Quote:
Originally Posted by tcbass
Very exciting race indeed.
The Incident and subsequent penalty is borderline, but after replaying it several times I think the verdict is just (just) although the penalty seems a little harsh, the precedent of a drive-through penalty (i.e. 25 sec) for this type of incident has been set in the past, rather than a 10 place penalty for the next race which might have seemed a fairer one.
The 2 things that swung it for me is:
1) Hamilton clearly makes a concious decision to cut the chicane (a hard left on the steering) instead of making it around, which it looks like he could easily have achieved.
2) He does not appear to lift off afterwards in order to give his place back. I.e Kimi repasses Hamilton due to his superior straight line speed alone. Hamilton has therefore not properly relinquished the place/advantage gained through deliberately cutting the chicane.
Deliberately cutting chicane when he could have made it through to great advantage
Not lifting off afterwards (and clearly does hard left on steering) |
Lifting off or not, Hamilton gave the place back. They were neck and neck going into the corner. Hamilton was faster for the few laps before and especially on the same lap as the incident. He seen his opportunity, took it and it didnt stick. It was either crash into Kimi, or cut the corner. Once you are commited in a F1 car, you stay commited, especially on a damp track in dry tyres. They both locked wheels under braking coming into that corner. Hamilton then let Kimi back past, its not Hamiltons fault, Kimi or the Ferrari is not as fast in the rain. Apparently the data shows Hamilton 6kmh slower than Kimi going over the pit straight.
Anyway, regardless of wether he gained an advantage on Kimi, is besides the point, Kimi then overtook Hamilton later on, while also cutting out a corner when running wide and using that to his advantage by not slowing down and when entering back onto the race track had clearly gained ground on Hamilton. Then Kimi crashed out, so Hamilton gaining 'maybe' 0.200 seconds on Kimi, does not effect the race as knocking Hamilton down to 3rd and giving Massa the win, when none of this affected him.
Its a poor decsion, very poor.
---------- Post added at 12:44 ---------- Previous post was at 12:38 ----------
Quote:
Originally Posted by tcbass
Have you actually looked closely at the video.
At 24 sec you can see him trying to go up the inside, he is not even close to being level with Kimi when he closes the door (quite rightly so) and its obvious that there will be no room up the inside, but instead of abandoning the move he does a hard left taking the whole chicane out of the equation and going from being behind to in front by some margin. It's not even the case that he had made the move and had to overrun the chicane to make it stick, to which he still would have had to give the place back. He makes a deliberate decision to not attempt the chicane, using other parts than the track, to his benefit.
As for being "squeezed" of the track it's nothing wrong with that, and something Lewis has done on numerous occasions himself, the last time it was described as 'Majestic' as far as I can remember.
In the second clip, in your honest opinion do you think Lewis is lifting?? It certainly does not sound like it to me.
If the Darth Ron has telemetry to say otherwise, I would have thought that he had the opportunity to show that to the stewards at the time.
Maybe they decided that the overall advantage gained wasn't adequately negated by Lewis at the time.
As I stated before I think it was borderline, and I initially did think it was unjust, but looking closely at the clips I think it is just (just).
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But at 22 seconds, he was infront, they both locked wheels going into that corner and were fighting for 1st place. This is called racing and should be left alone. Like I said, when you are commited in a F1 car, you stay commited. We see incidents like this almost every race, they just dont happen to be between 2 people fighting for the championship at the end of a race. Regardless, if you can find the part of the rule book where it states how long he has to lift off for or how long he has to stay behind after giving the place up, then you could easlily prove your argument.
And if you do prove it, I want Kimi penalised for doing the the same thing, the only difference was he didnt make a place, he just made up ground.