Coochas

I think PHT has explained the steward's decision very well. I have a better feel of WHY they made their decision although I really don't like it.

That being said, I feel like back in the 'good old days' of F1 this incident would have been viewed as two champions fighting it out, one makes a mistake and the other is unable to capitalize on it. They continue to fight and make a great highlight reel. Of course these days it's almost impossible to pass.

StoogeMoe

This kind of reminds me of a football game where the refs are calling penalties every other play. It totally ruins the game, and make it unwatchable. They may be right with the calls, but this type of over-officiating ruins the sport.

This incident may have been correctly officiated, but it wasn't bad enough to warrant any action. Just let them race for crying out loud

mglobe

So if Ham doesn’t back out, puts Vet in the wall, and continues does Ham get a penalty? It would be avoidable contact. Serious question.

Difool

I went to catch up on the race and .... “yay” the first half of the recording is filled with a college baseball game. Thanks ESPN!

IPSA

There is no such notion but it addresses the intent problem.

DTMiller

There's only an intent problem (there's not) if losing control absolves you of responsibility for what happens after you lose control of the car.

Glyndellis

Were there any rules violations that we could discuss?

LuigiVampa

I think this thread should automatically expire at the end of free practice three of the French GP.

Akunob

Hear Hear!!

mglobe

But what if the French GP doesn’t give us anything to bitch about? Oh wait, never mind.

Manifold

I don't know what the rules would say about it, but I suppose it could be argued that they both would have contributed to the crash with some blame going to both, though I would still put more of the blame on Seb because Lewis had so little time to take evasive action.

Because these situations often aren't clear cut, instead requiring considerable analysis and judgment, maybe we should treat the steward's decisions as another interesting dimension of the sport, rather than something to be upset about when we don't agree with or like those decisions.

We like to say just let the racers race, which gives the racing a more personal emphasis, but the 'race' is really a system involving the drivers, cars, engineers, mechanics, trainers, the rest of the team members, corner workers, track and weather conditions, and yes, the rules and stewards. You could say that each team is a system competing against other similar systems in the context of a broader system, though that's a fairly abstract and perhaps boring way to look at it.

All of the above is kind of why I kind of like the relative clarity and purity of singles tennis. By far, the biggest determinant of the outcome is the two players and their performance, with other factors being much more secondary. And interestingly, more emphasis is placed on the influence of coaches in tennis as compared to racing, which maybe suggests that the mental aspects make a bigger difference in tennis than racing.

multi21

The bold part ^^ is what would have been the more prudent thing to do. The fact that we are still talking about this 2 weeks later is proof that the call by the stewards was over the top harsh and effectively killed the entire race. I don't know anyone on the no penalty side who could effectively argue that giving the position to LH and then VET going after him for the balance of the race would be deemed unfair as compared to the 5 sec. time penalty. If "suggested" to give back the position was not strong enough and Ferrari disobeyed, then that's on them if a penalty was imposed.

You may give "Michael" the pass because he's not Charlie Whiting, but there is a bigger picture here on what is deemed fair and balanced and what is good for F1. KNOW WHO YOUR AUDIENCE IS AND WHY THEY ARE TUNING IN!! WE DO NOT WANT TO WATCH A GREAT RACE DESTROYED AND THEN HEAR LAWYER SPEAK ON WHY IT IS WHAT IT IS. F1 in in enough trouble are far was watchability as it is. You may be a rules expert, but 99% of the time whatever the stewards deal out is never challenged because it's deemed "fair". This time they over penalized -- just admit it. You can refer to the rules are rules garbage all you want but the BOLD part up in your post CLEARLY INDICATES THERE WAS ANOTHER OPTION/SOLUTION. Do not pee in the wind and tell me it's raining and refer to the rules are your crutch when all but 1% of the fans, former drivers etc. see it as grossly over penalized.

You can watch the next race and then tell me if it was good or not, but I'm not wasting my time on F1 any longer.

Manifold

Could it be that F1 can be a bit boring because the drivers are very close in ability, the cars are a bigger factor, and Merc has been somewhat dominant for years, so outcomes are fairly predictable? It might be more interesting if Lewis had a team mate who was more of a threat to him (Seb, Alonso, mad Max, etc.).

multi21

I think there are 3 tiers of drivers in F1. Top 3-4, middle 3-4 and the paid bottom third. Clearly LH, Alonso (until he retired) are at the very top. Bottas, Roseberg types are 2nd tier as they had/have the best car but cannot beat their teammate in the same car consistently. Vettel is not top tier IMO. He has the resume, but has been making too many unforced errors for years - this is compounded by the team making stupid errors from the pitfall. Then there are the guys that should not be on an F1 grid (Stroll, Kubica). We all know that LH could not win the title in any other car aside from the Mercedes as the car is so dominate - so yes, the car is the biggest variable in F1. That doesn't take away anything from LH as a driver because he is clearly better than his teammates and takes full advantage of what he is given. What you had 2 weeks ago was a race where the almighty Mercedes was finally challenged and at the end of the day it wasn't left up to the drivers to determine the ultimate outcome. Personally, I thought LH was going to get VET eventually as the gap after the pitstops was sizeable and it went down dramatically. Passing VET would have been hard, but Ferrari were struggling on the hardest compound.

EDIT: I also see Ricciardo and Verstappen as top tier as they consistently punch above their weight with inferior cars. Having one of them as LH's teammate would be entertaining, but Mercedes isn't in the business to entertain but rather win both championships without internal strife.

hf1

I agree with and support/explained the penalty but I also agree that if offering Ferrari the option to order VET to give up his P1 to HAM was an option, then that's what the race director should have done. I don't think that anyone, on either side of this debate would have objected, although I could see how even that would have been poo-pooed as unfair considering how many people still think that VET did nothing wrong, did not break any rules and deserved no penalty. He deserved it even if he did not intend to block HAM but to me it's obvious that he had other options and that he chose to impede his path.

So in this context, it could be said that the race officials performed sub-optimally and could have made a better decision. Easy for us to say after having days to debate and review the incident -- not just minutes to make a decision. Maybe they opted for the 5sec penalty (vs giving up P1) exactly because they were certain of VET's intent and choice to impede? If they were convinced he had no choice maybe they would have gone with the P1 flip option? Just hypothesizing here.

Finally, even with the 5sec penalty, the race was VET's to lose. At one point he was 3.5sec ahead of HAM and instead of crying like a little girl on the radio, he could have put on his big boy pants, focus, push, and go for the extra 1.5sec to victory, which would have also made for a fun and exciting finish. Theoretically, HAM was only 1.5sec "ahead" and VET didn't even have to pass him to take his P1.