2019 Canadian Grand Prix thread

[UncreativeUsername37]

On pole: not Mercedes! On the second row: Ricciardo!

What will Verstappen do from mid-grid? Why do we need three DRS zones at Gilles Villeneuve? Will a Renault actually finish in the top six on pace?!

[dinizintheoven]

What will Verstappen do from mid-grid? Why do we need three DRS zones at Gilles Villeneuve? Will a Renault actually finish in the top six on pace?!

Make a lot of very obnoxious and entitled radio messages when the other cars don't leap out of his way, to reinforce the pecking order at all costs, and on a freezing cold day in the Sahara Desert.

[mario]

On pole: not Mercedes! On the second row: Ricciardo!

What will Verstappen do from mid-grid? Why do we need three DRS zones at Gilles Villeneuve? Will a Renault actually finish in the top six on pace?!

Ricciardo's form is the big surprise, and indeed in general the Renault powered teams are doing more strongly here than I'd wager some expected them to. If their planned major update package works well in Paul Ricard, it could make things interesting in the McLaren-Renault battle.

However, I do expect him to slip back as the race goes on - starting on the soft tyres could be a major disadvantage, making it likely that Bottas and Verstappen will likely pass him on strategy anyway (if they don't pull the pass off on track first).

[Enforcer]

Magnussen: "Wah!!! This car I wrecked yesterday doesn't drive good!"

Steiner: *Verbal bitchslap*

That's IIDOTR right there, imo.

[Enforcer]

Stewards are a joke. Absolute joke. They've given Vettel a 5 second penalty for losing the back end of his car in front of Lewis. He couldn't really contain it any better than he could. It's not like he went off the track, slowed it down or stopped it, had complete control of the car and then went out in front of Lewis anyway.

When Martin "Biggest Hamilton Fan in the World" Brundle says that's not a penalty, it's not a penalty.

[dinizintheoven]

Emanuele Pirro is a joke. Absolute joke. They've given Vettel a 5 second penalty for losing the back end of his car in front of Lewis.

Fixed. If it had been Alan Jones in the stewards' box, or even anyone other than the most trigger-happy penalty-hander-outer of them all, there'd have been no problem...

[Londoner]

I remember watching 2002 and 2004, but 2019 is easily the worst season of F1 in my lifetime

[Enforcer]

If the roles had been reversed and Hamilton had been penalised, the FIA would be accused of fixing it to try and make the Championship more interesting.

[Bobby Doorknobs]

I've a feeling I don't want to be here for the ROTR thread...

That was bullshit, though, for the record.

[Alextrax52]

If the roles had been reversed and Hamilton had been penalised, the FIA would be accused of fixing it to try and make the Championship more interesting.

If the roles had been reversed it honestly wouldn’t have surprised me if Hamilton didn’t get any penalty for it. Meanwhile his legion of casual fans would have the puppy dog eyes out crying “where was he supposed to go”?

The ROTR thread should be.... interesting to say the least

[WeirdKerr]

[Barbazza]

Agree with all of the above. I've been very close to giving up F1 over the last few years but that may be the final straw.

Just how did someone with no F1 pedigree like Pirro become a steward anyhow?

[Enforcer]

Just how did someone with no F1 pedigree like Pirro become a steward anyhow?

He's had a 30 plus year motor racing career including about 5 Le Mans victories, he probably is well qualified for it despite an atrocious decision today. I know there are other drivers with more illustrious F1 careers behind them, but they mightn't actually want to do it.

What bothers me most about this is that there's no appeal mechanism. +5 seconds onto the race time and that's that.

[Enforcer]

Remember this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haqpopZyvwc

No penalty. And Lewis had much more control over his car there than Seb did today.

[Rob Dylan]

- i know i'm a radical f1 extremist here
- but i think vettel really needed to nail the point
- he should have boycotted the whole podium
- It dilutes his entire protest if he goes along with it in the end.
- legitimises the stewards
- allows them to get away with it again

I've had a solid 10 minutes to calm down after those statements, and I pretty much still completely agree with them. Completely ridiculous that Vettel should receive a penalty, and completely ludicrous that they should expect anyone to bother with this season from now on. Maybe if Hamilton had actually passed for the lead here there wouldn't be a problem, but he didn't. And Vettel shouldn't have legitimised it by coming back. He should have gone to the weigh-bridge, and gone home. He had nothing to gain from coming back.

As well as that, Hamilton getting the privilege of shaking Seb's hand and going "you totally deserved it" only legitimises things further, when Lewis was the first to shout "give that man a penalty". Vettel should have gone home, be damned.

[dinizintheoven]

Just how did someone with no F1 pedigree like Pirro become a steward anyhow?

He's had a 30 plus year motor racing career including about 5 Le Mans victories, he probably is well qualified for it despite an atrocious decision today. I know there are other drivers with more illustrious F1 careers behind them, but they mightn't actually want to do it.

I would add, Tom Kristensen has done a fair few driver steward jobs, and he never raced in F1 at all. Danny Sullivan had one season and wasn't stellar, Derek Warwick never stood on an F1 podium, Mika Salo only did because he filled in at Ferrari for a few races, Yannick Dalmas has a similar career to Pirro, and who (outside Brazil) had honestly heard of Felipe Giaffone at the end of last season?

Some F1 World Champions have done the job - Emerson Fittipaldi, Nigel Mansell, Alan Jones (as I mentioned before) and Damon Hill. Jackie Stewart hasn't (that I can remember), but even he, with his safety obsession, wouldn't have made that decision today.

[Fetzie]

I went back to the recording to get another look at the incident (as it happened within the space of about 1.5 seconds).

This is moments before Vettel left the track:


Here he re-joins the track


Here you can see him turning right - toward the racing line and Hamilton:



Here Hamilton has to brake to avoid a collision


and then Vettel drives away


You can see from the screenshots that Vettel turned toward the racing line after re-joining the track. I suspect this, together with forcing Hamilton to avoid a collision, is the reason that he was penalized. I don't know if he was trying to keep the rear-end under control when doing so (which would excuse it), but it didn't sound like the rears were lighting up. You aren't allowed to re-join the track in a manner that forces another driver to take evasive action, and he did.

full-sized images here:
https://imgur.com/a/3JboAJH

[dinizintheoven]

Also:

https://twitter.com/RejectsPodcast/stat ... 0715411456

...F1 was so hell bent on satirising itself, it left us with little to do.

28th May, 2017.

[mario]

I went back to the recording to get another look at the incident (as it happened within the space of about 1.5 seconds).

https://imgur.com/a/3JboAJH

You can see from the screenshots that Vettel turned toward the racing line after re-joining the track. I suspect this, together with forcing Hamilton to avoid a collision, is the reason that he was penalized.

I expect that, in the heat of the moment, there will be a strong reaction to the initial decision, but hopefully a calmer response after that.

From the above, I guess that, as you say, it is not the initial way in which Vettel rejoined that was the issue, but the subsequent move back towards the racing line that, in the process, ended up squeezing Hamilton towards that outer wall given Vettel was coming back onto the track at speed and it is instinctive for him to want to get back onto the racing line as soon as possible.

It feels like one of those instances where somebody was applying the rules with a rather strict interpretation of the rule as written, but in a way that it probably wasn't intended to be applied. Ultimately, I do have to agree with the general consensus that, from what seemed to be immediately apparent, it seemed to be an overly harsh penalty.

[Fetzie]

I agree that in the circumstances it is a harsh punishment, but I don't think there is a more lenient one that the FIA has for transgressions during the race. The only alternative would be a reprimand, which I feel would be rather lenient for forcing another driver into a heavy braking manoever after re-joining the track because you plugged it up. If Vettel had stayed on the track, then it would probably have been called a racing incident.

I really don't envy the stewards for having to make this decision (but then again that's what they are paid for).

[Enforcer]

You can see from the screenshots that Vettel turned toward the racing line after re-joining the track. I suspect this, together with forcing Hamilton to avoid a collision, is the reason that he was penalized. I don't know if he was trying to keep the rear-end under control when doing so (which would excuse it), but it didn't sound like the rears were lighting up. You aren't allowed to re-join the track in a manner that forces another driver to take evasive action, and he did.

Whilst acknowledging the fact that professional racing drivers have reflexes and car control far beyond my own, and that only Vettel knows for certain what he was doing in the cockpit, I think it very unlikely that he managed to instinctively correct the initial slide, satisfy himself that the car was under control, then think "oh, gotta block Lewis now" and deliberately steer back across the track all in the space of 1.5 seconds. I think his steering wheel movements are just him wrestling the car back into shape. Just because the rear tires aren't smoking up doesn't mean the back end is stable.

Did Vettel make a mistake that caused the incident? Yes, obviously. But you can't get into punishing drivers for running wide imo. Then you're into a ridiculous level of sanitisation of the racing. Brundle explained it well: The unsafe rejoin rule is there to stop people who've gone off and have regained control of their car from just driving back onto the track without giving a toss about whoever's coming. Pirro employed it like a wrecking ball to punish Vettel for losing his car.

Idk, maybe he has instructions from the FIA to interpret it that way, but I honestly cannot remember seeing such a harsh penalty.

[girry]

Here you can see him turning right - toward the racing line and Hamilton:

Great example of still images not doing a justice to an event. In this image Vettel's just making a correction to avoid losing the rear completely. NOT turning the car right.

But for what it's worth I think that it was a fair penalty according to the rules. But Monaco 2016, as well as many other previous cases of corner cutting and holding position regardless, still pisses me off and if they somehow weren't a penalty, so should this not have been.

[Barbazza]

Maybe I was a bit harsh on Pirro but does he not have previous form for silly decisions?

[Fetzie]

Further mitigating circumstances for Vettel could also be that he probably wouldn't have been able to see exactly where Hamilton was. The rear-view in those slivers of laminated plastic they call "mirrors" is practically non-existent.

That said, I can see where the stewards are coming from. I can also see why people are pissed off about it. If they were going to punish Vettel for this, then as far as I know a 5 second time penalty applied at the end of the race or the next pit-stop is the most lenient they can be. The next step in less severity would be a verbal reprimand ("don't do it again!").

According to the rules, this situation should be penalized. So they did. As I said before, I can see why they did and I can see why they shouldn't have.

Here is Sky's slow-down with a frame-by-frame: https://streamable.com/m9yis

[mario]

You can see from the screenshots that Vettel turned toward the racing line after re-joining the track. I suspect this, together with forcing Hamilton to avoid a collision, is the reason that he was penalized. I don't know if he was trying to keep the rear-end under control when doing so (which would excuse it), but it didn't sound like the rears were lighting up. You aren't allowed to re-join the track in a manner that forces another driver to take evasive action, and he did.

Whilst acknowledging the fact that professional racing drivers have reflexes and car control far beyond my own, and that only Vettel knows for certain what he was doing in the cockpit, I think it very unlikely that he managed to instinctively correct the initial slide, satisfy himself that the car was under control, then think "oh, gotta block Lewis now" and deliberately steer back across the track all in the space of 1.5 seconds. I think his steering wheel movements are just him wrestling the car back into shape. Just because the rear tires aren't smoking up doesn't mean the back end is stable.

Did Vettel make a mistake that caused the incident? Yes, obviously. But you can't get into punishing drivers for running wide imo. Then you're into a ridiculous level of sanitisation of the racing. Brundle explained it well: The unsafe rejoin rule is there to stop people who've gone off and have regained control of their car from just driving back onto the track without giving a toss about whoever's coming. Pirro employed it like a wrecking ball to punish Vettel for losing his car.

Idk, maybe he has instructions from the FIA to interpret it that way, but I honestly cannot remember seeing such a harsh penalty.

I know that the stewards had been under instruction to give the drivers a bit more leeway on how they rejoined the track during the practise sessions, but were under instruction to be stricter during qualifying and the race itself - hence why Leclerc was warned over cutting Turn 9 during qualifying, as the drivers are supposed to slow down and to rejoin further down the track.

I believe that the intention was mainly for Turns 8 and 9 though, given it was meant to avoid, as you note, drivers rejoining the track at high speed and without paying attention to who else might be around them. However, it seems the stewarding panel chose to apply that dictum quite strictly around the entire circuit.

[Wallio]

The FIA: "We want hard racing, with difficult to control cars, great on track battles, and close calls."

(Exact situation happens, first interesting race of the year occurs, people cheer)

Also The FIA: "No, no, not like that."

[razta]

Here you can see him turning right - toward the racing line and Hamilton:

Great example of still images not doing a justice to an event. In this image Vettel's just making a correction to avoid losing the rear completely. NOT turning the car right.

But for what it's worth I think that it was a fair penalty according to the rules. But Monaco 2016, as well as many other previous cases of corner cutting and holding position regardless, still pisses me off and if they somehow weren't a penalty, so should this not have been.

exactly.. he was on oppo-lock just to keep the car from going into the wall, even Jenson said it's the momentum that the car carries while coming off the grass.
Hammy should have seen it (which he did), and just moved across to the left ready for the next left hander.

[Klon]

Some F1 World Champions have done the job - Emerson Fittipaldi, Nigel Mansell, Alan Jones (as I mentioned before) and Damon Hill. Jackie Stewart hasn't (that I can remember), but even he, with his safety obsession, wouldn't have made that decision today.

And if I recall correctly, Damon Hill was kinda shite at it. Just because someone was a good driver, doesn't mean he's automatically good at any other aspect of the sport (hi, Alain, how's your team going?).

In the end, I can see the logic of the penalty and I personally wouldn't want to be the one making that call because it feels like one of these calls where, regardless of choice, you pick the wrong one (you can't really let that go unpunished either because of the bad precedent it sets), but there's this nagging feeling that Hamilton wouldn't be given a penalty if the roles had been reversed.

[yannicksamlad]

I'll stick up for Pirro - he's only one of the stewards and it's a tough call.
For me; the penalty was harsh, because I personally don't think Vettel was doing anything other than trying to regain control. If he'd fully lost control I think he'd likely have taken Lewis out with himself.
But Lewis was impeded.
Perhaps the stewards thought Vettel could have eased off a little more ...who knows.

But it's harsh - drivers do lose the chance to make up places when other drivers have accidents, moments etc and there's no penalty applied to that other driver

[Faustus]

I'll stick up for Pirro - he's only one of the stewards and it's a tough call.
For me; the penalty was harsh, because I personally don't think Vettel was doing anything other than trying to regain control. If he'd fully lost control I think he'd likely have taken Lewis out with himself.
But Lewis was impeded.
Perhaps the stewards thought Vettel could have eased off a little more ...who knows.

But it's harsh - drivers do lose the chance to make up places when other drivers have accidents, moments etc and there's no penalty applied to that other driver

He was regaining control of the car after joining the track but he did impede Hamilton. The regulations are clear on this matter.

What I want to know is what the hell was Ferrari playing at. The team is well aware of the regulations and should have instructed Vettel to let Hamilton past after re-joining. Who is in charge at Ferrari? Does no one have the authority to instruct Vettel to give up the place?

[mario]

Some F1 World Champions have done the job - Emerson Fittipaldi, Nigel Mansell, Alan Jones (as I mentioned before) and Damon Hill. Jackie Stewart hasn't (that I can remember), but even he, with his safety obsession, wouldn't have made that decision today.

And if I recall correctly, Damon Hill was kinda shite at it. Just because someone was a good driver, doesn't mean he's automatically good at any other aspect of the sport (hi, Alain, how's your team going?).

In the end, I can see the logic of the penalty and I personally wouldn't want to be the one making that call because it feels like one of these calls where, regardless of choice, you pick the wrong one (you can't really let that go unpunished either because of the bad precedent it sets), but there's this nagging feeling that Hamilton wouldn't be given a penalty if the roles had been reversed.

It is one of those incidents that I've been turning over in my mind, and do agree that there is something of a conflicting feeling. I did say earlier that I thought the penalty was harsh, but looking at some of the arguments put forwards, I do agree that it is more difficult in retrospect to judge the situation.

It does feel as if, either way, it was going to be a difficult decision - I agree with Faustus that, although Vettel was trying to regain control of the car, he did in the process force Hamilton to brake to avoid colliding with him, which does mean that it falls foul of the rule on rejoining the track safely.

Interestingly, Vettel himself has drawn parallels with the collision between Kimi and Verstappen during the Japanese GP last year, stating "Look at [the incident with] Kimi, [Verstappen]'s off the track and he comes back and if Kimi just drives on they'd collide. But it's not always right that the other guy has to move. We're all racing, the race is long."

Now, it is interesting that he chose to cite that particular incident and to do so in a way that could be seen as supporting the case for a penalty, given that Verstappen did also get a time penalty for that collision - although, in his case, it didn't cost him much because he pulled a gap of over five seconds over Kimi anyway.

I suppose there is also the question of whether we would necessarily be reacting quite so fiercely if Mercedes had not been so strong in the opening races and it wasn't yet another win for Mercedes - I believe Palmer has asked that question as well, asking whether the complaints are as much about the fact that it seems to signal how any hope of a challenge from Ferrari is just ebbing away as much as to whether the penalty was fair or not.

I'll stick up for Pirro - he's only one of the stewards and it's a tough call.
For me; the penalty was harsh, because I personally don't think Vettel was doing anything other than trying to regain control. If he'd fully lost control I think he'd likely have taken Lewis out with himself.
But Lewis was impeded.
Perhaps the stewards thought Vettel could have eased off a little more ...who knows.

But it's harsh - drivers do lose the chance to make up places when other drivers have accidents, moments etc and there's no penalty applied to that other driver

He was regaining control of the car after joining the track but he did impede Hamilton. The regulations are clear on this matter.

What I want to know is what the hell was Ferrari playing at. The team is well aware of the regulations and should have instructed Vettel to let Hamilton past after re-joining. Who is in charge at Ferrari? Does no one have the authority to instruct Vettel to give up the place?

The thing is, would you trust Vettel to heed that call even if it did come from the top, such as from Binotto? I have a feeling that Vettel would have ignored any such calls from the team - we have seen how angrily he has reacted in the past when being penalised by the stewards, and I suspect that we would have seen a similarly emotional response.

This was, after all, his first pole position in 17 races and his first chance of victory in 15 races, and it's come after a period of sustained criticism for multiple costly errors on track in that intervening period - indeed, this penalty came about because of an error on track by Vettel.

In the heat of the moment, with the adrenaline coursing, under heavy pressure from Hamilton and having faced barrages of questions about his form, his desire to continue in the sport and whether he was thinking of retiring, it would take considerable detachment on Vettel's part to willing surrender the lead of the race to the driver who has been his main rival in the title battle for several years now.

[Rob Dylan]

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/144005/penalty-fully-deserved-for-vettel--nico-rosberg
Controversial Nico sticking his neck out on the line, at least on this specific occasion

Not only calls the penalty "absolutely, fully deserved", but also dislikes the way Vettel reacted to everything. We obviously have very different opinions about this

[mario]

An interesting take is that of Wurz in the role of GPDA representative, and his suggestion that the drivers and teams have created this situation themselves for pressuring the FIA to minimise the amount of latitude that they might have had in the past.

By removing the greyer areas of the rules, they have tried to make the decision making clearer, and they have also tried to set stronger precedents for instances such as unsafely rejoining the track - Wurz himself citing the example of Verstappen and Raikkonen in Suzuka last year, and noting that the penalty given to Vettel here was the same as that incident.

Whilst he doesn't necessarily agree with the final decision, it's interesting that he does agree with the fact that the FIA have been more consistent in the application of a penalty and have sought to apply the penalty during the race, rather than leaving a bitter taste by making the decision after the race.

He raises some interesting points about the challenges of stewarding a race and in how the stewards should draw the line - overall, it's an interesting point of view that does discuss some of the more nuanced aspects of what happened.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/48593772

[Bobby Doorknobs]

[Miguel98]

Once again, the Internet age is revealed as more problematic than usefull...

People just can't respect each other, and contain to themselves. While the internet is certainly usefull on most part, it also provides a platform for people to openly voice their opinion - and not always in the right manner.

Despite disagreeing with Emanuele Pirro - the steward - he's one of the most respected guys in racing, and you have to respect a man with 5 Le Mans wins under his belt and a fairly sucessfull carrer as racing driver, and having a fairly stable family life as far as we are aware.

[Faustus]

The thing is, would you trust Vettel to heed that call even if it did come from the top, such as from Binotto? I have a feeling that Vettel would have ignored any such calls from the team - we have seen how angrily he has reacted in the past when being penalised by the stewards, and I suspect that we would have seen a similarly emotional response.

This was, after all, his first pole position in 17 races and his first chance of victory in 15 races, and it's come after a period of sustained criticism for multiple costly errors on track in that intervening period - indeed, this penalty came about because of an error on track by Vettel.

In the heat of the moment, with the adrenaline coursing, under heavy pressure from Hamilton and having faced barrages of questions about his form, his desire to continue in the sport and whether he was thinking of retiring, it would take considerable detachment on Vettel's part to willing surrender the lead of the race to the driver who has been his main rival in the title battle for several years now.

This is exemplary of Ferrari's current problem. I spoke to a good friend of mine who has been at Ferrari since 2012 (factory-based) and he says that the impression within the team is that it's not clear who is in charge. There is an atmosphere of fear that ensures that no one comes forward and makes suggestions or takes decisions, for fear of being reprimanded for it. Incredibly toxic and not conducive to retaining staff.

[Miguel98]

The thing is, would you trust Vettel to heed that call even if it did come from the top, such as from Binotto? I have a feeling that Vettel would have ignored any such calls from the team - we have seen how angrily he has reacted in the past when being penalised by the stewards, and I suspect that we would have seen a similarly emotional response.

This was, after all, his first pole position in 17 races and his first chance of victory in 15 races, and it's come after a period of sustained criticism for multiple costly errors on track in that intervening period - indeed, this penalty came about because of an error on track by Vettel.

In the heat of the moment, with the adrenaline coursing, under heavy pressure from Hamilton and having faced barrages of questions about his form, his desire to continue in the sport and whether he was thinking of retiring, it would take considerable detachment on Vettel's part to willing surrender the lead of the race to the driver who has been his main rival in the title battle for several years now.

This is exemplary of Ferrari's current problem. I spoke to a good friend of mine who has been at Ferrari since 2012 (factory-based) and he says that the impression within the team is that it's not clear who is in charge. There is an atmosphere of fear that ensures that no one comes forward and makes suggestions or takes decisions, for fear of being reprimanded for it. Incredibly toxic and not conducive to retaining staff.

But wasn't the fear responsible of Arrivabene as far as I'm aware? Wasn't the whole point of getting rid of Arrivabene to clear that "fear" that supposdely existed/exists in the team?

[CaptainGetz12]

The thing is, would you trust Vettel to heed that call even if it did come from the top, such as from Binotto? I have a feeling that Vettel would have ignored any such calls from the team - we have seen how angrily he has reacted in the past when being penalised by the stewards, and I suspect that we would have seen a similarly emotional response.

This was, after all, his first pole position in 17 races and his first chance of victory in 15 races, and it's come after a period of sustained criticism for multiple costly errors on track in that intervening period - indeed, this penalty came about because of an error on track by Vettel.

In the heat of the moment, with the adrenaline coursing, under heavy pressure from Hamilton and having faced barrages of questions about his form, his desire to continue in the sport and whether he was thinking of retiring, it would take considerable detachment on Vettel's part to willing surrender the lead of the race to the driver who has been his main rival in the title battle for several years now.

This is exemplary of Ferrari's current problem. I spoke to a good friend of mine who has been at Ferrari since 2012 (factory-based) and he says that the impression within the team is that it's not clear who is in charge. There is an atmosphere of fear that ensures that no one comes forward and makes suggestions or takes decisions, for fear of being reprimanded for it. Incredibly toxic and not conducive to retaining staff.

This could be an interesting interview, if not now (since it may cost him/her their job) after they left the team.

[Fetzie]

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/144005/penalty-fully-deserved-for-vettel--nico-rosberg
Controversial Nico sticking his neck out on the line, at least on this specific occasion

Not only calls the penalty "absolutely, fully deserved", but also dislikes the way Vettel reacted to everything. We obviously have very different opinions about this

Vettel did pretty much everything he could to turn the conversation away from how he f*d up a corner where it is almost impossible to overtake somebody (is the track even wide enough through the chicane for one 2019 spec car to go past another?), was the only person in the race to do so at that corner, and to crown it all while under pressure from Hamilton (again).

[Rob Dylan]

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/144064/ferrari-drops-canada-appeal-plan-but-eyes-review

So Ferrari aren't going to appeal the decision for Vettel's penalty, but they are considering some kind of post-race review. The only thing is that a review requires some kind of new evidence to be present that can re-open the incident. I highly doubt Ferrari have that, so I personally predict that this will all fizzle out eventually.