2022 Belgian Grand Prix - Spa-Francorchamps - Aug 26 - 28

[N21]

Just because the outcome of the spa 2022 and Silverstone 2021 crashes are similar, does not make them comparable.

Spa 2022: Alonso hitting the apex and gets cut off by Lewis, leaving him no space. Lewis’ mistake, which he also admits.

Silverstone 2021: Lewis nowhere near the apex, Max leaving plenty of space had Lewis hit the apex. Instead Lewis took too much speed into the corner and understeered into Max, resulting in a 10 second penalty. Again an error from Hamilton.

I don’t support any of these drivers necessarily but this is just as it is

[RZS10]

So on the 3 incidents that occurred on the track…. What would you have given?

Perez/leclerc
Alonso/ham
The Williams spinning out…

Others have already replied and they've mostly written the same but anyways ...

I answered the first one of the three in this post, strictly speaking it was a breach of the regulations, at least borderline, which is probably why they didn't intervene, but even when really wanting to penalize Perez ... Leclerc wasn't ahead, so he couldn't have given up the position and a +5s it wouldn't have changed anything with the pace the RBs had, question is whether they're creating a precedent here (edit: the thought being that at some point in a similar situation it could matter and a penalty could make a difference, and maybe, just maybe for the sake of consistency they could have slapped him with a meaningless +5)

No penalty for Hamilton is, as others pointed out, perfectly in line with how they handle first lap incidents, Hamilton was to blame, he took the blame, took himself out, Alonso carried on, it's done.
The first lap criterion aside, a +5s would be the usual penalty for such incidents if not on lap 1, i do have to admit that i have no clue how they convert in race or post race (time) penalties to grid penalties, imho it was not a severe enough rule breach to carry a grid drop for the next race.
You'd have to go many years back to find an example of a driver receiving a grid penalty with the other one not being eliminated from the race.

The last one is just a mistake by Latifi where the new gravel traps took out Bottas through no fault of his own, but you can hardly penalize the mistake, i assume the data did not show him doing anything stupid when spinning, like staying on throttle like Grosjean did in Barcelona some years ago.
____

With regards to Hamilton's attempt to pass Alonso i'd like to add that Perez pulled a carbon copy of the move on Russell right behind HAM/ALO, he arguably left even less space on the inside, turned in more aggressively and wasn't alongside as early, the difference being that Russel - unlike Alonso - played along and nothing happened, as always it takes two to tango.
I'd fully expect a different approach from both of them in a different situation, potentially even against other drivers, but there really wasn't anything on the line for either of them as they are not in the WDC fight.

[Sieper]

not finishing the lap isn’t the problem though. We have seen penalties carry over to the next race where either a car at fault has retired or the decision was made after the chequered flag. Bottas last year springs to mind when he went bowling at turn 1.


Either way, stewards probably know better than anyone commenting on here

The stewards looked at it and stated that it was a first lap incident. No doubt they noted that Alonso carried on whilst Hamilton DNF'd and decided that the outcome was fair.

Perez didn't have the "first lap incident" excuse - he knew exactly what he was doing and has form. Heck, he's put his own team mate in the wall on more than one occasion in the past.

The sad thing is that Perez didn't need to do that. He had the car to race cleanly and beat Leclerc - as he proved by driving away from him.

Is "First lap incident" an excuse for bad driving? First corner is understandable, but the whole of first lap? That's stupid on FIA's part and equally stupid on anyone using that to justify clumsy driving.

First lap as in, the cars are still bunched up. This first lap I have not seen before, with that many cars that close to each other. Having said that, I feel it did warrant a penalty. But OK, self inflicted this time.

Already news about his PU?

[Mogster]

So on the 3 incidents that occurred on the track…. What would you have given?

Perez/leclerc
Alonso/ham
The Williams spinning out…

Others have already replied and they've mostly written the same but anyways ...

I answered the first one of the three in this postWith regards to Hamilton's attempt to pass Alonso i'd like to add that Perez pulled a carbon copy of the move on Russell right behind HAM/ALO, he arguably left even less space on the inside, turned in more aggressively and wasn't alongside as early, the difference being that Russel - unlike Alonso - played along and nothing happened, as always it takes two to tango.
I'd fully expect a different approach from both of them in a different situation, potentially even against other drivers, but there really wasn't anything on the line for either of them as they are not in the WDC fight.

Exactly.

It wasn’t unreasonable to expect Alonso to back out at that point. You saw other instances of it.

Nando’s hardly anyone to lecture the field on driving standards. At a recent GPDA session his continued defence of his weaving tactics was greeted with hysterical laughter apparently.

[Cs98]

Hamilton was in front entering the corner, Alonso could have got out of it. In fact if anyone else was on the outside and in front Nando would most likely have eased off.

It was obvious what was going to happen, Alonso has full view but still keeps his nose firmly in, Hamilton’s right rear hits his front left. At what point does the guy in front have the right take the racing line and the guy behind with the best view have to take responsibility for avoiding a collision? If neither gave it up then they were going to collide, Alonso had a perfect view, however deep on Hamilton’s right he knows Hamilton isn’t going to be able to see him , Alonso knows this. He won’t give it up because it’s Hamilton, and whenever Nando is in front of Hamilton he fights like a tiger whatever the circumstances.

Everytime Silverstone is brought up, Hamilton fans argue that the collision was actually Max' fault because he cut to the inside. Exactly like Hamilton did now. Now, many of the same fans are shoving the blame in alonso (who, in contrast to Ham last year, was all the way on the curb) for not backing off. So, which is in then: is the outside car diving in while partially ahead to blame, or the inside car for not backing out? You can't have it both ways. Yet the answer here, for many, seems to be: whatever Lewis did was the right thing.

There's also a few people that say: even if max was entitled to the corner it was stupid of him to claim it. Well, I think the same applies here; even if Lewis was entitled to the corner, it was stupid of him to claim it.

Agreed, Hamilton must know Alonso would never back out. That doesn’t make it Alonso’s corner though.

It wasn’t either drivers corner. When a driver is partially alongside on the inside you do not have the right to the apex. Likewise, Alonso was required to leave space for Lewis on the outside because Lewis was partially ahead from the apex, which Fernando did. These are extremely basic racing principles. Lewis understands them, Fernando does, Martin Brundle does, Jolyon Palmer does. Literally everyone involved or commenting directly on this issue came to the same conclusion, even the driver at fault. Yet people on forums still need to argue about it. Wonder why?

[e30ernest]

Hamilton has admitted it was his mistake too. I do not understand why there would still be an argument otherwise.

[N21]

Hamilton has admitted it was his mistake too. I do not understand why there would still be an argument otherwise.

Indeed

[Mandrake]

It's also basic racecraft to not yield whenever there is another car. Hamilton absolutely wanted to get past Alonso to make sure his race is not ruined by a fast alpine. Alonso wanted to stay ahead to cement his chance for a good finishing position.

By staying to the inside Alonso compromises Hamilton for the next left-hander, and will be inside for the right-hander after. Most likely Alonso could have taken the spot into the downhill hairpin.

This is the classic les combes racing if there is enough space given for both cars.

As discussed to death by previous posters: not enough space was given so there was contact. I think Alonso tried everything to stay up the inside but eventually his left front wheel ended up ON Hamiltons floor (again a downside to the zeropods?) and that made him lose the majority of front end grip which in turn cause the wheels to touch.

Hamilton accepted the blame, I'm still surprised however he's "blaming" the blind spot. I would have thought a WDC driver should "feel" when there is another car and not assume everyone backs out.

[Mandrake]

Half a car in front = still alongside. The incident is fully on Hamilton.

Hamilton accepted the blame when asked. Didn't let the reporter bait him ref.: Alonso's comments immediately after the impact. Class act. Shame, it could have been a decent race for him otherwise.

I don’t get this thing, when Mercs, Russel and Lewis have being on the inside and the person on the outside it has being put forward by forum members the person on the inside needs to disappear. We had a incident similar a few weeks ago with Russel in the Alonso position and `Russel was judged at fault.

If you are on about the Austria contact by Russel there are quite a few differences. First of all the corner is tighter. Les combes is not even 90 degrees, in Austria the turn is much tighter. At the Apex Russel left enough space, this is where Hamilton and Alonso made contact, right at the Apex.

In Austria Russel failed to leave the space on the outside, he went too much on the throttle to not lose time and thst made him run wider than he should have.

So in both not too similar situations, both Mercedes drivers were objectively at fault. The only similarity (and that's an assumption on my end) is that I think both times Hamilton and Russel were overly aggressive on turn in or acceleration to try and gain / defend a position.

[BlueCheetah66]

Hamilton accepted the blame when asked. Didn't let the reporter bait him ref.: Alonso's comments immediately after the impact. Class act. Shame, it could have been a decent race for him otherwise.

I don’t get this thing, when Mercs, Russel and Lewis have being on the inside and the person on the outside it has being put forward by forum members the person on the inside needs to disappear. We had a incident similar a few weeks ago with Russel in the Alonso position and `Russel was judged at fault.

If you are on about the Austria contact by Russel there are quite a few differences. First of all the corner is tighter. Les combes is not even 90 degrees, in Austria the turn is much tighter. At the Apex Russel left enough space, this is where Hamilton and Alonso made contact, right at the Apex.

In Austria Russel failed to leave the space on the outside, he went too much on the throttle to not lose time and thst made him run wider than he should have.

So in both not too similar situations, both Mercedes drivers were objectively at fault. The only similarity (and that's an assumption on my end) is that I think both times Hamilton and Russel were overly aggressive on turn in or acceleration to try and gain / defend a position.

Specifically, Russel bounced off the apex which pushed him wide into Perez. Hamilton on the other hand turned into Alonso unprovoked. I would argue more for Russells being a normal lap 1 incident.

[proteus]

Max will have the most wins per season. There is no one to stop him. Literally no one to stop him. 9 wins so far and we have like what? 8 races left? 17 wins in one season is nuts!

It would be great for the sport if he manages to beat the record of Lewis in number of race wins in his career, dont you think?

[basti313]

So on the 3 incidents that occurred on the track…. What would you have given?

Perez/leclerc
Alonso/ham
The Williams spinning out…

Others have already replied and they've mostly written the same but anyways ...

I answered the first one of the three in this post, strictly speaking it was a breach of the regulations, at least borderline, which is probably why they didn't intervene, but even when really wanting to penalize Perez ... Leclerc wasn't ahead, so he couldn't have given up the position and a +5s it wouldn't have changed anything with the pace the RBs had, question is whether they're creating a precedent here (edit: the thought being that at some point in a similar situation it could matter and a penalty could make a difference, and maybe, just maybe for the sake of consistency they could have slapped him with a meaningless +5)

No penalty for Hamilton is, as others pointed out, perfectly in line with how they handle first lap incidents, Hamilton was to blame, he took the blame, took himself out, Alonso carried on, it's done.
The first lap criterion aside, a +5s would be the usual penalty for such incidents if not on lap 1, i do have to admit that i have no clue how they convert in race or post race (time) penalties to grid penalties, imho it was not a severe enough rule breach to carry a grid drop for the next race.
You'd have to go many years back to find an example of a driver receiving a grid penalty with the other one not being eliminated from the race.

The last one is just a mistake by Latifi where the new gravel traps took out Bottas through no fault of his own, but you can hardly penalize the mistake, i assume the data did not show him doing anything stupid when spinning, like staying on throttle like Grosjean did in Barcelona some years ago.
____

With regards to Hamilton's attempt to pass Alonso i'd like to add that Perez pulled a carbon copy of the move on Russell right behind HAM/ALO, he arguably left even less space on the inside, turned in more aggressively and wasn't alongside as early, the difference being that Russel - unlike Alonso - played along and nothing happened, as always it takes two to tango.
I'd fully expect a different approach from both of them in a different situation, potentially even against other drivers, but there really wasn't anything on the line for either of them as they are not in the WDC fight.

I agree on Perez. Looking at consistency it is clearly like Vettel vs. Hamilton in Canada. At 300+ they should be even more cautious.
For me a clear +5sec.

For Hamilton: Not sure. In the end it was a nasty crash, it was easily avoidable and a driver of this quality should know that he can not cut across from the outside to the inside there in the first lap. So I think it is even worse doing this in the first lap as one knows exactly that this is a squeeze for someone behind. +3 places like Ver got in Monza for me.

Latifi: Agreed. He just ran out of talent, no race penalty. One could give reprimands for these to avoid Grosjean like accumulation. That was the whole reason behind the penalty points....

[Oleo]

I agree on Perez. Looking at consistency it is clearly like Vettel vs. Hamilton in Canada. At 300+ they should be even more cautious.
For me a clear +5sec.

They have a nice warning flag for situations like this.
I'd compare it to Leclerc vs Hamilton Monza 2019, but then that one was a bit worse.
Vettel went off track, thus the rule of rejoining in a safe manner comes in play, so not really comparable.

[ispano6]

Perez squeezing Leclerc looked similar to Hamilton squeezing Max at Monza last year, and the result was a bonk on the head. If neither driver ceded position then something unfortunate will happen. In the case of Ham/Alo, Ham was the aggressor and paid the price, though he should of been awarded a penalty. Him taking himself out of the race isn't a penalty, it is a consequence.

[Tvetovnato]

Perez squeezing Leclerc looked similar to Hamilton squeezing Max at Monza last year, and the result was a bonk on the head. If neither driver ceded position then something unfortunate will happen. In the case of Ham/Alo, Ham was the aggressor and paid the price, though he should of been awarded a penalty. Him taking himself out of the race isn't a penalty, it is a consequence.

Lol. Squeezed Verstappen. Verstappen tried to do at Monza what he later did again in Jeddah, simply decide to drive around the outside from too far behind and expect the driver who dictates the corner to give room. The other driver didn’t and Verstappen was penalized on both occasions, so don’t even try to compare the situations, pal.

Perez pushed Leclerc off the track at the place with the highest speed on the track, which was a highly dangerous manouvre and should at least have been investigated. But the stewards I guess set a precedent for these cases when Leclerc squeezed Hamilton off track at Monza 2019, so it seems to be OK for some reason.