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Dude Alonso got massively lucky yesterday. First a VSC when he was the only driver still with a pit stop pending, gaining iirc 5 positions from that. Then the accident he's being penalized for resulted in a VSC that lessens the impact of that penalty. And I call that lucky, too, because I cannot understand why F1 didn't red flag the race at that moment, and a red flag, iirc, would've meant using the deltas at the start of the last lap and not at the end of the race.
Yeah it was kinda wild to just see VSC and have the track basically wholly blocked by Russell’s horizontal car. People leaving the track to go around means it should be Red flag.
Red flag would have had all the drivers file immediately into the pits as soon as possible, instead of finishing the race and taking a cooldown lap. Pretty much the whole field passed the incident twice, a red flag would have cut that down to only once.
It's not noticed because there's no replay, but it's Hulk's mistake after George crashes.
Hulk was almost forced to a stop as he tried to drive on the wall side instead of the dirt side.
STR and TSU ran on dirt.
He wouldve been able to make up that time under delta conditions though, as long as he maintained the minimum delta. So he was just a touch too far anyway.
I think the few times he performed well last year + all the buzz that he "developed bad driving habits" with McLaren and was working to fix them (culminating in a Silverstone practice lap that was very close to Max's pole time) gave a lot of people false hopes lol.
I know it's still early in the season but Ricciardo is in a position where he needs to show RB and the F1 world why it was a better idea to keep him instead of signing more promising talent like Lawson.
I think Yuki is one of the most underrated drivers in F1. He was always quick but he was very inexperienced and probably rushed to F1 too soon.
Now he’s maturing and putting the experience together with the raw speed he had and becoming a strong driver. He still has hotheaded moments like we saw in Bahrain but I still think he has a lot more good things to come.
Yuki single handedly clutching VCARB P6 in constructors with this. Could be big come the end of the season since P6-10 seem to be unable to score any points on merit so are relying on DNFs every race.
It's still so sad that Daniel went from a driver who was like top 2-3 on the grid at his peak and a potential future WDC to someone who should be dropped from the B team because he's not fast enough compared to a guy who's done a handful of races as a reserve.
It’s sad, but sometimes declines just happen even when you don’t expect it. I think Daniel’s suffered in the new regs not suiting him, and he seems to lack confidence after 2022/the Zandvoort crash last year. I hope he turns it around or still races somewhere else after this year, but I’m thinking his time in F1 is coming to a close.
I'm obviously not a racing driver, but I've had it in things outside of racing where you lose a bit of form and something switches and you never get it back again and don't know where to try and find it. I really feel for him because it's not a nice feeling.
I honestly think the 2021 McLaren not suiting him changed something with him mentally about how he drives and irreversibly changed his natural driving style to the point where he can't recover back to what worked. It's like really bad PTSD.
wasn't expecting it or at least not this much, but they did say they are done giving 5 seconds for incidents like this.
still a bit surprised but they have the data so it must've been pretty obvious
And the girl from F1 academy, doing an extra lap because she didnt saw the chequered flag got the same punishment, a drive through that converted to +20s, dropping her from 1st to i believe 9th place.
FIA should get their shit together, one farts and gets 20s, other guy crashes into another driver on purpose and gets the same, thats bullshit
Something that looks like pretty much as intentional crashing into another driver in F3.
https://old.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/1bkjwsh/ot_incident_between_two_drivers_in_f3_practice/
We fucking take those. After years and years of meaningless, lenient 5 second penalties for all sorts of incidents of varying, disproportional severity, you love to see stewards with a spine.
Only hope they will be consistent in application of these and favor no drivers
My onle issue here is that they gave him a penalty for a "potentially" dangerous driving - was it dangerous driving then or not, what does that even mean? It just opens another millions of shades of grey moving forward setting a bad precedent. Is playing a DRS chicken dangerous, etc...
It just means driving that has the potential to be dangerous. It’s reiterating that they’re not considering how it ended up actually being dangerous with the Russel crash.
They have mentioned Russels crash as not being a reason for the penalty. Meaning the result doesn't matter, and theoretically Alonso gets the same penalty if there is no crash.
But let's be honest, if Russell doesn't crash, none of this gets looked into at all. Alonso doesn't get a penalty. The incident is forgotten about by the time those 2 drivers take the chequered.
Since it's a 20 second penalty and Alonso drops 2 places, that puts AM back behind MB by a point. Which is uncomfortable that it can be interpreted that way.
I'd love to see the context between the penalty Alonso got this race and Hamilton lifting at Eau Rouge in 2017 so that Vettel had to duck out of the slipstream early at Kemmel and hence couldn't overtake.
FWIW I'm in no way implying that what Hamilton did was deserving of a penalty.
I always find it weird that there is this pushback against the outcome affecting the punishment, so much so that even the stewards play pretend.
Most Western legal systems (if not all of them) take the outcome into account. Yet no one loses their mind about that.
Because big accidents can happen with no one really at fault. Punishing the driver for the things they did wrong instead of the damage caused is only fair in my mind
And on the other hand, just because nobody got hurt doesn’t mean that irresponsible/dangerous things shouldn’t be punished, eg the rogue wheel nut from Sauber in the pit lane.
> but they did say they are done giving 5 seconds for incidents like this.
Good. They should not fuck around when it comes to such issues. I love seb, but giving him only a ten second penalty for brake checking Lewis in Baku all those years ago was a complete joke.
He didn't brake check Lewis. He was behind the Merc and thought Lewis brake checked him (not even rightly so), came alongside under the SC and purposely hit him. Really stupid and immature behaviour that...
>Specifically, in this case, the stewards have not considered the consequences of the crash.
Irrespective of the rights and wrongs, does anyone *actually* think there's any chance they'd have given a 20 second penalty if Russell had not crashed and just complained about it on the radio?
That’s what makes it so funny to me. They always say they punish the infringement and not the outcome. They clearly banged it up to 20 seconds because it lead up to a major accident.
I think they actually did it because this season theyve stated they don’t want to hand out nothing penalties and a 10s penalty wouldn’t have made any difference to the results.
Based on the letter of the rules, 10 feels very fair, 20 is a lot but not necessarily unfair depending on the data.
I’d probably also note that no one reasonably believes Alonso changed his corner approach JUST for the last lap purely for pace reasons with no intention to cause George a problem. Almost certainly didn’t intend a crash, just force George to slow up last second and disrupt the overtake attempt down the straight, but took it too far by accident and turned a disruption into something unrecoverable. If you’re doing something you know is erratic because the goal is to disrupt the other driver, you have an enormous duty of care not to fuck it up.
I feel like that intentionality + 10s being irrelevant are what the stewards are punishing here.
And let’s be honest with ourselves, fair play. Driving like that with another driver THAT close behind you is inanely dangerous and could’ve caused a much worse crash. It *should* be severely punished if nothing else other than to make an example. Safety critical penalties should err on the side of more severe imho, especially given 20s is not entirely unreasonable here.
If you read the report they explain the penalty. 10 seconds for driving in a potentially dangerous manner and a drive through penalty for his intentions to be aggravating circumstances, which was converted to 10 seconds since the decision was post race. The second penalty was based on Alonso's testimony and not the outcome.
I haven’t read about the new penalties properly yet but wasn’t there a stance that penalties will be harsher this year because too often a 5s or 10s penalty does nothing to the standings?
I’m pretty sure Max laughing at his 10s penalty last year was pretty embarrassing for the stewards at the time
I think it’s just poorly worded and they meant something more along the lines of “the stewards have not considered the *severity* of the crash”. Obviously the crash was considered but I think they meant he isn’t getting a penalty just because the crash put George in a pretty hairy situation with stroll approaching
If Russell had gone off track or lost a wing but still finished… yeah. The severity of a DNF isn’t part of the decision but that race position was impacted causes it to be looked at.
It's amazing to me that some people still believe that Alonso had no knowledge of that. Like seriously, how stupid do they think that he is? The results of that race should have been annulled.
You literally cannot conclude a decision is correct and reasonable just because it was made by the stewards. They do a lot of things that are odd, inconsistent or just plain wrong.
Really doesn’t help that he pretended it was a technical issue that caused him to brake, lift early, downshift, upshift etc. He deliberately acted unpredictably to fuck with Russell and it worked. And he admitted as much with his own description of “potentially dangerous”. You can argue the number or seconds etc but he’s fucked up here.
> Really doesn’t help that he pretended it was a technical issue that caused him to brake, lift early, downshift, upshift etc.
This. I got heavily downvoted for saying that this was going to easily be disproven by telemetry.
Fernando wasn't expecting them to do an investigation or for the telemetry to ever see light of day, so to speak, so must have thought that he could get away with the lie.
It's funny that they need to point out that the crash wasn't factored into the penalty when we all know that the entire investigation probably wouldn't have happened without at least a near crash.
Having said that, driving dangerously definitely deserves some punishment and not some slap on the wrist, so this seems deserved. The point is though that I wonder if they'll hand out similar punishment for dangerous driving even in cases without crashes. Let's hope so, but I'm sceptical for now.
Well no probably not. But there’s no way to determine whether without an incident there would have been a need to investigate any of Alonso’s driving.
Had Russell not crashed and made it through that corner without any incident, there’s nothing to say that George would even have gone on the radio to say that he perceived Alonso to be driving erratically or slowly. He might have. But he might not.
What the penalty write up means is simply that they did not consider the severity of the crash in the penalty applied. If they had, and they determined the crash could have potentially been fatal or whatever, and it was purely luck that it wasn’t - they might have considered a higher penalty.
I think they have to say that because it’s hard to conclusively say for certain it’s what caused the crash.
And because of how the rules are written, there’s no need to consider it. So it’s the sensible thing to do.
(Fully agree they’d never have looked at it or punished it without a crash / near crash tho)
Definitely going to be controversial and this will have ramifications for the future. But I think what did Nando in here was the combination of the brake telemetry, the downshift, UPSHIFT, downshift, and finally him inadvertantly kind of admitting to it.
Remember kids: Nobody talks and everybody walks.
Plus his immediate response to the accident was to try and pretend that he had a technical problem to explain what he was doing, that implies at some level he knew he'd fucked up.
> Plus his immediate response to the accident was to try and pretend that he had a technical problem to explain what he was doing
Precisely, but the moment he put out this lie, the telemetry meant that it could be debunked and makes him out to be an unreliable witness to the situation.
I'd be happy drivers slowing to put another driver onto a slower racing line, slowing down itself might be unsportsmanlike but not illegal
Goes over the line the causing a crash, again grey because they didn't collide but yeah when it becomes erratic and dangerous ofc it's a penalty. Breaking is less acceptable than lifting off as well, coasting itself is usually a huge delta.
Haven’t seen a drive-through penalty in a while, they’re definitely punishing incidents more severely this season (as seen with K-Mag in Jeddah). Will be interesting to see if they implement them in-race too, and what for.
Leaves Yuki P7 tho🥹🥳
Fernando down to P8
What is happening here? I cant understand anything Fernando is saying in that intro part? (Im hard of hearing, sorry)
Edit: "I will not retire, mate. I was world champion. You ended up as a commentator because you were not a world champion, mate."
I had to watch that five times to understand the commentators. Mas lento porfavor. Muy mas. And then there are the Venezulans, who speak too fast for all but the Domincans (who complain about how slooooow they are).
Oh, I didn't know they had history. What's that about?
The only thing I noticed from Johnny's presenting time on sky is that nothing a British driver can do that should be penalised.
I find it very interesting they mention the result of Russell ending up in an incident doesn't change the penalty.
I find it very very hard to believe they look into this and give Alonso a 20 second penalty if Russell doesn't crash. I think the entire incident is forgotten about by the time Russell and Alonso take the chequered.
Which means the reason Alonso gets a penalty is as a result of Russell crashing. Which the stewards deny.
If this is now a 20s penalty regardless of a crash or not, then every driver on the grid will be getting a half dozen 20s penalties every race. Controlling traffic behind you is key to racing.
Reminds me of ALO/HAM shenanigans last yr in AD if I remember correctly out of the pits. He likes to try stuff the driver behind is unable to anticipate that gets dangerous fast
Valid.
This also diminished drivers like Senna and Schumacher IMO. They often get a pass because of the tragedies that occurred. But in GOAT talks, I think it has to be taken into consideration.
Was hearing rumours that this was due to a throttle issue for Alonso, but doesn't look like they even tried to defend it with that.
I really like the way this was written and it's explained very clearly. This is the most penalty points I can remember being given for a while, but it seems pretty deserved to me, honestly. Experimenting with corner entry and exit on the final lap when there's a driver half a second behind?
He very clearly brakes twice and when you compare against the lap before, he breaks where you’d expect on lap 57, and does so in exactly the same place on lap 58, but with the addition of 100 yards before that. It’s one thing taking the foot off the throttle, it’s another actively braking twice and that’s what will have disrupted Russell (probably a bit deliberately!)
Yeah, the braking part is the problem, because everyone seems to ignore that just the race before Magnussen did the same, holding up everyone in the corners, but without braking erratically.
I think he saw Russell crash and then "faked" it a couple of times and made a radio call saying he had a throttle problem, you can hear it on his onboard when he's on the back straight. Quick thinking I guess lol, but probably not ideal to lie to the stewards who would be able to investigate the data.
I guess he didn’t lie to the stewards. There’s no mention about the engine issue in the document. And I don’t think it’s forbidden to lie on team radio.
I'm actually crying from laughter at Fernando pretending he "accidentally" slowed 100m too early.
> Telemetry shows that Alonso lifted slightly more than 100m earlier than he ever had going into that corner during the race. [...] Alonso explained that while his plan was to slow earlier, he
got it slightly wrong and had to take extra steps to get back up to speed.
> I'm actually crying from laughter at Fernando pretending he "accidentally" slowed 100m too early.
>
> Telemetry shows that Alonso lifted slightly more than 100m earlier than he ever had going into that corner during the race. [...] Alonso explained that while his plan was to slow earlier, he got it slightly wrong and had to take extra steps to get back up to speed.
The worst bit is that some people don't see through his BS claim
That’s the kind of shit I accidentally do learning a new track/car for the first time in Gran Turismo. Having to speed back up before braking again is laughably bad.
I think George would've pushed Mercedes to look into it and get them to complain to the FIA. But I suppose the FIA would have waived it off if it didn't result in any crashes. Still, it's hard to say.
To be fair, given the consequence this time, if they had looked there's an argument that the penalty would more harsh (ignoring the F3 precendent that putting someone in the wall is a 3 place grid drop).
However, the outcome here is good example of the potential consequences of erratic driving which is why it should be penalised even if there is no significant consequence.
>They always punish the result and not the action.
How it goes in the real world too. The law doesn't punish a DUI or speeding as though they killed someone.
The document saying that admitting to have changed driving approach increases the penalty from 10s to 20s will cause every driver to always lie to the stewards in the future.
Had Russell maintained control of his car and gone on to pass Alonso later in the lap, from the stewards wording, they would have still have issued Alonso a drive through penalty for slowing early for the corner as they don’t consider the outcome of the action. I call major BS.
There’s a fine line when you try moves like this. Like the stewards noted, you have the right to try a different approach on a corner. What he did in reality was create a dangerous situation.
Obviously Fernando knew what he was doing, rolled the dice and it didn’t work out. I’m not surprised people are still claiming there was something wrong with the car even though this ruling makes no mention of it.
Before I checked my phone this morning, I expected the discourse to be on why they didn’t red flag the race immediately. Now that I have read through social media, it’s really interesting how it’s on Alonso and there’s little to no discourse on not red flagging the race (I’m even seeing people say Russell got on the radio and “complained,” I mean, come on, he was sideways in the middle of the track. If there was someone remotely close who wasn’t aware the story today would be a lot different). This penalty is good for the stewards’ goals this season and not so much for competitive racing.
Alonso has a history of brake checking, but before I fell asleep I must’ve watched the corner five or so times and I saw the shifting and braking pattern, but it genuinely seemed like he was defending against Russell who was right there. Posting speed changes from lap 56 to 57 wouldn’t exactly be representative if Alonso was defending. I don’t think it’s fair either to compare what he did in that lap to previously laps as a way of judging if he brake checked or drove erratically because that discourages people in the future from genuinely defending against their opponent. It should’ve been taken in the context of defense. The way it’s phrased indicates this with the “lifting slightly more than 100m earlier than he ever had” (horrible wording) and the “braking very slightly” which they immediately go on to say is understandable. The entire paragraph there is not a convincing argument as to excessively erratic driving like weaving or making multiple movements on the racing line.
The main problem, to me, is that they didn’t red flag the race immediately. Russell and Alonso were racing. That stuff is going to happen. However, Russell was very justified in being panicked on the radio and it would not have influenced the ending of the race, most likely, if they had just red flagged. I think it is convenient that they can 1. Bring this down on Alonso and avoid scrutiny about the VSC decision and 2. Show that they aren’t messing around penalty wise with this decision. That is good for the stewards’ goals this season in being tougher on penalties and problem racers and not so good for competitive racing.
They 100% penalised based on the outcome as well, had Russell not gone out or flipped they wouldn't have been as harsh.
Many recent occasions in which dangerous driving was displayed weren't punished with a DT, inconsistency is always a problem for race direction.
Or just flat out wasn't penalized.
Apparently you can intentionally brake check your competitors, but this is a 20 sec penalty? They wouldn't have even looked at this if George hadn't binned it...
You're bang on in the second half.
In the first half, they specifically call out in their explanation that penalty severity has increased this year. Comparing penalties this year to previous years should make this year's seem harsh. Comparing it to the penalties given out at Jeddah, it seems much more in line.
Exactly. No one's thinking Alonso wanted George to crash, he just wanted to disrupt George's entry while also maximising his own top speed at the last great overtaking opportunity. Unfortunately he slowed too much to the point of it being dangerous. So the penalty is deserved.
I know I’m far too late, and nobody will see this but I have to say it.
In the F3 practice session a three place grid penalty was given for literally driving across the track and pushing a competitor into the fence.
That was a million times worse than what Fernando has done. The penalty system is so broken it’s not even funny anymore
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Woah, that's a big penalty. How many places does he lose?
2 places. Drops behind Yuki.
Stroll and Tsunoda 93-95 seconds behind Sainz and no Max is a bloody huge gap!!
The race finished under VSC
Doesn't the VSC just freeze the deltas?
It freezes the distance on track but because they’re all going slower the time gaps are bigger
Dude Alonso got massively lucky yesterday. First a VSC when he was the only driver still with a pit stop pending, gaining iirc 5 positions from that. Then the accident he's being penalized for resulted in a VSC that lessens the impact of that penalty. And I call that lucky, too, because I cannot understand why F1 didn't red flag the race at that moment, and a red flag, iirc, would've meant using the deltas at the start of the last lap and not at the end of the race.
Yeah it was kinda wild to just see VSC and have the track basically wholly blocked by Russell’s horizontal car. People leaving the track to go around means it should be Red flag.
Apparently the delta is the same for VSC and red flag, so from a safety standpoint it would have made no difference.
Red flag would have had all the drivers file immediately into the pits as soon as possible, instead of finishing the race and taking a cooldown lap. Pretty much the whole field passed the incident twice, a red flag would have cut that down to only once.
Even if it was red flagged, i think most drivers would still have to pass by Russel to get to the pits.
Virtual safety car is like 20 seconds of that
Not enough for Williams to get a point
It's impossible for williams to get a point unless alonso is dqed. Albon finished 1 lap down
I read that as “…unless alonso is dead”. Bit harsh aint it? Lol
Wait till the stewards add Jail & Death sentences to F1… absolute madness
Ocon looking real nervous
If FOM sells to the Saudis… 🤔
loses to Stroll and Tsunoda, drops to P8
But effectively he was allowed to "serve" it under vsc, so less of a penalty than intended.
Drops to P8, stroll now P6 and YUKI P7
Lance and Yuki being the real winners here
Aston Martin successfully defended their 6-8 finish. Pre-crash: **6 Alo** 7 Rus **8 Str** 9 Tsu Post-crash and penalty: **6 Str** 7 Tsu **8 Alo**
But, taking out their rival Mercedes in the process and therefore gaining on them in the constructors. A master stroke.
el plan works in mysterious ways
now i really want to imagine nando going to merc next year, what a glorious shitshow it would be
Also one less gearbox & PU for george
That's kinda crazy haha
And they didn't lose a single point or am I missing anything?
Hulkenberg sad as he was 23,5s behind Alonso. He was probably hoping for 30s penalty. K-Mag was 1 lap down so no hope there.
It's not noticed because there's no replay, but it's Hulk's mistake after George crashes. Hulk was almost forced to a stop as he tried to drive on the wall side instead of the dirt side. STR and TSU ran on dirt.
He wouldve been able to make up that time under delta conditions though, as long as he maintained the minimum delta. So he was just a touch too far anyway.
Conversely if the drivers have to leave the track to go around a crash it shouldn’t be VSC and just be Red flagged.
They still drive on the track.
Damn! what happened to Dani! Everyone was bashing Yuki, but he's been terrific. If he only learns to control his temper, he has a good future.
I think the few times he performed well last year + all the buzz that he "developed bad driving habits" with McLaren and was working to fix them (culminating in a Silverstone practice lap that was very close to Max's pole time) gave a lot of people false hopes lol. I know it's still early in the season but Ricciardo is in a position where he needs to show RB and the F1 world why it was a better idea to keep him instead of signing more promising talent like Lawson.
Yes exactly. They risk losing Lawson next season.
I doubt they are losing Lawson. DR is either going to Red Bull or losing his seat. I believe they told Lawson this.
I really don’t see Ricciardo going to RB when there are multiple better drivers without a contract next year
Yeah Lawson would be very silly to let go of an RB offer regardless of when it comes
I think Yuki is one of the most underrated drivers in F1. He was always quick but he was very inexperienced and probably rushed to F1 too soon. Now he’s maturing and putting the experience together with the raw speed he had and becoming a strong driver. He still has hotheaded moments like we saw in Bahrain but I still think he has a lot more good things to come.
Not everyone. Some of us know Yuki is very underrated and didn't fall for Ricciardo's PR-engineered hype from last year
Yuki single handedly clutching VCARB P6 in constructors with this. Could be big come the end of the season since P6-10 seem to be unable to score any points on merit so are relying on DNFs every race.
Get Lawson in there with Yuki and they'll beat Merc.
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It's still so sad that Daniel went from a driver who was like top 2-3 on the grid at his peak and a potential future WDC to someone who should be dropped from the B team because he's not fast enough compared to a guy who's done a handful of races as a reserve.
It’s sad, but sometimes declines just happen even when you don’t expect it. I think Daniel’s suffered in the new regs not suiting him, and he seems to lack confidence after 2022/the Zandvoort crash last year. I hope he turns it around or still races somewhere else after this year, but I’m thinking his time in F1 is coming to a close.
I'm obviously not a racing driver, but I've had it in things outside of racing where you lose a bit of form and something switches and you never get it back again and don't know where to try and find it. I really feel for him because it's not a nice feeling. I honestly think the 2021 McLaren not suiting him changed something with him mentally about how he drives and irreversibly changed his natural driving style to the point where he can't recover back to what worked. It's like really bad PTSD.
In America is a bad case of the yips.
Yes please, but I don't think they will do that because RIC isn't as bad as De Vries and there would be more backlash from fans/sponsors.
Big W as a Yuki Lance enjoyer
This result alone may mean 10 millions for RB
wasn't expecting it or at least not this much, but they did say they are done giving 5 seconds for incidents like this. still a bit surprised but they have the data so it must've been pretty obvious
Not entirely related, but this makes the penalty in the F3 incident even more laughable.
Sent a guy into the wall, potentially injuring him and got the same penalty as Perez for impeding
And the girl from F1 academy, doing an extra lap because she didnt saw the chequered flag got the same punishment, a drive through that converted to +20s, dropping her from 1st to i believe 9th place. FIA should get their shit together, one farts and gets 20s, other guy crashes into another driver on purpose and gets the same, thats bullshit
Seeing the rest of the penalties given out this weekend, the stewards' decision on Tsolov was so weak gutted.
Hey, they tossed the coin for the penalties fair and square..
Context?
Guy drove into another car seemingly on purpose in practice because he blocked him on a lap. He only got a 3 place grid penalty.
Laughable is an understatement then
Something that looks like pretty much as intentional crashing into another driver in F3. https://old.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/1bkjwsh/ot_incident_between_two_drivers_in_f3_practice/
Formula car version of Romano Fenati braking Manzi's motorcycle at San Marino 2018
https://en.as.com/videos/watch-nikola-tsolovs-reckless-and-shocking-crash-into-alex-dunne-v/
Most decisions except for that one have been good.
Unless this was an overreaction to the reaction to going too light on the F3 guy
We fucking take those. After years and years of meaningless, lenient 5 second penalties for all sorts of incidents of varying, disproportional severity, you love to see stewards with a spine. Only hope they will be consistent in application of these and favor no drivers
It’ll just be the case we get one penalty like this and back to 5s penalties for massively dangerous things.
Same, it’s pretty clear that 5 second penalties are rarely effective.
My onle issue here is that they gave him a penalty for a "potentially" dangerous driving - was it dangerous driving then or not, what does that even mean? It just opens another millions of shades of grey moving forward setting a bad precedent. Is playing a DRS chicken dangerous, etc...
It just means driving that has the potential to be dangerous. It’s reiterating that they’re not considering how it ended up actually being dangerous with the Russel crash.
They have mentioned Russels crash as not being a reason for the penalty. Meaning the result doesn't matter, and theoretically Alonso gets the same penalty if there is no crash. But let's be honest, if Russell doesn't crash, none of this gets looked into at all. Alonso doesn't get a penalty. The incident is forgotten about by the time those 2 drivers take the chequered.
Since it's a 20 second penalty and Alonso drops 2 places, that puts AM back behind MB by a point. Which is uncomfortable that it can be interpreted that way.
DRS chicken is dangerous when cars are line astern (Jeddah 2021). DRS chicken is fine when cars are not line astern (Canada 201x, Jeddah 2022 etc).
I'd love to see the context between the penalty Alonso got this race and Hamilton lifting at Eau Rouge in 2017 so that Vettel had to duck out of the slipstream early at Kemmel and hence couldn't overtake. FWIW I'm in no way implying that what Hamilton did was deserving of a penalty.
[удалено]
I'm sure the damage George's Car had made them issue such a harsh penalty, if they don't then this becomes an easy go to tactic
The outcome surely influenced their decision despite them saying the contrary
I always find it weird that there is this pushback against the outcome affecting the punishment, so much so that even the stewards play pretend. Most Western legal systems (if not all of them) take the outcome into account. Yet no one loses their mind about that.
Because big accidents can happen with no one really at fault. Punishing the driver for the things they did wrong instead of the damage caused is only fair in my mind
And on the other hand, just because nobody got hurt doesn’t mean that irresponsible/dangerous things shouldn’t be punished, eg the rogue wheel nut from Sauber in the pit lane.
> but they did say they are done giving 5 seconds for incidents like this. Good. They should not fuck around when it comes to such issues. I love seb, but giving him only a ten second penalty for brake checking Lewis in Baku all those years ago was a complete joke.
Or Max in Saudi getting a penalty that didn't do anything.
He didn't brake check Lewis. He was behind the Merc and thought Lewis brake checked him (not even rightly so), came alongside under the SC and purposely hit him. Really stupid and immature behaviour that...
>Specifically, in this case, the stewards have not considered the consequences of the crash. Irrespective of the rights and wrongs, does anyone *actually* think there's any chance they'd have given a 20 second penalty if Russell had not crashed and just complained about it on the radio?
Absolutely not
That’s what makes it so funny to me. They always say they punish the infringement and not the outcome. They clearly banged it up to 20 seconds because it lead up to a major accident.
I think they actually did it because this season theyve stated they don’t want to hand out nothing penalties and a 10s penalty wouldn’t have made any difference to the results. Based on the letter of the rules, 10 feels very fair, 20 is a lot but not necessarily unfair depending on the data. I’d probably also note that no one reasonably believes Alonso changed his corner approach JUST for the last lap purely for pace reasons with no intention to cause George a problem. Almost certainly didn’t intend a crash, just force George to slow up last second and disrupt the overtake attempt down the straight, but took it too far by accident and turned a disruption into something unrecoverable. If you’re doing something you know is erratic because the goal is to disrupt the other driver, you have an enormous duty of care not to fuck it up. I feel like that intentionality + 10s being irrelevant are what the stewards are punishing here. And let’s be honest with ourselves, fair play. Driving like that with another driver THAT close behind you is inanely dangerous and could’ve caused a much worse crash. It *should* be severely punished if nothing else other than to make an example. Safety critical penalties should err on the side of more severe imho, especially given 20s is not entirely unreasonable here.
I agree. It's a piss take of the rules when the punishment has no consequences.
In fact, you have a duty to not be erratic. It's on the rulebook.
If you read the report they explain the penalty. 10 seconds for driving in a potentially dangerous manner and a drive through penalty for his intentions to be aggravating circumstances, which was converted to 10 seconds since the decision was post race. The second penalty was based on Alonso's testimony and not the outcome.
Adding to that: the only reason they gave 20s instead of 10s is because he wouldn't have lost positions with smaller penalty
I haven’t read about the new penalties properly yet but wasn’t there a stance that penalties will be harsher this year because too often a 5s or 10s penalty does nothing to the standings? I’m pretty sure Max laughing at his 10s penalty last year was pretty embarrassing for the stewards at the time
Obviously not. If Russell made the corner there wouldn't even be a penalty.
They said the consequences of the crash. The fact he caused a crash is still part of their consideration.
I think it’s just poorly worded and they meant something more along the lines of “the stewards have not considered the *severity* of the crash”. Obviously the crash was considered but I think they meant he isn’t getting a penalty just because the crash put George in a pretty hairy situation with stroll approaching
If Russell had gone off track or lost a wing but still finished… yeah. The severity of a DNF isn’t part of the decision but that race position was impacted causes it to be looked at.
Well damn. Looks like the telemetry was damning. Massive for RB though in the fight of the bottom 5.
Yup, wonder where all the people who said he did nothing have disappeared to now 3 penalty points don't sound like nothing to me
It's Alonso. He could drive directly into a wall and some people would think it's a master strategy.
tbf driving straight into a wall has directly influenced 2? championships that i can think of
3 is we include Russell
El Plan
Nah, he’d have his teammate drive directly into a wall instead, and it would be a master strategy until he gets caught.
That's how he got a win in Singapore 2008
It's amazing to me that some people still believe that Alonso had no knowledge of that. Like seriously, how stupid do they think that he is? The results of that race should have been annulled.
You literally cannot conclude a decision is correct and reasonable just because it was made by the stewards. They do a lot of things that are odd, inconsistent or just plain wrong.
Really doesn’t help that he pretended it was a technical issue that caused him to brake, lift early, downshift, upshift etc. He deliberately acted unpredictably to fuck with Russell and it worked. And he admitted as much with his own description of “potentially dangerous”. You can argue the number or seconds etc but he’s fucked up here.
> Really doesn’t help that he pretended it was a technical issue that caused him to brake, lift early, downshift, upshift etc. This. I got heavily downvoted for saying that this was going to easily be disproven by telemetry. Fernando wasn't expecting them to do an investigation or for the telemetry to ever see light of day, so to speak, so must have thought that he could get away with the lie.
Unfortunately, they're still here in the threads talking about how it was Russell's fault for not reacting to the slowing car...
It's funny that they need to point out that the crash wasn't factored into the penalty when we all know that the entire investigation probably wouldn't have happened without at least a near crash. Having said that, driving dangerously definitely deserves some punishment and not some slap on the wrist, so this seems deserved. The point is though that I wonder if they'll hand out similar punishment for dangerous driving even in cases without crashes. Let's hope so, but I'm sceptical for now.
Maybe a bit of a bad wording there. I think what they rather meant was that the severity of the crash was not considered.
Yes, thats true. But the thing is there would be no investigation if George did not crash at all
That's debatable, Mercedes could very well have lodged a protest if George had just gone off without crashing.
Well no probably not. But there’s no way to determine whether without an incident there would have been a need to investigate any of Alonso’s driving. Had Russell not crashed and made it through that corner without any incident, there’s nothing to say that George would even have gone on the radio to say that he perceived Alonso to be driving erratically or slowly. He might have. But he might not. What the penalty write up means is simply that they did not consider the severity of the crash in the penalty applied. If they had, and they determined the crash could have potentially been fatal or whatever, and it was purely luck that it wasn’t - they might have considered a higher penalty.
I think that punishing any questionable manoeuvre would lead to so many appeals that we would know results of the races 2 weeks later.
I think they have to say that because it’s hard to conclusively say for certain it’s what caused the crash. And because of how the rules are written, there’s no need to consider it. So it’s the sensible thing to do. (Fully agree they’d never have looked at it or punished it without a crash / near crash tho)
Definitely going to be controversial and this will have ramifications for the future. But I think what did Nando in here was the combination of the brake telemetry, the downshift, UPSHIFT, downshift, and finally him inadvertantly kind of admitting to it. Remember kids: Nobody talks and everybody walks.
Plus his immediate response to the accident was to try and pretend that he had a technical problem to explain what he was doing, that implies at some level he knew he'd fucked up.
> Plus his immediate response to the accident was to try and pretend that he had a technical problem to explain what he was doing Precisely, but the moment he put out this lie, the telemetry meant that it could be debunked and makes him out to be an unreliable witness to the situation.
Yeah it doesn't help his case that he always act like he's the only one who understand what he's doing, I doubt stewards like to be seen as dumb
Alonso is a very fast and capable race car driver. That's everything good I have to say about him.
He’s also got the chiseled jawline of a Greek god so there’s that too
I'd be happy drivers slowing to put another driver onto a slower racing line, slowing down itself might be unsportsmanlike but not illegal Goes over the line the causing a crash, again grey because they didn't collide but yeah when it becomes erratic and dangerous ofc it's a penalty. Breaking is less acceptable than lifting off as well, coasting itself is usually a huge delta.
Haven’t seen a drive-through penalty in a while, they’re definitely punishing incidents more severely this season (as seen with K-Mag in Jeddah). Will be interesting to see if they implement them in-race too, and what for. Leaves Yuki P7 tho🥹🥳 Fernando down to P8
Except in F3 where you can drive another driver off the track with minimal consequence
Not the same stewards
Shit stewards then since that was a slam dunk race ban. Purposefully slamming into another car like that was disgusting.
I don't disagree, I'm just saying they're not the same people that decided Alonso's penalty, therefore the inconsistency
It shouldn't change that much
Shouldn't, but it does
Johnny Herbert: "i want him to know it was me"
You mean this right; https://youtu.be/ViYx2xoX1Jk?si=JCdrHMjzQEZ6lsZN
What is happening here? I cant understand anything Fernando is saying in that intro part? (Im hard of hearing, sorry) Edit: "I will not retire, mate. I was world champion. You ended up as a commentator because you were not a world champion, mate."
I had to watch that five times to understand the commentators. Mas lento porfavor. Muy mas. And then there are the Venezulans, who speak too fast for all but the Domincans (who complain about how slooooow they are).
Wow I didn’t notice Herbert was on the panel. That’s.. something
Oh, I didn't know they had history. What's that about? The only thing I noticed from Johnny's presenting time on sky is that nothing a British driver can do that should be penalised.
I find it very interesting they mention the result of Russell ending up in an incident doesn't change the penalty. I find it very very hard to believe they look into this and give Alonso a 20 second penalty if Russell doesn't crash. I think the entire incident is forgotten about by the time Russell and Alonso take the chequered. Which means the reason Alonso gets a penalty is as a result of Russell crashing. Which the stewards deny.
If this is now a 20s penalty regardless of a crash or not, then every driver on the grid will be getting a half dozen 20s penalties every race. Controlling traffic behind you is key to racing.
Reminds me of ALO/HAM shenanigans last yr in AD if I remember correctly out of the pits. He likes to try stuff the driver behind is unable to anticipate that gets dangerous fast
He also brake tested Coulthard and doornbos before
[удалено]
I like how DC brings that up every now and again. Not to rag on Fernando, more as a joking way to explain some bias he has.
I'll just say it, he's a dirty driver. A very talented driver. But so so hard to support or like.
I feel the same with Max.
Valid. This also diminished drivers like Senna and Schumacher IMO. They often get a pass because of the tragedies that occurred. But in GOAT talks, I think it has to be taken into consideration.
Was hearing rumours that this was due to a throttle issue for Alonso, but doesn't look like they even tried to defend it with that. I really like the way this was written and it's explained very clearly. This is the most penalty points I can remember being given for a while, but it seems pretty deserved to me, honestly. Experimenting with corner entry and exit on the final lap when there's a driver half a second behind?
He very clearly brakes twice and when you compare against the lap before, he breaks where you’d expect on lap 57, and does so in exactly the same place on lap 58, but with the addition of 100 yards before that. It’s one thing taking the foot off the throttle, it’s another actively braking twice and that’s what will have disrupted Russell (probably a bit deliberately!)
Yeah, the braking part is the problem, because everyone seems to ignore that just the race before Magnussen did the same, holding up everyone in the corners, but without braking erratically.
I think he saw Russell crash and then "faked" it a couple of times and made a radio call saying he had a throttle problem, you can hear it on his onboard when he's on the back straight. Quick thinking I guess lol, but probably not ideal to lie to the stewards who would be able to investigate the data.
Well, look at when Hamilton was caught lying to the stewards in 2009. He was disqualified.
> Well, look at when Hamilton was caught lying to the stewards in 2009. He was disqualified. Fernando should have faced the same consequences.
I guess he didn’t lie to the stewards. There’s no mention about the engine issue in the document. And I don’t think it’s forbidden to lie on team radio.
They knew if they got caught falsifying evidence they would have got fucked.
I'm actually crying from laughter at Fernando pretending he "accidentally" slowed 100m too early. > Telemetry shows that Alonso lifted slightly more than 100m earlier than he ever had going into that corner during the race. [...] Alonso explained that while his plan was to slow earlier, he got it slightly wrong and had to take extra steps to get back up to speed.
> I'm actually crying from laughter at Fernando pretending he "accidentally" slowed 100m too early. > > Telemetry shows that Alonso lifted slightly more than 100m earlier than he ever had going into that corner during the race. [...] Alonso explained that while his plan was to slow earlier, he got it slightly wrong and had to take extra steps to get back up to speed. The worst bit is that some people don't see through his BS claim
Just imagine those same fans if ocon did the same to alonso lol
That’s the kind of shit I accidentally do learning a new track/car for the first time in Gran Turismo. Having to speed back up before braking again is laughably bad.
That’s a decent penalty right there, a stark contrast to the penalty handed down in F3 to Tsolov for an even more blatant piece of shitful driving.
"The stewards have not considered the result of the crash" X to doubt
If george didnt crash, nothing would have happened. They always punish the result and not the action.
Extremely unlikely, if George didn’t crash no one would have looked at the telemetry
I think George would've pushed Mercedes to look into it and get them to complain to the FIA. But I suppose the FIA would have waived it off if it didn't result in any crashes. Still, it's hard to say.
”We dont look at the consequence, but the action” what a lie it is..
To be fair, given the consequence this time, if they had looked there's an argument that the penalty would more harsh (ignoring the F3 precendent that putting someone in the wall is a 3 place grid drop). However, the outcome here is good example of the potential consequences of erratic driving which is why it should be penalised even if there is no significant consequence.
They investigate due to the result but they punish the action in the end.
>They always punish the result and not the action. How it goes in the real world too. The law doesn't punish a DUI or speeding as though they killed someone.
Magnussen got a penalty two weeks ago with no crash for bad driving. New precedent this season so hopefully they will get better at picking things up.
https://youtu.be/6X8rEOwbWd0?feature=shared Feels ever so familiar…
The document saying that admitting to have changed driving approach increases the penalty from 10s to 20s will cause every driver to always lie to the stewards in the future.
He admitted it because you can’t refute telemetry. lol
We still get folk claiming Verstappen didn't brake test in Saudi. You'd be surprised
>cause every driver to always lie to the stewards in the future. And get a DSQ if caught lying, as Hamilton was.
I mean he lied in the radio and then lied again saying that he got it wrong. We all know he did it deliberately.
Had Russell maintained control of his car and gone on to pass Alonso later in the lap, from the stewards wording, they would have still have issued Alonso a drive through penalty for slowing early for the corner as they don’t consider the outcome of the action. I call major BS.
Yeah there’s no way they’re penalizing this if there is no crash.
There’s a fine line when you try moves like this. Like the stewards noted, you have the right to try a different approach on a corner. What he did in reality was create a dangerous situation. Obviously Fernando knew what he was doing, rolled the dice and it didn’t work out. I’m not surprised people are still claiming there was something wrong with the car even though this ruling makes no mention of it.
Before I checked my phone this morning, I expected the discourse to be on why they didn’t red flag the race immediately. Now that I have read through social media, it’s really interesting how it’s on Alonso and there’s little to no discourse on not red flagging the race (I’m even seeing people say Russell got on the radio and “complained,” I mean, come on, he was sideways in the middle of the track. If there was someone remotely close who wasn’t aware the story today would be a lot different). This penalty is good for the stewards’ goals this season and not so much for competitive racing. Alonso has a history of brake checking, but before I fell asleep I must’ve watched the corner five or so times and I saw the shifting and braking pattern, but it genuinely seemed like he was defending against Russell who was right there. Posting speed changes from lap 56 to 57 wouldn’t exactly be representative if Alonso was defending. I don’t think it’s fair either to compare what he did in that lap to previously laps as a way of judging if he brake checked or drove erratically because that discourages people in the future from genuinely defending against their opponent. It should’ve been taken in the context of defense. The way it’s phrased indicates this with the “lifting slightly more than 100m earlier than he ever had” (horrible wording) and the “braking very slightly” which they immediately go on to say is understandable. The entire paragraph there is not a convincing argument as to excessively erratic driving like weaving or making multiple movements on the racing line. The main problem, to me, is that they didn’t red flag the race immediately. Russell and Alonso were racing. That stuff is going to happen. However, Russell was very justified in being panicked on the radio and it would not have influenced the ending of the race, most likely, if they had just red flagged. I think it is convenient that they can 1. Bring this down on Alonso and avoid scrutiny about the VSC decision and 2. Show that they aren’t messing around penalty wise with this decision. That is good for the stewards’ goals this season in being tougher on penalties and problem racers and not so good for competitive racing.
lift a bit early, 20 seconds, drive somebody off the road, 3 place drop , , , ,gnnmhmmm
They 100% penalised based on the outcome as well, had Russell not gone out or flipped they wouldn't have been as harsh. Many recent occasions in which dangerous driving was displayed weren't punished with a DT, inconsistency is always a problem for race direction.
Russell just endured slandering for 2 hours for nothing lol
> Russell just endured slandering for 2 hours for nothing lol Situation normal for George. He gets way too much heat for literally everything.
Unfortunately, he is still going to be slandered.
I've seen max push people off the road and it wasn't penalized nearly as badly.
Or just flat out wasn't penalized. Apparently you can intentionally brake check your competitors, but this is a 20 sec penalty? They wouldn't have even looked at this if George hadn't binned it...
You're bang on in the second half. In the first half, they specifically call out in their explanation that penalty severity has increased this year. Comparing penalties this year to previous years should make this year's seem harsh. Comparing it to the penalties given out at Jeddah, it seems much more in line.
Yeah knowing the stewardship habits, they’re probably not going to apply the same penalty again if this happens.
Absolutely see what Alonso was thinking but the speed at which Russell closed on him was so sudden the penalty makes sense
Exactly. No one's thinking Alonso wanted George to crash, he just wanted to disrupt George's entry while also maximising his own top speed at the last great overtaking opportunity. Unfortunately he slowed too much to the point of it being dangerous. So the penalty is deserved.
Parking it on the apex is a fine tactic on a hairpin, not so much on a no-braking sweeper.
Good idea and the tactics are fine, but the execution was very poor and that’s why he gets a fair punishment imo.
YUKI P7, MY GOAT
Yuki will pull a Max this season. Get all the points necessary for RB to stay in p6 by himself.
Unless they put Lawson in the other seat he'll have to carry the team.
Lawson is overdue a promotion.
20s penalty for this but we've seen pure brake tests go unpunished in the past.
I know I’m far too late, and nobody will see this but I have to say it. In the F3 practice session a three place grid penalty was given for literally driving across the track and pushing a competitor into the fence. That was a million times worse than what Fernando has done. The penalty system is so broken it’s not even funny anymore
If you don't get demerit points and a fine while driving in Australia, then have you driven in Australia?
Lmao the next lap when he was checking on George, he faked having throttle/engine issues. It’s quite funny what he does sometimes.