chrisc90 wrote: ↑26 Feb 2022, 21:23
What about Hamiltons corner cutting?
What about Jeddah where merc didnt follow the rule of max 10 car lengths behind the safety car in order to double stack?
What about early race where Hamilton ended up in the gravel, then managed to get out, pit, end up a lap behind then un-lap himself under red flag to get points?
Its amazing the amount of times Merc fans forget how many decisions went in their favour last season, and many other previous ones
To answer those questions , it is quite simple ,
Part 1, Hamilton's corner cutting was caused by the car behind diveboming.
Here you can see the RedBull is around 2.5 car lengths behind, you have the length of the Mercedes, then the gap (which is easily big enough for anouther car) so its a good 2.5 car lengths which is around 15m. As last years cars were approaching 6m long. So coming from around 15m back is a big lunge.
https://i.imgur.com/gsz62Tk.jpg
When coming from this far back, you are NOT entitled to take what line you want, you do not own the corner. You need to be almost level when entering the braking zone, not 15m back.
Here you can see Max is now level at the apex but is carrying too much speed to make sure he leaves space for the car on the outside , because he doesn't own the corner coming from so far back. at this point the move is still fine, as he has still given Hamilton a cars width.
https://i.imgur.com/PVJGijQ.jpg
Now this is where it goes wrong for Max, He has now not given Lewis enough room and there is still an overlap between the 2 cars. Lewis is now forced to leave the circuit as a result of a divebomb where the car attacking didnt leave the required space when coming from so far back.
https://i.imgur.com/1DfxM7n.jpg
Next you can even see Max barely kept his own car on the track, let alone leave enough room for the car he divebombed.
https://i.imgur.com/mwpH4Nh.jpg
So this is the reason Lewis wasn't penalised and the stewards did not help either driver here, they just did their job. If you or anyone feels differently, please take time to explain.
Part 2
The 10 car length rule is only on the formation lap, which this was not. No argument here.
Part 3
The 'early race' as you put it, was Imola. The race was Red Flagged for a huge crash, there was no other possible outcome. This was nothing the stewards or Masi did to help Lewis. Lewis just got lucky that there was a red flag (or even a safety car would have had the same effect) after he lost all that time at Tosa. So again no argument here.
Part 1 is a really good breakdown of how racing rules work, and I wish F1 or the FIA would take more time to explain this for the generic fanbase, since this is exactly how it should be. Good job.
Indeed.
I don't understand how in March 2022, you can still have people making such strong arguments about this particular lap 1 incident and being so confident that Lewis as favoured by the stewards.
Rather than the case being that they just couldn't penalise Lewis for leaving the track during an overtaking attempt when his only other option was to park his car and wait for Max to finally turn after his divebomb that he barely kept on track or keep going and crash while Max was parked sideways across the racing line.
IMHO, 2021 has exposed Max for actually having quite poor racing ability.
He's fine when his car is fast enough to zoom past (and even then he'll send you over the kerbs), but when he has to fight in a car that isn't clearly faster, he can barely keep the thing on the road.
I think him winning the title in the fashion that he did in terms of where it will be forever linked with one of the most prolific names ever in the sport being "robbed" of a record setting wdc, might not have such a sting if he had been able to conduct himself better when racing for it.
But when you watch these 2021 races back in history, when all the fanaticism has died down and the orange shirts and F1 polls are not being bombed by an online army, what are you going to see?
Max barging his rival off the road at almost every opportunity in the early races.
Coming a cropper at Silverstone when his rival finally decided to actually put up a fight. (walking away perfectly fine yet crying about being "hospitalised").
Literally hitting Lewis in the head with his car in Monza.
The Maldonado level driving in Saudi, earning a penalty almost every single time he met with Lewis on track, including for telemetry proven brake checking.
The laughable defense in Brazil.
And finally being steamrolled in the final race, where his only chance of victory was if an FIA official quite literally fiddled the race to make it so had could have a chance. Resulting in that official losing their job and an internal FIA investigation.
And to top it off, almost nothing you can point to that shows any great actual racing in 2021. What battles did he have? Does anyone remember off the top of their head any particularly spectacular things he did in 2021?
The entire F1 community is praising Perez's racing skills. Who is even talking about Maxs racing skills unless it's to complain about the lack of them? Even Martin Brundle who seems to call everything Max does "genius" sounded jaded after the Saudi grand prix and said Max needed to "think about his driving standards".
Max has the WDC and he will never show that he cares externally, but unless he's not actually human, he'll always have this hanging over his head unless and until he makes his mark in a more satisfying way for himself and the rest of the F1 fanship.