As far as the Checo-Kimi incident goes I’m gonna have to side with Kimi.
I mean I still admire Perez for trying but that was a stupid move, really. You cannot overshoot your breaking point in Monaco just like that and commit to an overtake while you’re still 2-3 car lengths behind someone and hope everything is gonna be alright. It’s really the only way to do it in Monaco but if you’re going to do it then it has to be beautifully planned and executed or else if it doesn’t work it’s your ass.
Take the move that he pulled off on Button for example, now that’s a clean classic out-breaking maneuver and it worked fine. He was already alongside him when taking the entry to the corner, took a good line through it, Button lined up behind him and it all went smooth.
The move on Alonso was a good one as well. But you have to notice that Alonso can’t go racing wheel to wheel on that occasion to try and defend either(just as no one else can through that stupid corner), so he has to bow out and cut the chicane because there’s really no other way for him to go. Not that it’s an issue but just goes to show you that you cannot have half-moves there and you just have to make it stick entirely to make it work. Same thing happened numerous times before when Button tried that same move on him or the first time he tried it on Kimi. One almost always has to back off.
Now there are some occasions when you can try going wheel to wheel there but again the driver entering the chicane on the left almost always has to back off because there’s no line they can take to out-traction the other driver or exit the chicane wheel to wheel. Those are just some of the things you have to take into account when you try to overtake in that spot and Perez failed to do that completely. It’s either a move you can pull off or you can’t and you need to have the skill to realize whether it can be done before you actually commit to it from a mile back.
But that was just an “IM GOING IN” moment and he went totally banzai hoping Kimi would see him and let him through. That is not how you overtake, though.
http://i42.tinypic.com/15f18ra.jpg – You can clearly see at that point he’s absolutely lost it.
That is the exact moment of collision. Now any driver at that point would think, alright, I can’t make this move because there’s really no way I can fit in there so I’m gonna back off this time. However, he can’t do that because if you watch the replay he’s already started locking up a long time ago and basically lost control of his car. Now you might say that Kimi should’ve given him room but it’s not Kimi’s job to watch out for people losing control behind him.
I honestly don’t see how anyone can try and justify it because at that point despite whether the stewards disagree with me or not there was just no possible clean overtake to be made there. There could have been a very awkward one if Kimi had actually stopped to let him through to avoid a collision but as I said that’s just not how overtakes are done.
Opportunistic moves are another thing, but if you want to do a clean overtake then you have to plan it and execute it as it should be but never in the hope of another driver letting you through because otherwise you’d crash into them. That’s just not how it goes and that’s the way it is, really.
Delta racing at it's finest!