2017 Formula 1 Azerbaijan Grand PrixFormula 1

[JayOTT]

I'm still waiting Hamilton's penalty... (somehow he never get those...)

He signed a pact with the Mercedes World Order after 2011. The pact stated that he would get far fewer penalties even in situations that were clearly his fault (coughValenciacough), and in return he'd drive for Mercedes in the near future.

Somehow I think Hamilton got the better end of that deal.

 

[sems4arsenal]

Really stocked for Stroll. One large plate of crow for me please.

 

[Adam41]

Hamilton braked and reduced his speed by about 15kmh, not sure how that's a brake check. Certainly wasn't deliberate which a brake 'check' implies.

If Vettel hadn't fluffed his first SC restart he might not have had so much of an urge to be so close to Hamilton for the second.

 

[Michelin Man]

To be honest, I don't really see why Hamilton must get a penalty, as I didn't see any evidence of brake checking. As has been mentioned already, the team cautioned him about his restarts, what with being close to the safety car, so he slowed things down, naturally. Plus, as explained on Channel 4, he was the lead car, and thus had the right to control the pace of the whole field. Hence why I'd see no need, as to why Hamilton would've "brake checked" Vettel (must point out I'm no Hamilton "fanboy", before anyone jumps on the bandwagon), as that would've caused more bad than good. Besides, it doesn't seem there was any clear-cut evidence of him deliberately braking, besides slowing down, as he was entitled to do.

Personally, I think Vettels penalty given for the contact that came after he ran into Hamilton, was just. As regardless of whether he meant it or not, you cannot just run into another car in frustration, or take the law into your own hands, regardless of it being "refreshing to see him express his emotions"

Either way, at the end of the day, what's done is done, it was a crazy GP, and for all the complaints Baku receives as a track, I don't think it's half bad, and today's action put that aside IMO.

clearly his fault (coughValenciacough)

Again, I'm certainly not a Hamilton fanboy, but it your referring to Valencia 2012, then that was clearly of Maldonado's doing, since he came back onto the track and made contact, somewhat unnecessarily. Apologies if that's not the incident you're referring too, but still.

 

[Famine]

Ultimately slowing behind a safety car is relatively normal behaviour, and although some may opine that the rate of deceleration was a bit much and possibly against the rules, it's not something way out there in terms of things that happen on a race track. Perhaps at worst it's a little poor.

Pulling alongside a driver to remonstrate and swerving into them (or making a manouevre so wild that a four-times world champion somehow no longer has control of his car at safety car speeds), while behind a safety car and under double-waved yellows for the protection of the marshals who may be on the circuit is, I think, quite a lot worse than a little poor. Like, loads worse.


This week we've seen an LMP2 driver put a GTE car into a barrier at around 150mph, hold his hands up to the mistake, offer profound apologies to the team for destroying their car so soon into a 24hr race and have it accepted with no hard feelings. There's a lesson there that some F1 drivers need to take on board.

 

[JayOTT]

Valencia 2012

If you force someone off the track, especially if they were entitled to space, you have to expect them to want to re-join, and Hamilton did not do that. So he got taken out and only had himself to blame.

But sure, blame it on the guy who's only other option was to cut out a huge portion of the track which you're not supposed to do if you can help it.

 

[Jimlaad43]

Hamilton had won that apex in Valencia. Once off the track, it's MALDONADO's responsibility to rejoin safely.

 

[JayOTT]

Maldonado had his whole car alongside Hamilton. You can't force another driver off the track when they're that far up and if you do, you need to redress as soon as possible. Hamilton did neither, therefore he gets taken out and has no-one but himself to blame.

Just because a driver is crash prone doesn't mean you can just blame incidents that were 50/50 at best on them.

 

[Michelin Man]

If you force someone off the track, especially if they were entitled to space, you have to expect them to want to re-join, and Hamilton did not do that. So he got taken out and only had himself to blame.

But sure, blame it on the guy who's only other option was to cut out a huge portion of the track which you're not supposed to do if you can help it.

As @Jimlaad43 mentioned, he had the apex, and Maldonado decided to go round the outside, but seemed to make little, to no effort in rejoining in a safe and proper manner, and thus ruined both driver's races. Besides, even if Hamilton did force him off track, he is entitled (like any other driver), to apply the pressure when someone is overtaking. You cannot just rejoin the track and hope other drivers will re-act quickly enough in the process.

Anyway, I'll leave such discussions about a race that occurred 5 years ago, to another day. I think the main gripe with the whole Vettel-Hamilton debacle, is the completely unnecessary move Vettel pulled on Hamilton after the initial contact. Swerving into another car, at any speed, is completely unacceptable, and ultimately a poses a great safety risk, as @Famine, since this was under the safety car, and double yellows, where there may be marshals and such on track. So year, it really wasn't clever by Vettel, and perhaps he should've shown some gratitude and come clean, but hey-ho.

 

[Famine]

Maldonado had his whole car alongside Hamilton. You can't force another driver off the track when they're that far up and if you do, you need to redress as soon as possible. Hamilton did neither, therefore he gets taken out and has no-one but himself to blame.

Just because a driver is crash prone doesn't mean you can just blame incidents that were 50/50 at best on them.

Pastor? Is that you?

 

[sems4arsenal]

Both Lewis and Seb pulled "dirty" moves in my opinion. However, Seb's retaliation is totally unacceptable. I think Lewis knows exactly what he was doing, you don't brake fully at the exit of a corner in a car with no brake lights. I bet he did that so Seb brakes hard as well then Lewis will gun it (standard safety car ending maneuver) however, he did it in a way which was aggressive enough to cause a collision.

 

[JayOTT]

Now that you mention it... why aren't brake lights on Formula 1 cars to prevent these sorts of situations from occurring? Surely the rain light would be better utilised as a braking light?

 

[TenEightyOne]

I'm still waiting Hamilton's penalty... (somehow he never get those...)

Wow, literally two posts above yours:

Excerpt from the BBC race report.-"The stewards examined data from his car and found that he had maintained a more or less constant speed, had not lifted off the throttle or braked, and had behaved no differently at that re-start at that point on the track than at the other two re-starts."

You might have to accept that Vettel made a mistake and drove into the back of another car. He's done it before if you remember.

Now that you mention it... why aren't brake lights on Formula 1 cars to prevent these sorts of situations from occurring? Surely the rain light would be better utilised as a braking light?

Because in the majority of cases they'd be utterly useless. The red light currently shows harvesting or that the car is set for the wet diameter tyres.

 

[Vinylshark]

The whole thing reminds me about the Mücke/Westbrook incident from 2011.

Both drivers (Mücke and Vettel) getting angry after getting hit and than trying to get as close to the other driver as possible, but simply misjudge the space between cars due to their rage.

 

[GroupB]

Now that you mention it... why aren't brake lights on Formula 1 cars to prevent these sorts of situations from occurring? Surely the rain light would be better utilised as a braking light?

The argument against brake lights is that they would cause many more incidents than they would prevent, especially once the drivers learned to manipulate their effect to gain an advantage.

 

[ExigeEvan]

Excerpt from the BBC race report.

"The stewards examined data from his car and found that he had maintained a more or less constant speed, had not lifted off the throttle or braked, and had behaved no differently at that re-start at that point on the track than at the other two re-starts."

Lewis this, Lewis that, blah, blah, bleugh.

Quoted because people seem to be missing this...

 

[JayOTT]

I alluded to this during the race but the thread was going too fast and I didn't give the post much thought. So...

Verstappen has generally been quicker than Ricciardo in recent races, but has also had a lot of reliability issues. Silly theory time; is Verstappen trying to push the car harder than it was really supposed to be pushed? Amongst other things, engine limits in modern F1 effectively turn 5 sprint races on average into one long endurance run on one engine, and I wonder if Verstappen's superior pace in recent qualifying sessions and the early laps could be attributed to a tendency to go all out for performance and pray that nothing on the car breaks...

Of course, I could be completely wrong on this one as Ricciardo's crash in qualifying would suggest that he is pushing hard himself, at least in qualifying, and just getting beat straight up. It does however make me wonder if Ricciardo, rather than just being slow, has been playing the long game by taking it easy over the race weekend and making sure he gets the car and engine to the chequered flag.

 

[desmodan]

Maybe Vettel should go play with the bttc numpties ?
They're used to dealing with all the adolescents that can't control themselves .

 

[niky]

Excerpt from the BBC race report.

"The stewards examined data from his car and found that he had maintained a more or less constant speed, had not lifted off the throttle or braked, and had behaved no differently at that re-start at that point on the track than at the other two re-starts."

Lewis this, Lewis that, blah, blah, bleugh.

Quadruple quoted, so people can see.

-

After watching that several times, Lewis didn't do anything he doesn't normally do when leading during a safety car restart. Seb was just way too aggressive on the throttle coming out of that corner.

 

[sems4arsenal]

Quadruple quoted, so people can see.

-

After watching that several times, Lewis didn't do anything he doesn't normally do when leading during a safety car restart. Seb was just way too aggressive on the throttle coming out of that corner.

We can clearly see Lewis brake hard mid corner though?

 

[GroupB]

 

[desmodan]

On a more positive note, what a result for Lance Stroll .
I guess old Jacques Villeneuve will have to eat his words .

 

[sunshine2002]

EDIT
Here, this was on reddit. https://my.mixtape.moe/slropm.mp4

Mercedes official statement... "you have edited the video to show brake blinking and the speed drop dramatically" ;-)
Lewis can complain other drivers braking suddenly behind the safety car, but he can do it by himself without any penalty

 

[Jimlaad43]

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/f1-hamilton-vettel-baku-brake-testing-923425/

Case closed on whether Lewis did ANYTHING wrong. Now can we go back to not arguing like 5 year olds.

 

[Terronium-12]

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/...st-force-india-potential-victory---perez.html

True, yes. But is he being serious right now? The same person that possibly cost the team a podium finish two weeks ago is having a moan?

 

[prisonermonkeys]

They were very different incidents. What Vettel did was inexcusable.

That's not what I was asking.

 

[NotThePrez]

So, just finished watching the race replay, and boy what a show. Retirements, safety cars, debris, and general shenanigans, which I believe was what people thought last years race was going to be.

Glad to see Ricciardo on the top step again, and very happy for Stroll. I'm a bit gutted that Bottas sniped 2nd place from him, but the boy put on a hell of a drive. Magnussen put on a good show, Alonso finally scores points for McHonda, and Sauber in the points once again.

Really, really pissed at Force India & Vettel. FI potentially could've had a podium(s) or maybe even a victory today. Instead their drivers couldn't give each other enough space and more or less ruined both of their races. It's especially frustrating because between this race and Canada, Force India have shown that with good strategy, they can fight for Top 5s and podiums. I hope they can get their drivers on the same page as well, because it seems like Ocon & Perez don't respect one another. Vettel should've been black flagged, no ifs-, ands- or buts.

Also, love that Bottas tried to run off with the giant champagne bottle at the end there.

 

[NINE_HUNDRED]

The Buxton interview with Vettel is hilarious.

 

[NotThePrez]

The Buxton interview with Vettel is hilarious.

I saw that. I get that if Vettel admitted fault, the FIA would come down on him hard, but the way he avoided Buxton's questions (and Vettel's answers) did not help his case.

 

[UnkaD]

-Was it intentional?

-The brake check?

-The contact. Was it intentional?

-I don't think Lewis meant to damage our cars.

Hard dodging there. I couldn't help but laugh.