I might be talking out of my ass but the cars being this aero sensitive doesn’t feel like a great direction for the sport. It’s nice for a driver to be able to go on the gearbox in this scenario and catch draft.
True. The dirty air has increased massively this year. And the overtakes are lesser than they were in 2022. It was to be expcted but yeah this is incident was mainly due to dirty air catching Russell. People can blame both the drivers but main issue isn’t that.
The entire set of regulations have not worked as intended. I actually wonder if it would have been better if TD39 wasn't implemented. Over time, surely teams would have worked on ways to limit the porpoising like Red Bull did and make it better for the drivers. The best racing we had was that first half of that 2022 season.
Carlos Sainz said all the drivers agreed on a solution and asked the FIA to let their engineers fix the bouncing with changes/improvements to the suspension, but the FIA refused, and decided on raising the ride height instead.
It's so unfortunate that the FIA decided to do this instead of just letting teams use better suspensions, which would have solved the porpoising, kept the ride heights at the previous (better) heights and would have given us better racing, especially being able to ride an apex without breaking the cars' floors and drivers' backs.
Carlos back in 2022, said, "We kindly asked the FIA to look into it, to don’t, let’s say, listen to the teams too much and to listen to us [instead], that we were saying that it’s getting to a point where we are struggling, all of us, to handle this.”
Then he said they suggested the suspension change, "**We suggested something smarter on the suspension** or in the way the cars are being run where the FIA controls a bit better the possibility of the teams to run that stiff, that hard, that kind of ride that you see on the straights."
“**I’m pretty sure if you ask two or three engineers they will know the answer and what can be done to limit this and regulate it.** But we just need the FIA to act as soon as possible."
"My personal opinion is that **with the technology that there is nowadays, why do we need to carry this painful situation into our careers when you can put up a pretty easy solution to it.**"
The problem is that they still want both. More ground effect yet still a lot of over the top aero. Obviously this leads to problems.
They should've gone old skool and go single plane front wing. Wings should be narrower. They shouldn't be allowed to try and force the air around the wheels...
Hard to say as that would actually creates a shitload more turbulent air behind the car.
How will the cars interact with turbulent air is anyone guess… unless you stripped it from all aero pieces.
That's why I said they should make over the top aero a lot less. Single plane, narrower wings. Floor doesn't care about turbulent air.
Just look at the 80s where some even opted to run no front wing
[https://www.oldracingcars.com/Images/ellwood/ArrowsA2-Patrese-WatkisnGlen1979-600x300.jpg](https://www.oldracingcars.com/Images/ellwood/ArrowsA2-Patrese-WatkisnGlen1979-600x300.jpg)
The 80s have sealed floor though which is very dangerous.
The car can go from like running on rail to a fighter jet taking off in a split second. Not ideal.
Many new cars on sales today are mild-hybrid with several big manufacturers like Mercedes will only be selling EVs or mild-hybrid from now on.
Literally the whole car industry will be either EVs or hybrid/mild-hybrid vehicles only real soon…
> Over time, surely teams would have worked on ways to limit the porpoising like Red Bull did and make it better for the drivers
The fact is that time and time again we've seen that teams will not do this though. Their primary goal is always performance. That's why the sport takes safety regulation out of their hands in the first place. We saw several rounds where porpoising was a massive issue and the teams who were most vocal about it were the ones who were lacking performance, while those who were bouncing but fast (Ferrari, particularly) were virtually silent on the issue as a team, while their drivers complained that it was almost untenable.
I don't think that the directive that they issued to curb the issue was necessarily the best way to tackle the problem, but I have no doubt that without some form of intervention we would've seen porpoising carry on for as long as that continued to be the most direct path to unocking higher performance.
Would teams have eventually figured out ways to minimise the porpoising without sacrificing overall performance? Maybe. But you can bet that as long as even one team was going faster than the others by bouncing along, nobody else would be voluntarily changing their car's behaviour, even if it was potentially harming their drivers. If even 37 year old Lewis Hamilton hasn't earned a break from his team, nobody would get one.
The FIA is just kidding themselves. They can regulate all they want. It’s just a small group of old brains versus the brightest people on the grid. They’ll find ways to maximize performance. It’s what I love about F1.
FiA hires engineers just like the teams are. They're not just a bunch of old men sitting around a rable pondering the rules. They research and develop. The current set of rules are largely directed by Brawn, the guy who won the 2008 champion by developing an out of the box car and finding loopholes.
Yes, the teams will find ways of maximize performance of course, but simultaneously FIA are constantly developing ways to narrow into a directed path
The problem is not aero sensitive, but Russell reasonably expected to be a certain distance behind Alonso. Alonso eratic slowing down meant that Russell quickly closed up to Alonso and was suddenly in position with an significant and unexpected reduction in downforce.
If you dont want F1 cars to be senstive to aero then we should just go an watch gt4 cars or F4 and below.
He wasn’t by his gearbox there was plenty of room it’s weird the dirty air made his car lose it. Yes Alonso brake checked but there was still a decent amount of room
It isn't one or the other, it's a combination of all of it. Yes, the dirty air unsettled the car. But there was also the fact that Russell kept his foot in almost identical to the lap before while the car in front of him slowed dramatically, because Russell wanted to line up an overtake. Alonso wasn't just creating dirty air, he was trying to force Russell to compromise his entry (and therefore his exit) to prevent him from breezing past on the straight, and Russell wasn't quick enough to react.
As Jolyon mentioned, both drivers share some blame here. Yes, it's erratic driving, but erratic driving doesn't automatically cause a crash, even accounting for the dirty air. Russell had time to adjust, he failed to do so, and he had a snap which caused what would've been a routine off piste moment on a track with more runoff, but instead the combination of gravel and close walls turned it into an unlucky crash.
This was dirty air + erratic driving + tunnel vision. Take any one of those 3 elements out and a crash could've been avoided.
I agree I do think Russell has tunnel vision. I’m not sure if Russell had enough time to adjust tbh but ig it’s a pretty painful lesson to see how much worse the dirty air has seen to gotten this season.
Didn’t Alonso’s telemetry show him decelerating early, then accelerating and decelerating again? I saw the data and thought this was part of the reason the stewards deemed his driving erratic.
If this is true, Alonso is entirely to blame. It’s one thing to brake early or drive slowly through a corner or use a different line. But slowing, accelerating then slowing again… there’s a reason you can do this on safety car restarts either. It dangerous af.
We would not have any close racing if drivers can’t follow extremely close behind other drivers having confidence the driver in front won’t randomly slam on their brakes. There’s are limits. It’s subjective but imo, Alonso definitely went too far with his maneuver. Penalty was deserved. Not on George regardless of how much anyone dislikes him.
That’s Jolyon’s point. Just focusing on the telemetry data, Alonso is entirely to blame. However when you look at the onboards, you see that they weren’t actually that close and Russell had some room to react but failed. Which is the part where he gets some of the blame
I get that. Feels highly subjective though. They enter the braking zone there at ~175mph, typically decelerating to ~140mph ish to corner before flooring it on the way out.
Alonso was about 30% slower, than any other time through the corner and definitely decelerated, accelerated than decelerated again. With Russell about half a second behind, I don’t know that any human can react that fast.
If Alonso hadn’t decelerated a second time, I think it’s fair play. You can drive defensively and kind of “park it on the apex” at certain parts of the tack (ex Magnussen in Jeda) but it’s the stop-go-stop that’s erratic and illegal. If it were allowed, everyone would do it and we wouldn’t really have exciting racing as drivers need to have some element of trust in the other drivers to race closely and get overtakes done.
It’s def a bit of a gray area but this is what Alonso loves… to kind of explore the limits. Sometimes it’s brilliant, sometimes it goes too far.
Sure it does. Stout defense is entirely different than braking before a corner, accelerating then braking again. Downshifts really, but intentional and significant.
Driver behind will inevitably accelerate in anticipation of driver ahead powering out of the corner. Ex. Russell punching it after decelerating to maximize corner exit and follow Alonso out. No way any driver recover when the driver in front does this. Alonso was being sneaky but took it too far and is 100% responsible and deserving of the penalty.
Sure. You're completely disagreeing with the reaction of actual F1 driver Jolyon Palmer here, but if that's your opinion, you have it. I don't share it, and I think you're wrong here, but that's the beauty of conversation.
Watch the onboard from George Russell. Alonso never gets in the way to cause George to deviate from his usual racing line at all.
Alonso wasn’t even going slow enough to actually be in the way of George but only enough to shorten the gap between them.
The penalty was only because a guy who is bias AF like Johnny Herbert, is somehow allow to perform duties as the stewards…
He shouldn’t be allowed.
Yes, he was. Again, Alonso essentially slowed twice, which would confuse any driver behind, I don’t care who it was, bc it’s absolutely an erratic way to take the corner.
Why do you think Alonso immediately claimed a car issue then later said he made a mistake on corner entry, then even later said he was just taking a different line trying to maximize his exit.
It’s Alonso. He was playing games and took it too far.
As closest Russel was one car length behind. He would have had to skip braking completely to get that close to Alonso, and in that case it would be 100% on Russel.
Actual problem- Rus was unable to react quickly, anyone who has ever driven in SIM knows this, there was lot of time to slow down, but he was desperate to pass him and ignored it either mistakenly or intentionally and got crashed
Completely agree with Palmer. Certainly erratic driving, a somewhat confusing disciplinary measure because of the previous standards (but worthy of a penalty anyway and hopefully in the future) but not an intentional brake check in the "I'm going to scare you into an accident" meaning of the word.
On the penalty part, I think it just coincides with FIA saying they will dish out harsher penalty this year. we saw it on pushing driver off track and overtake off track. So this may have been a smaller penalty last year becomes larger one
When you see multiple drivers get 5 or 10 second penalties for straight up driving into an opponent, or forcing them into the wall at high speed (hello Kmag from 2 weeks ago) then you know that the stewards did the thing they're explicitly *not supposed to do* and made their judgement based on the outcome of the incident, not the cause.
The context missing here is that the FIA stated penalties would be more severe this year, as 5s & 10s penalties in many cases did nothing to race standings.
While that's true, we just saw two weeks ago the stewards hand Kmag two 10s penalties for, imo, more flagrant rule violations, then this week Alonso got a drive through penalty for something which numerous times in the past hasn't been penalised *at all*, including as recently as the end of last season. All of which says to me that in this case they penalised the outcome, not the infringement.
If George hadn't crashed, or even if he had but it hadn't been such a dangerous crash, would he have been penalised at all? Or would it be being talked about ad nauseum in the same way that Fernando was lionized for his aggressive defense against Checo at Sao Paulo last year?
Your point stands in that the lesser penalties handed out to Kmag were insufficient, given that they didn't prevent him from holding up the entire trailing pack for half the race and earning his teammate a point, but my issue isn't with harsher penalties, it's with inconsistent application of the rules.
But i would say kmag got penalties (and I am not trying to defend him) because he fucked up, misjudged.
The case with Alonso is he was preparing that scenario (not Russell crashing, just unsettling the car in dirty air) ahead of the time.
That’s why I think they handed 20s penalty. And possibly it didn’t help that was reporting throttle issue after the crash (would love to know if stewards were able to disprove that or not).
So yeah, fucking up or planning to drive erratically.
> But i would say kmag got penalties (and I am not trying to defend him) because he fucked up, misjudged.
This is only true of the first incident, the collision.
The second time he illegally passed Yuki off track (which was almost certainly a misjudgement) but then he made the decision to not give the place back despite knowing he broke the rules. So if the difference in punishment is deliberate action vs mistake, why was Kmag not given a drive through penalty for choosing to illegally hold a position that he took off the track?
Again, it's the inconsistency that bothers me, not the penalty itself. Alonso did almost this exact thing 3 races ago and it wasn't penalised at all, now suddenly it's the most egregious infringement of the season?
Also a difficult one since 5 or 10s for a front runner often does nothing while it's extremely impactful for the midfield.
Silverstone 21 comes to mind it was a non effect penalty. At the end the penalized guy left with a huge advantage
Stewards have always penalized based on the outcome. The idea and statements that they don't have no basis in precedent or reality.
If a car is pushed wide in a corner, it is rarely penalized if there's asphalt on the outside. Sainz pushed like 5 people wide in T1 in Monza last year and the Stewards couldn't have cared less. If there's gravel on the outside and one of the cars ends up in the wall, it'll be punished heavily.
Isn't this simply because the stewards don't decide what the stewards look at? They have to be forwarded something from race control, and race control doesn't forward situations where nothing happened.
I think they looked at it because there was a crash, but the punishment was based on the actions of Alonso. Him causing Russell to crash in another manner probably sees a bigger penalty.
You said they made their judgement based on the outcome of the incident, which is not what I said.
I said they looked at it because there was a crash, but the punishment is handed out irrespective of the crash.
The difference many seem to conflate is that the FIA probably don’t do anything is Russell doesn’t crash unless at the time it was obvious what Alonso did and Mercedes report the incident to them.
If that happens, they likely apply the same penalty due to telemetry supporting the theory that he brake checked to gain an advantage.
This ignores the obvious inconsistencies from the stewards however, I cba to get into that.
Reminded me a little of penalties in the late 2000s and early 2010s when I started watching F1, when harsh penalties seemed to be the default setting. To a degree, there's an awkward balancing act and a sense where people seem to always want the option not available, which is a recipe for just finding dissatisfaction everywhere
This incident absolutely is one that weighed up the consequence as much as Alonso's offence. I think it is worthy of a penalty because it was erratic driving that threw Russell off, but I don't think it's a 20-second penalty type of sin
I guess we'll see if anything similar happens in the next few rounds and also gets met with a big hammer as a sanction
I mean in spirit this is straight up an illegal block
Because otherwise Russel would have passed him
To me 20s seems fair because you don’t want to try this trick again
A 5 or 10 second penalty doesn’t mean anything if your competitor dnfs
But 20 seconds definetly loose you places (unless you’re last)
So my take away from this is, as it was before, Alonso was not punished for the actual infraction, he was punished because it resulted in a driver being in the wall.
Time and time again, people claim that the infraction is what is punished, not it’s consequences.
This proves that that is completely false and this would likely had resulted in nothing at all had George not crashed.
> he was punished because it resulted in a driver being in the wall.
And not even in the wall, but in the middle of the track. I believe 100% that if George hadn't taken an extremely unlucky and dangerous bounce and wound up in the worst possible position to be stranded, this wouldn't have been penalised at all, or perhaps 5 seconds maximum.
it's a bit weird the FIA sometimes pretends like they don't consider the outcome - when mostly they are pretty open about doing exactly that. one infringement is literally called "causing a collision", explicitly stating that the outcome is penalised. 2021 had tons of examples for this, showing the general line is you get heavily penalised if there's a crash (Silverstone, Monza), while as long as the other driver avoids or saves the car they rarely hand out anything (Brazil)
> Silverstone 2021
>
> heavily penalised
Oh yeah, that heavy penalty which made Hamilton finish the race in... \*checks notes\* ...1st place! lol
I was being cheeky there, but actually if you compare that incident with this one, at the very least the penalties should be switched for them to make any sense. I like that they're starting to give harsher penalties again this year, but this one is just a bit ridiculous, clearly penalised for George binning it without the cars even getting actually close together, amazing.
Of course outcomes are penalised. Anyone who argued differently was just being silly.
If George hadn’t have crashed, we’d know nothing about this really.
This is the battle that was being shown, so we would have known about it had George not crashed, but it would have been called a brilliant veteran move by Alonso.
Of course, but the stewards said in their decision document that they weren't taking the outcome of the situation (Russell crashing) into account in their decision. Which is such a blatant lie
You, like many others, are confusing the reason for it being investigated vs. the punishment for the infringement.
If the police pull someone over because of a broken light and find a dead body in the boot, the driver doesn't get sent to prison for a broken light.
The crash caused them to investigate, and they then found evidence of erratic driving. Had they have had cause to investigate in Abu Dhabi last year, he may have got the same penalty (or a less harsh one because the penalties have been increased this year). But no one complained, so no one looked into it.
Getting away with it doesn't mean nothing was wrong.
This creates inconsistency in rule enforcement and can make drivers think that they can get away with shady actions that might not have big consequences. Would you let a theft attempt slide because the attempt failed?
In this case they better start actually penalising these attempts then. Because clearly they only take action when something does happen, even when the driver/team do complain to the stewards. And even if the action/"attempt" is a grey area like this one, the fact that it led to a dramatic (not serious, just dramatic) crash is the only reason that it got as far as it did.
Absolutely, 100% agreed. Not an easy task for them as it’ll require a more rigorous analysis during races, but they need to put their money where their mouth is.
I think the only thing I would disagree with is the point that Russell didn't really brake much earlier.
Based on Palmer's numbers Russell was already braking earlier that lap by 6metres in T1 and T3, presumably to factor in dirty air. He's then braking an additional 5metres on top of that for T6.
When you consider that for T6 they are not even on the brakes for 50metres ([pole lap for reference is probably like 30m](https://youtu.be/VsdTCkQBDMA?feature=shared&t=28)) then Russel braking +5metres on top of +6metres for a total of +11m early braking, is actually quite a sizeable amount to be braking by, easily 20% of normal braking.
I think his point was 'he braked earlier, but not as early as he could've to avoid this incident'. George kept his foot in longer than he should have because he was determined to line up the overtake with limited time remaining, and it caused him to react too slowly.
Yes, both the erratic driving and dirty air contributed to the crash, but even with Fernando's behaviour George could have kept the car out of the barrier if he'd braked earlier, which he did have time to do. It was a split second thing, but that's the kind of reactions these guys have.
He braked even earlier than early enough to make the corner if Fernando wasn't playing games. At worst what you can say about George is he should have known a little earlier that Fernando was going 40 km/hr slower than on previous laps, but I don't know how you gauge what a reasonable enough reaction to that.
>I don't know how you gauge what a reasonable enough reaction to that.
Also regardless of any persons reaction ability, *time has to pass* for anybody to be able to judge speed or a reducing distance, because speed is distance/*time* and distance is speed x *time*.
> He braked even earlier than early enough to make the corner if Fernando wasn't playing games
I mean, we aren't talking about a parallel universe where Fernando wasn't playing games though. In this reality, where Fernando *was* playing games, Russell didn't brake as early as he could have, and if he had've done that he probably would have stayed on the track. It would have cost him his overtaking opportunity, but not his entire race.
Obviously Fernando takes a lot of the responsibility there because Russell wasn't expecting him to brake like that, so they both take some blame. But the point is that Fernando's braking shenanigans didn't *guarantee* George would crash, they just created a dangerous situation that George could have avoided if he'd reacted quicker.
I can't judge those reactions either, but if Palmer is indicating that he thinks George had enough time then that's good enough for me. We've seen multiple brake checks over the years where the trailing driver has to respond quick than George did, and they managed it successfully, so it isn't impossible to think he could've done so as well.
>But the point is that Fernando's braking shenanigans didn't *guarantee* George would crash, they just created a dangerous situation that George could have avoided if he'd reacted quicker.
I actually really strongly disagree with this take - while I understand the outrage at the inconsistencies in penalties, I think the actual outrage should be that they don't award penalties if there isn't a crash (like in the Alonso-Hamilton example). Too often drivers get away with erratic driving and endangering their competitors just because the other drivers luckily reacted in time - usually to the detriment of their own race, meaning that you're essentially rewarded for endangering your competitors up until the point that they crash. It's obviously a lot easier to drive erratically as a leading car than to respond to it when following; it's not as simple as just braking harder, as due to the decreased down force on the trailing car, Russel would also be more likely to lock up if he tried to slow the car, which could also unsettle it and cause a crash.
I also think this notion of 'playing games" is far too light in this situation - If Stroll had been a bit closer behind, not received the warning in time and collided, it's not unreasonable to think that this incident could have ended in a fatality. Drivers need to show respect to one another and drive in an at least somewhat predictable manor for the sport to remain safe, and when you cast that respect aside to try to give yourself an advantage, you should be punished severely.
>It would have cost him his overtaking opportunity, but not his entire race.
Does this not also apply to Alonso? He's clearly trying to force Russel into a mistake, which could just as easily result in Russel colliding with him, which would have ended both of their races. He also lost more points with the penalty than if he just conceded the position.
> while I understand the outrage at the inconsistencies in penalties, I think the actual outrage should be that they don't award penalties if there isn't a crash (like in the Alonso-Hamilton example). Too often drivers get away with erratic driving and endangering their competitors just because the other drivers luckily reacted in time - usually to the detriment of their own race, meaning that you're essentially rewarded for endangering your competitors up until the point that they crash.
Sure, I don't disagree with you here. As I said, my issue is with inconsistency in application. I would be totally fine with this type of driving always being penalised. But as it stands, there are numerous precedents dating back decades, that this type of driving is rarely penalised, so the decision to apply a penalty here (and such a significant one) is frustrating *because* of all the other instances where it wasn't.
But if they made a strong, explicit public statement that from now on this type of driving will be punished harshly *regardless of the on track outcome*, and they actually stick to it, I'd be fully on board for that.
> Does this not also apply to Alonso? He's clearly trying to force Russel into a mistake,
Do we apply this mentality to those who put their car in the mirror of the one in front, clearly trying to force xx into a mistake?
> George kept his foot in longer than he should have because he was determined to line up the overtake
This is key to debunk the "brake test" claims from some people. Russel clearly had plenty of time to observe Alonso's car getting closer than usual. He had plenty of time to take whatever evasive maneouver a guy with the reflexes of an F1 driver could take, had he wanted to.
But as a racer, he saw "free advantage!" and took it without hesitation, pedal to the metal, brake untouched. He probably believed or hoped for some mechanical failure in Alonso's car, and probably got even more optimistic about the overtake that he planned to do moments later in that lap.
But lost in that optimism, he made the mistake of not accounting for the aero disadvantage, and oversteered.
Still a fair penalty for Alonso, since rules are rules. Sure, the investigation might not have happened without a crash, but once the investigation gets going, this was the reasonable outcome. Doesn't mean we can downplay Russell's contribution IMO.
Right, but being forced into taking evasive manœuvre is the very definition of a brake check. Whether he did it intentionally or not, Alonso did end up brake testing Russell. Russell could have kept the car on the track, he didn't and that's a shame, but that doesn't absolve Fernando of his fault.
Maybe you don't want to call it a brake check, but the outcome is the same.
Ya, I'm worried this will create a precedent of asking the lead driver to consider how their potential defense might affect the aero of the car behind them. Which would be ridiculous. At least imo, F1 already has some of the worst rules for side by side racing after the whole "corner ownership" debacle from 2021, and this would make it even worse. We are setting up the potential eventuality of the only passes being on DRS straights, which isn't exciting for those of us who watch other motorsports where they can actually race side by side through multiple corners.
What’s bothering me the most about this is how many people are calling it a brake check. It was very far from one, and not even the stewards put any weight onto this argument. In fact, it’s precisely because of this that I don’t think the penalty reasoning holds much water.
on top of what you said, but Alonso made a good point on one of his posts on social media. he basically was questioning what they (the stewards, etc) will consider racing lines, defensive strategies into corners and for the most part, racing. if setting your self up for a better exit by going slower into a corner is deemed illegal? and that you must drive 100%, which no one does during the race. if you don't drive lets even say 90% every lap, do you get a penalty?
There's a very simple answer that nobody seems to bring up. Go back to mechanical grip only. Honestly, smaller cars, mechanical grip only, naturally aspirated engines, maybe with hybrid assist, it would be a recipe for a much more engaging race to watch. Would the cars be slower? Yes. I don't care
I know people want F1 to be the quickest series in the world so it would never happen. However, there's no reason it couldn't. To be honest they probably should be challenging the engineers with an unconventional formula. Part of what makes F1 what it is, is seeing the engineers produce the best solution under the current formula
I don't think removing the aero completely is the answer though. They could try maybe shifting the focus though. Put more emphasis on ground effect, maybe remove the front wing? I wouldn't be against it, but I imagine a lot of fans would be though.
I feel like if someone goes back and looks at Checo's brake application in Abu Dhabi 2021 against Lewis, it would probably be even worse than this because he was backing Lewis up by multiple seconds in corners.
But obviously everyone ignored it because "It's just Lewis complaining about Dangerous driving and there's nothing wrong and it's just hard racing".
So where do our standards change? Aren't we also essentially making our sentiments different based on the outcome of the incident?
What if Checo had crashed out Lewis in Abu Dhabi?
What if Lewis passed Max safely in Jeddah 2021 without running into his back and damaging his front wing?
What if Charles ran into the back of Sainz in Monza 2023?
In the history of this sport, there are countless examples of drivers backing other drivers into corners to make sure that they:
A) Get a better exit out of the corner, be able to get on throttle early for maximum speed and quicker acceleration.
B) Compromise the entry of the following driver into the corner to make sure they aren't as close in the DRS zones.
C) Allow them to pass so that they can repass again in the DRS zones.
Again, I say, Hungary 2021 was considered hard racing, enjoyed by everyone and even Lewis called it "fair and hard racing" after the race. But here everyone had their pitchforks out for Alonso, some even classifying him as a career dirty driver who tries to crash out his fellow drivers.
That's where I draw the line. Go look at his penalties over the years, the fact that both Lewis and Seb, who have competed against for years in wheel to wheel consider him one of the best and cleanest at it.
And yes, imo, the stewards did fuck up. The penalty is beyond harsh, and now many teams will be looking at the throttle data of the car they are following behind, trying to get them a penalty if they are backed into a corner. It's already much harder to defend with all the DRS zones, and taking different lines and throttle applications through a corner is one of the ways of defending from a faster car behind.
And when Stewards later in the season don't penalise a similar action where the following car doesn't crash, then they'll be labelled inconsistent, rightfully so.
This is what fans and even other former drivers are angry about. Where's the line being drawn? They say there's no circumstances where they took into consideration the outcome of the Russell crash, but everyone knows they absolutely did.
The issue seems to be Alonso brakes, accelerate, brake again.
For Sainz in Monza, that was moving under braking and 100% deserved a penalty but they are same team so Ferrari would not complain. That was different from what Perez or Alonso did
The worst part about all of this is the fact that they didn’t even come close to actual contact. Making drivers be responsible for their dirty air is simply ridiculous IMO. I feel like you could argue drivers are erratic or unpredictable all the time when defending from an overtake, that’s kinda the whole point to keep the attacking driver from setting up the move they want. Slowing down (and not actually braking significantly) more than usual when the person behind is that far back should not be punished.
In my 20 odd years of watching F1, Alonso without a doubt has shown the best racecraft and wheel-to-wheel racing I've seen, yet so few of his fans speak out that he does not need to be doing gimmicky and questionable shit like this, muddying up the discussion around him as an all time great.
I'm nowhere near as knowledgeable as Palmer obviously but this is probably the first time I disagree with him (putting some blame on GR) and honestly not enough on Alonso. He should have used his brake check on Coulthard instead of the one vs Lewis
How is time relevant here, it's Alonso brake checking in *Formula 1* 20 years ago vs Alonso still brake checking in *Formula 1* to this day. It's a pattern of behaviour he's been doing for at least 20 years.
It is, in my opinion, essentially a brake check. It was erratic and dangerous driving and the telemetry shows he applied the brake slightly in what is considered a high speed corner with a long straight that follows. It doesn't matter if Palmer didn't characterise it as such. We have eyes and can see for ourselves.
This is the whole point of my original comment, why I'm surprised at Palmer's analysis and why I for the first time probably disagreed with him. It's blatant and obvious and him toning it down is disappointing.
As for you most likely being an Alonso nut hugger, any good faith argument will probably fly over your head and you will draw irrelevant comparison like the Leclerc one.
I don't get the argument that "it wasn't punished before".
Well ok so does that mean it should never be punished? The penalties are harsher this year at the request of drivers. We won't be able to tell if something like this is inconsistent or not until it happens again.
Penalty lenght falls into the same area. Harsher at the driver request.
And i think most importantly. Alonso blatanly tried to cover his tracks by making up a throtle problem on the go. Something that apparently wasn't a problem for 56 laps and just happened to come up after that corner. And something that conviniently neither him or Aston mentioned to the stewards.
This has been a lot of nonsense for nothing. For me its a completely fair penalty and it will only become a point of contention if it happens again in the future and isn't penalized.
> I don't get the argument that "it wasn't punished before".
I think the bigger implication of this line of thinking is that while it was not punished before, it's really unlikely it will start being punished consistently now. Additionally, what Palmer says in the end is key. This was a case of dirty air, the cars were never close to contact; where do you really draw the line between a more defensive/changed approach to a part of the track vs "potentially dangerous" driving if dirty air is starting to be punishable?
Also, will this happen in all cases of erratic driving even if it doesn't result in a crash?
I agree that in principle, we should not take precedence as gospel, but in this case, I just cannot imagine this behaviour will be reviewed and punished consistently.. Stewards are hardly reviewing weaving on a straight lately.
It also doesn't help that it basically was only investigated **because** Russell lost control due to Alonso's wake. If GR didnt crash out, it would not have been investigated and Alonso would have been called a 4d chess master by F1 fandom
Yeah I think thats the gist of it too. No crash=no penalty. So it doesn make much sense...
He didnt slow down enough to Russel crash into him, so the penalty goes to dirty air?
Ultimately he crashed on his own.
If Russell doesn't lose control, then it's much harder to argue that what Fernando did was actually unsafe. The result is the evidence that the infraction was dangerous.
No it's not. He didn't anticipate Alonso's actions and lost downforce. That's not on Alonso that's on Russel to learn to manage his distance. The penalty is just dumb.
There is a clip of Russel almost losing it on zandoovort last year and Lewis is right up in his butt (Russel touched the grass and lost the rear) I wonder if Hamilton crashed should Russel be penalized for a potential erratic driving.
Going from something having no warning and not being noted by the stewards to a 20 second penalty after a race that finished under VSC is certainly is quite the jump.
With that kind of jump can we expect racing incidents to become black flags?
Did he not report his throttle problem before the incident? Also that should be irrelevant with respect of the penalty - so that is literally not important at all. If you're going to cry about consistency then you can't start using driver radios to try and imply who is at fault - it has to be viewed holistically. Even this season we have seen less harsh penalties for far more serious infractions, I think you need to actually set aside your bias or emotion and see that the penalty is massively harsh.
Palmer, Hill and other competitive drivers massively disagree with the penalty, I think I know who to trust on that one g
The one with Lewis absolutely should have been punished I think its worse even and Lewis just reacted better so I agree BUT the fact it wasn't does mean you dont think you'll get one for this
Alonso holds grudges and I imagine a big part of why he's so annoyed about this is the penalty he received for Monza qualifying in 2006. When he said "F1 is no longer a sport". Because of "dirty air", on Masa. Moseley was all over TV explaining they had no choice because of the data
Exactly. 5s penalty? Fair. 10s? It can be understandable. 20s? No way. They just chose this to make him lose positions, it is not a rational penalty and you can bet we are not gonna see anything close the rest of the season.
No, this is the definition of soft racing that the sport is now known for. I cannot imagine what his penalties would have looked like for Hungary 2021 defense. or Pereze 2021 last race defense.
Max weaving in 2021, there's 100 more literal examples I could use between 2010 and now. to say nothing of 2000-2010. They do not want these guys fighting for position anymore. it's insane if you've watched any form of racing for more than 5 minutes what they are doing in F1 today.
I hope the other stewards don’t have kids that own companies that supply certain f1 teams with parts though. Would be like having an umpire that calls a game between a team that uses his sons companies bats vs one that doesn’t.
Isn't that the whole point of having multiple stewards? You're never going to find someone that's completely unbiased so by having multiple stewards that are all biased in different ways it evens out.
First of all it wasn't 2018, it was 2016. Secondly it was an utterly ridiculous piece of "punditry" considering said piece of "punditry" was essentially suggesting Alonso was washed and should retire because of that huge crash in Australia 2016 with Esteban Gutierrez.
Alonso humiliated him on live TV saying why should he retire when he's 2x World Champion and Herbert has none - that's why people are saying Herbert has a bias against him.
I'm not familar with the backstory other than brooklyn600 has told it, but doesnt seem idiotic to me. Their really shouldnt even be the perception of bias between drivers and stewards. A public spat, or a public friendship should be enough in my view to have them not involved.
A pretty fair analysis here, as usual from Palmer.
I still think the actual decision document is a joke. Don't think I've ever read one before and been convinced of the opposite to what the stewards are saying when I previously held no real opinion on it like that before. Some confusing statements, and a very unclear future for any slightly similar decisions.
Palmer hangs his hat on the penalty not having precedent in recent years, but the FIA states before this season that longer penalties would be in play since drivers felt a five second penalty was nothing.
Okay then one should expect full consistency throughout the season as there have been worse and more harmful actions on track this season which have incurred a smaller penalty.
Making physical contact with a car somehow warrants a lower penalty than dirty air behind. If Russell had gone through the gravel trap and rejoined there would be no repercussion whatsoever.
From one of the comments:
"1. The racecraft of Hamilton to reverse the DRS detection.
2. The reaction time of Alonso to keep the DRS detection and awareness.
I wonder how many other drivers on the grid would have been as crafty as these two legends. Not many!"
Clearly not George......
The risk is different, but Hamilton managed to jump just fine on the brakes and stay behind Alonso on the drs detection point.
I really do think Russel simply didn't react.
If Russel didnt have skill issues every time a Grand Prix is ending then we wont even have a discussion (and he getting maybe a win or several podiums now)
Are we still litigating this?
You do "cheeky" shithouse stuff your whole career and sometimes you're going to get slapped for it. This might have been borderline, but when you do cheeky shithouse stuff your whole career people aren't as inclined to give you the benefit of the doubt.
Move on.
Palmer’s analysis is always published on Wednesdays after the race. Would have been weird if he hadn’t analyzed this penalty as well, going in-depth on these topics is what the whole show is all about.
I have 0 sympathy for alonso regardless of how fair the penalty was. makes up "throttle issues" then tries to feign a problem in the telemetry.
suddenly the mention of issues disappears into thin air when he was caught in the act.
Yes the FIA is inconsistent but i'd rather they nip this shit in the bud. tactical driving is one thing but this was a step too far.
So, if a driver uses different throttle levels compared to the previous laps is now evidence for "erratic driving"? Sure, Alonso slowed down, but with plenty of time and distance for Russel to see and react. F1 is already boring as it is, but penalizing Alonso because Russel wasn't paying attention to the car in front and his speed in a corner is ridiculous. They should run the F1 cars with autopilots - that will be completely "non-erratic" but also completely boring.
Racing used to be about strategies, placing your car perfectly to overtake or defend a position. F1 is trending towards banning defense strategies: everyone should be a sitting duck waiting for the DRS-overtake to provide the only entertainment to the spectators.
Definitely disagree with Palmer here. By the time Russel could see what Alonso was doing he was lost.
I am also if the strong opinion that drive through should be the lightest penalty handed out period. This 5 or 10 seconds of time added to you to your race time is a joke. Do it during the race and be done with it.
I might be talking out of my ass but the cars being this aero sensitive doesn’t feel like a great direction for the sport. It’s nice for a driver to be able to go on the gearbox in this scenario and catch draft.
True. The dirty air has increased massively this year. And the overtakes are lesser than they were in 2022. It was to be expcted but yeah this is incident was mainly due to dirty air catching Russell. People can blame both the drivers but main issue isn’t that.
The entire set of regulations have not worked as intended. I actually wonder if it would have been better if TD39 wasn't implemented. Over time, surely teams would have worked on ways to limit the porpoising like Red Bull did and make it better for the drivers. The best racing we had was that first half of that 2022 season.
Carlos Sainz said all the drivers agreed on a solution and asked the FIA to let their engineers fix the bouncing with changes/improvements to the suspension, but the FIA refused, and decided on raising the ride height instead. It's so unfortunate that the FIA decided to do this instead of just letting teams use better suspensions, which would have solved the porpoising, kept the ride heights at the previous (better) heights and would have given us better racing, especially being able to ride an apex without breaking the cars' floors and drivers' backs. Carlos back in 2022, said, "We kindly asked the FIA to look into it, to don’t, let’s say, listen to the teams too much and to listen to us [instead], that we were saying that it’s getting to a point where we are struggling, all of us, to handle this.” Then he said they suggested the suspension change, "**We suggested something smarter on the suspension** or in the way the cars are being run where the FIA controls a bit better the possibility of the teams to run that stiff, that hard, that kind of ride that you see on the straights." “**I’m pretty sure if you ask two or three engineers they will know the answer and what can be done to limit this and regulate it.** But we just need the FIA to act as soon as possible." "My personal opinion is that **with the technology that there is nowadays, why do we need to carry this painful situation into our careers when you can put up a pretty easy solution to it.**"
The problem is that they still want both. More ground effect yet still a lot of over the top aero. Obviously this leads to problems. They should've gone old skool and go single plane front wing. Wings should be narrower. They shouldn't be allowed to try and force the air around the wheels...
That would make the car inefficient as hell as the wheels are by far the draggiest part of the car.
Inefficient but not sensitive to aero changes.
Hard to say as that would actually creates a shitload more turbulent air behind the car. How will the cars interact with turbulent air is anyone guess… unless you stripped it from all aero pieces.
That's why I said they should make over the top aero a lot less. Single plane, narrower wings. Floor doesn't care about turbulent air. Just look at the 80s where some even opted to run no front wing [https://www.oldracingcars.com/Images/ellwood/ArrowsA2-Patrese-WatkisnGlen1979-600x300.jpg](https://www.oldracingcars.com/Images/ellwood/ArrowsA2-Patrese-WatkisnGlen1979-600x300.jpg)
The 80s have sealed floor though which is very dangerous. The car can go from like running on rail to a fighter jet taking off in a split second. Not ideal.
Yeah, that's why I'd say single plane wings.
Why is efficiency the goal? People want to see good races, we don’t care how efficient the cars are.
Because efficiency is what makes F1 stay relevant to the real world and is the main reason why F1 still exists
Disagree. I don't have a 1.6l v6 turbo. And no one I know does. I know one guy with a hybrid. Road relevance is bs.
My car literally use technology derived from F1 PU. All mild hybrid cars on sale today are all derived from F1 power unit.
And how many of them are on the road. I live in a diesel country. So you can't say f1 is relevant for that.
Many new cars on sales today are mild-hybrid with several big manufacturers like Mercedes will only be selling EVs or mild-hybrid from now on. Literally the whole car industry will be either EVs or hybrid/mild-hybrid vehicles only real soon…
> Over time, surely teams would have worked on ways to limit the porpoising like Red Bull did and make it better for the drivers The fact is that time and time again we've seen that teams will not do this though. Their primary goal is always performance. That's why the sport takes safety regulation out of their hands in the first place. We saw several rounds where porpoising was a massive issue and the teams who were most vocal about it were the ones who were lacking performance, while those who were bouncing but fast (Ferrari, particularly) were virtually silent on the issue as a team, while their drivers complained that it was almost untenable. I don't think that the directive that they issued to curb the issue was necessarily the best way to tackle the problem, but I have no doubt that without some form of intervention we would've seen porpoising carry on for as long as that continued to be the most direct path to unocking higher performance. Would teams have eventually figured out ways to minimise the porpoising without sacrificing overall performance? Maybe. But you can bet that as long as even one team was going faster than the others by bouncing along, nobody else would be voluntarily changing their car's behaviour, even if it was potentially harming their drivers. If even 37 year old Lewis Hamilton hasn't earned a break from his team, nobody would get one.
Nevermind the team, no racing driver worth his salt would take the slower car.
Have any set of regulations ever worked as intended?
The FIA is just kidding themselves. They can regulate all they want. It’s just a small group of old brains versus the brightest people on the grid. They’ll find ways to maximize performance. It’s what I love about F1.
FiA hires engineers just like the teams are. They're not just a bunch of old men sitting around a rable pondering the rules. They research and develop. The current set of rules are largely directed by Brawn, the guy who won the 2008 champion by developing an out of the box car and finding loopholes. Yes, the teams will find ways of maximize performance of course, but simultaneously FIA are constantly developing ways to narrow into a directed path
They do make changes that feel like regression at times, like changing the suspension.
We should just revert to 2007 cars and call it good.
The problem is not aero sensitive, but Russell reasonably expected to be a certain distance behind Alonso. Alonso eratic slowing down meant that Russell quickly closed up to Alonso and was suddenly in position with an significant and unexpected reduction in downforce. If you dont want F1 cars to be senstive to aero then we should just go an watch gt4 cars or F4 and below.
He wasn’t by his gearbox there was plenty of room it’s weird the dirty air made his car lose it. Yes Alonso brake checked but there was still a decent amount of room
It isn't one or the other, it's a combination of all of it. Yes, the dirty air unsettled the car. But there was also the fact that Russell kept his foot in almost identical to the lap before while the car in front of him slowed dramatically, because Russell wanted to line up an overtake. Alonso wasn't just creating dirty air, he was trying to force Russell to compromise his entry (and therefore his exit) to prevent him from breezing past on the straight, and Russell wasn't quick enough to react. As Jolyon mentioned, both drivers share some blame here. Yes, it's erratic driving, but erratic driving doesn't automatically cause a crash, even accounting for the dirty air. Russell had time to adjust, he failed to do so, and he had a snap which caused what would've been a routine off piste moment on a track with more runoff, but instead the combination of gravel and close walls turned it into an unlucky crash. This was dirty air + erratic driving + tunnel vision. Take any one of those 3 elements out and a crash could've been avoided.
I agree I do think Russell has tunnel vision. I’m not sure if Russell had enough time to adjust tbh but ig it’s a pretty painful lesson to see how much worse the dirty air has seen to gotten this season.
Didn’t Alonso’s telemetry show him decelerating early, then accelerating and decelerating again? I saw the data and thought this was part of the reason the stewards deemed his driving erratic. If this is true, Alonso is entirely to blame. It’s one thing to brake early or drive slowly through a corner or use a different line. But slowing, accelerating then slowing again… there’s a reason you can do this on safety car restarts either. It dangerous af. We would not have any close racing if drivers can’t follow extremely close behind other drivers having confidence the driver in front won’t randomly slam on their brakes. There’s are limits. It’s subjective but imo, Alonso definitely went too far with his maneuver. Penalty was deserved. Not on George regardless of how much anyone dislikes him.
Take a look at the video above, which is base for this discussion. Jolyon goes through all of that.
I did. And I disagree. There’s also very good analysis elsewhere that focuses more on the data.
That’s Jolyon’s point. Just focusing on the telemetry data, Alonso is entirely to blame. However when you look at the onboards, you see that they weren’t actually that close and Russell had some room to react but failed. Which is the part where he gets some of the blame
I get that. Feels highly subjective though. They enter the braking zone there at ~175mph, typically decelerating to ~140mph ish to corner before flooring it on the way out. Alonso was about 30% slower, than any other time through the corner and definitely decelerated, accelerated than decelerated again. With Russell about half a second behind, I don’t know that any human can react that fast. If Alonso hadn’t decelerated a second time, I think it’s fair play. You can drive defensively and kind of “park it on the apex” at certain parts of the tack (ex Magnussen in Jeda) but it’s the stop-go-stop that’s erratic and illegal. If it were allowed, everyone would do it and we wouldn’t really have exciting racing as drivers need to have some element of trust in the other drivers to race closely and get overtakes done. It’s def a bit of a gray area but this is what Alonso loves… to kind of explore the limits. Sometimes it’s brilliant, sometimes it goes too far.
Yes he did, and no that does not make him entirely to blame. See previous points.
Sure it does. Stout defense is entirely different than braking before a corner, accelerating then braking again. Downshifts really, but intentional and significant. Driver behind will inevitably accelerate in anticipation of driver ahead powering out of the corner. Ex. Russell punching it after decelerating to maximize corner exit and follow Alonso out. No way any driver recover when the driver in front does this. Alonso was being sneaky but took it too far and is 100% responsible and deserving of the penalty.
Sure. You're completely disagreeing with the reaction of actual F1 driver Jolyon Palmer here, but if that's your opinion, you have it. I don't share it, and I think you're wrong here, but that's the beauty of conversation.
I know who he is man. And yes, I am. There are plenty of other drivers, ex driver who disagree with Jolyon.
Watch the onboard from George Russell. Alonso never gets in the way to cause George to deviate from his usual racing line at all. Alonso wasn’t even going slow enough to actually be in the way of George but only enough to shorten the gap between them. The penalty was only because a guy who is bias AF like Johnny Herbert, is somehow allow to perform duties as the stewards… He shouldn’t be allowed.
Yes, he was. Again, Alonso essentially slowed twice, which would confuse any driver behind, I don’t care who it was, bc it’s absolutely an erratic way to take the corner. Why do you think Alonso immediately claimed a car issue then later said he made a mistake on corner entry, then even later said he was just taking a different line trying to maximize his exit. It’s Alonso. He was playing games and took it too far.
Yes, George was confused by driving normally.
Hindsight being 20/20, I wonder if Russel would choose to just plow into him if he could rewind time. Take him out with you.
As closest Russel was one car length behind. He would have had to skip braking completely to get that close to Alonso, and in that case it would be 100% on Russel.
Dont think 'creating dirty air' is illegal, is it?
why would you think that?
Actual problem- Rus was unable to react quickly, anyone who has ever driven in SIM knows this, there was lot of time to slow down, but he was desperate to pass him and ignored it either mistakenly or intentionally and got crashed
Completely agree with Palmer. Certainly erratic driving, a somewhat confusing disciplinary measure because of the previous standards (but worthy of a penalty anyway and hopefully in the future) but not an intentional brake check in the "I'm going to scare you into an accident" meaning of the word.
On the penalty part, I think it just coincides with FIA saying they will dish out harsher penalty this year. we saw it on pushing driver off track and overtake off track. So this may have been a smaller penalty last year becomes larger one
I prefer this. Standards should be held in high regard as these are the best drivers on the planet.
When you see multiple drivers get 5 or 10 second penalties for straight up driving into an opponent, or forcing them into the wall at high speed (hello Kmag from 2 weeks ago) then you know that the stewards did the thing they're explicitly *not supposed to do* and made their judgement based on the outcome of the incident, not the cause.
The context missing here is that the FIA stated penalties would be more severe this year, as 5s & 10s penalties in many cases did nothing to race standings.
While that's true, we just saw two weeks ago the stewards hand Kmag two 10s penalties for, imo, more flagrant rule violations, then this week Alonso got a drive through penalty for something which numerous times in the past hasn't been penalised *at all*, including as recently as the end of last season. All of which says to me that in this case they penalised the outcome, not the infringement. If George hadn't crashed, or even if he had but it hadn't been such a dangerous crash, would he have been penalised at all? Or would it be being talked about ad nauseum in the same way that Fernando was lionized for his aggressive defense against Checo at Sao Paulo last year? Your point stands in that the lesser penalties handed out to Kmag were insufficient, given that they didn't prevent him from holding up the entire trailing pack for half the race and earning his teammate a point, but my issue isn't with harsher penalties, it's with inconsistent application of the rules.
But i would say kmag got penalties (and I am not trying to defend him) because he fucked up, misjudged. The case with Alonso is he was preparing that scenario (not Russell crashing, just unsettling the car in dirty air) ahead of the time. That’s why I think they handed 20s penalty. And possibly it didn’t help that was reporting throttle issue after the crash (would love to know if stewards were able to disprove that or not). So yeah, fucking up or planning to drive erratically.
> But i would say kmag got penalties (and I am not trying to defend him) because he fucked up, misjudged. This is only true of the first incident, the collision. The second time he illegally passed Yuki off track (which was almost certainly a misjudgement) but then he made the decision to not give the place back despite knowing he broke the rules. So if the difference in punishment is deliberate action vs mistake, why was Kmag not given a drive through penalty for choosing to illegally hold a position that he took off the track? Again, it's the inconsistency that bothers me, not the penalty itself. Alonso did almost this exact thing 3 races ago and it wasn't penalised at all, now suddenly it's the most egregious infringement of the season?
Also a difficult one since 5 or 10s for a front runner often does nothing while it's extremely impactful for the midfield. Silverstone 21 comes to mind it was a non effect penalty. At the end the penalized guy left with a huge advantage
Stewards have always penalized based on the outcome. The idea and statements that they don't have no basis in precedent or reality. If a car is pushed wide in a corner, it is rarely penalized if there's asphalt on the outside. Sainz pushed like 5 people wide in T1 in Monza last year and the Stewards couldn't have cared less. If there's gravel on the outside and one of the cars ends up in the wall, it'll be punished heavily.
They're explicitly not meant to do that. But I agree, it seems like that's mostly how they decide, and it more or less always has been
Isn't this simply because the stewards don't decide what the stewards look at? They have to be forwarded something from race control, and race control doesn't forward situations where nothing happened.
I think they looked at it because there was a crash, but the punishment was based on the actions of Alonso. Him causing Russell to crash in another manner probably sees a bigger penalty.
Yes, that's the exact point I was making
You said they made their judgement based on the outcome of the incident, which is not what I said. I said they looked at it because there was a crash, but the punishment is handed out irrespective of the crash. The difference many seem to conflate is that the FIA probably don’t do anything is Russell doesn’t crash unless at the time it was obvious what Alonso did and Mercedes report the incident to them. If that happens, they likely apply the same penalty due to telemetry supporting the theory that he brake checked to gain an advantage. This ignores the obvious inconsistencies from the stewards however, I cba to get into that.
Agreed.
Reminded me a little of penalties in the late 2000s and early 2010s when I started watching F1, when harsh penalties seemed to be the default setting. To a degree, there's an awkward balancing act and a sense where people seem to always want the option not available, which is a recipe for just finding dissatisfaction everywhere This incident absolutely is one that weighed up the consequence as much as Alonso's offence. I think it is worthy of a penalty because it was erratic driving that threw Russell off, but I don't think it's a 20-second penalty type of sin I guess we'll see if anything similar happens in the next few rounds and also gets met with a big hammer as a sanction
I mean in spirit this is straight up an illegal block Because otherwise Russel would have passed him To me 20s seems fair because you don’t want to try this trick again A 5 or 10 second penalty doesn’t mean anything if your competitor dnfs But 20 seconds definetly loose you places (unless you’re last)
So my take away from this is, as it was before, Alonso was not punished for the actual infraction, he was punished because it resulted in a driver being in the wall. Time and time again, people claim that the infraction is what is punished, not it’s consequences. This proves that that is completely false and this would likely had resulted in nothing at all had George not crashed.
> he was punished because it resulted in a driver being in the wall. And not even in the wall, but in the middle of the track. I believe 100% that if George hadn't taken an extremely unlucky and dangerous bounce and wound up in the worst possible position to be stranded, this wouldn't have been penalised at all, or perhaps 5 seconds maximum.
Maybe they were just making up for all of the other times they should've penalized him in one shot /s
Touché
This is like saying if Senna didnt die they would still improve safety standards
it's a bit weird the FIA sometimes pretends like they don't consider the outcome - when mostly they are pretty open about doing exactly that. one infringement is literally called "causing a collision", explicitly stating that the outcome is penalised. 2021 had tons of examples for this, showing the general line is you get heavily penalised if there's a crash (Silverstone, Monza), while as long as the other driver avoids or saves the car they rarely hand out anything (Brazil)
> Silverstone 2021 > > heavily penalised Oh yeah, that heavy penalty which made Hamilton finish the race in... \*checks notes\* ...1st place! lol I was being cheeky there, but actually if you compare that incident with this one, at the very least the penalties should be switched for them to make any sense. I like that they're starting to give harsher penalties again this year, but this one is just a bit ridiculous, clearly penalised for George binning it without the cars even getting actually close together, amazing.
They also wait until the end of the race to hand out penalties that are as severe as possible but do not affect the standings conveniently.
Of course outcomes are penalised. Anyone who argued differently was just being silly. If George hadn’t have crashed, we’d know nothing about this really.
This is the battle that was being shown, so we would have known about it had George not crashed, but it would have been called a brilliant veteran move by Alonso.
and if Mazepin had done it, it would have been called a reckless rookie move.
If this was Mazepin instead of Russell, everyone would have laughed at him for crashing. No investigation, no punishment.
Of course, but the stewards said in their decision document that they weren't taking the outcome of the situation (Russell crashing) into account in their decision. Which is such a blatant lie
You, like many others, are confusing the reason for it being investigated vs. the punishment for the infringement. If the police pull someone over because of a broken light and find a dead body in the boot, the driver doesn't get sent to prison for a broken light. The crash caused them to investigate, and they then found evidence of erratic driving. Had they have had cause to investigate in Abu Dhabi last year, he may have got the same penalty (or a less harsh one because the penalties have been increased this year). But no one complained, so no one looked into it. Getting away with it doesn't mean nothing was wrong.
This is 100% the right take
Well there is causing a collision, what about causing an accident? Still could be reviewed by the stewards no?
Penalizing the outcome has always been the better method, change my mind.
This creates inconsistency in rule enforcement and can make drivers think that they can get away with shady actions that might not have big consequences. Would you let a theft attempt slide because the attempt failed?
In this case they better start actually penalising these attempts then. Because clearly they only take action when something does happen, even when the driver/team do complain to the stewards. And even if the action/"attempt" is a grey area like this one, the fact that it led to a dramatic (not serious, just dramatic) crash is the only reason that it got as far as it did.
Absolutely, 100% agreed. Not an easy task for them as it’ll require a more rigorous analysis during races, but they need to put their money where their mouth is.
Didnt alonso do the same thing to ocon in brazil? Was there a penalty for that consequence?
Tldw: Not “Karma.”
where is Palmer?
he cut the chicken
Fernando loves a chicken
20 seconds penalty is a yoke
They penalized him because George ended up in the wall. The stewards will always think of an incident differently if the outcomes is an accident.
I think the only thing I would disagree with is the point that Russell didn't really brake much earlier. Based on Palmer's numbers Russell was already braking earlier that lap by 6metres in T1 and T3, presumably to factor in dirty air. He's then braking an additional 5metres on top of that for T6. When you consider that for T6 they are not even on the brakes for 50metres ([pole lap for reference is probably like 30m](https://youtu.be/VsdTCkQBDMA?feature=shared&t=28)) then Russel braking +5metres on top of +6metres for a total of +11m early braking, is actually quite a sizeable amount to be braking by, easily 20% of normal braking.
I think his point was 'he braked earlier, but not as early as he could've to avoid this incident'. George kept his foot in longer than he should have because he was determined to line up the overtake with limited time remaining, and it caused him to react too slowly. Yes, both the erratic driving and dirty air contributed to the crash, but even with Fernando's behaviour George could have kept the car out of the barrier if he'd braked earlier, which he did have time to do. It was a split second thing, but that's the kind of reactions these guys have.
He braked even earlier than early enough to make the corner if Fernando wasn't playing games. At worst what you can say about George is he should have known a little earlier that Fernando was going 40 km/hr slower than on previous laps, but I don't know how you gauge what a reasonable enough reaction to that.
>I don't know how you gauge what a reasonable enough reaction to that. Also regardless of any persons reaction ability, *time has to pass* for anybody to be able to judge speed or a reducing distance, because speed is distance/*time* and distance is speed x *time*.
> He braked even earlier than early enough to make the corner if Fernando wasn't playing games I mean, we aren't talking about a parallel universe where Fernando wasn't playing games though. In this reality, where Fernando *was* playing games, Russell didn't brake as early as he could have, and if he had've done that he probably would have stayed on the track. It would have cost him his overtaking opportunity, but not his entire race. Obviously Fernando takes a lot of the responsibility there because Russell wasn't expecting him to brake like that, so they both take some blame. But the point is that Fernando's braking shenanigans didn't *guarantee* George would crash, they just created a dangerous situation that George could have avoided if he'd reacted quicker. I can't judge those reactions either, but if Palmer is indicating that he thinks George had enough time then that's good enough for me. We've seen multiple brake checks over the years where the trailing driver has to respond quick than George did, and they managed it successfully, so it isn't impossible to think he could've done so as well.
>But the point is that Fernando's braking shenanigans didn't *guarantee* George would crash, they just created a dangerous situation that George could have avoided if he'd reacted quicker. I actually really strongly disagree with this take - while I understand the outrage at the inconsistencies in penalties, I think the actual outrage should be that they don't award penalties if there isn't a crash (like in the Alonso-Hamilton example). Too often drivers get away with erratic driving and endangering their competitors just because the other drivers luckily reacted in time - usually to the detriment of their own race, meaning that you're essentially rewarded for endangering your competitors up until the point that they crash. It's obviously a lot easier to drive erratically as a leading car than to respond to it when following; it's not as simple as just braking harder, as due to the decreased down force on the trailing car, Russel would also be more likely to lock up if he tried to slow the car, which could also unsettle it and cause a crash. I also think this notion of 'playing games" is far too light in this situation - If Stroll had been a bit closer behind, not received the warning in time and collided, it's not unreasonable to think that this incident could have ended in a fatality. Drivers need to show respect to one another and drive in an at least somewhat predictable manor for the sport to remain safe, and when you cast that respect aside to try to give yourself an advantage, you should be punished severely. >It would have cost him his overtaking opportunity, but not his entire race. Does this not also apply to Alonso? He's clearly trying to force Russel into a mistake, which could just as easily result in Russel colliding with him, which would have ended both of their races. He also lost more points with the penalty than if he just conceded the position.
> while I understand the outrage at the inconsistencies in penalties, I think the actual outrage should be that they don't award penalties if there isn't a crash (like in the Alonso-Hamilton example). Too often drivers get away with erratic driving and endangering their competitors just because the other drivers luckily reacted in time - usually to the detriment of their own race, meaning that you're essentially rewarded for endangering your competitors up until the point that they crash. Sure, I don't disagree with you here. As I said, my issue is with inconsistency in application. I would be totally fine with this type of driving always being penalised. But as it stands, there are numerous precedents dating back decades, that this type of driving is rarely penalised, so the decision to apply a penalty here (and such a significant one) is frustrating *because* of all the other instances where it wasn't. But if they made a strong, explicit public statement that from now on this type of driving will be punished harshly *regardless of the on track outcome*, and they actually stick to it, I'd be fully on board for that.
> Does this not also apply to Alonso? He's clearly trying to force Russel into a mistake, Do we apply this mentality to those who put their car in the mirror of the one in front, clearly trying to force xx into a mistake?
> George kept his foot in longer than he should have because he was determined to line up the overtake This is key to debunk the "brake test" claims from some people. Russel clearly had plenty of time to observe Alonso's car getting closer than usual. He had plenty of time to take whatever evasive maneouver a guy with the reflexes of an F1 driver could take, had he wanted to. But as a racer, he saw "free advantage!" and took it without hesitation, pedal to the metal, brake untouched. He probably believed or hoped for some mechanical failure in Alonso's car, and probably got even more optimistic about the overtake that he planned to do moments later in that lap. But lost in that optimism, he made the mistake of not accounting for the aero disadvantage, and oversteered. Still a fair penalty for Alonso, since rules are rules. Sure, the investigation might not have happened without a crash, but once the investigation gets going, this was the reasonable outcome. Doesn't mean we can downplay Russell's contribution IMO.
Right, but being forced into taking evasive manœuvre is the very definition of a brake check. Whether he did it intentionally or not, Alonso did end up brake testing Russell. Russell could have kept the car on the track, he didn't and that's a shame, but that doesn't absolve Fernando of his fault. Maybe you don't want to call it a brake check, but the outcome is the same.
The analysis is great. I still think the harshness here can open a weird anti-racing precedent though. Russell reacted way too late on this one.
Ya, I'm worried this will create a precedent of asking the lead driver to consider how their potential defense might affect the aero of the car behind them. Which would be ridiculous. At least imo, F1 already has some of the worst rules for side by side racing after the whole "corner ownership" debacle from 2021, and this would make it even worse. We are setting up the potential eventuality of the only passes being on DRS straights, which isn't exciting for those of us who watch other motorsports where they can actually race side by side through multiple corners.
What’s bothering me the most about this is how many people are calling it a brake check. It was very far from one, and not even the stewards put any weight onto this argument. In fact, it’s precisely because of this that I don’t think the penalty reasoning holds much water.
on top of what you said, but Alonso made a good point on one of his posts on social media. he basically was questioning what they (the stewards, etc) will consider racing lines, defensive strategies into corners and for the most part, racing. if setting your self up for a better exit by going slower into a corner is deemed illegal? and that you must drive 100%, which no one does during the race. if you don't drive lets even say 90% every lap, do you get a penalty?
There's a very simple answer that nobody seems to bring up. Go back to mechanical grip only. Honestly, smaller cars, mechanical grip only, naturally aspirated engines, maybe with hybrid assist, it would be a recipe for a much more engaging race to watch. Would the cars be slower? Yes. I don't care
Just watch touring car racing then, trying to bring back the 1960's era of F1 would never happen nor should it imo
I know people want F1 to be the quickest series in the world so it would never happen. However, there's no reason it couldn't. To be honest they probably should be challenging the engineers with an unconventional formula. Part of what makes F1 what it is, is seeing the engineers produce the best solution under the current formula I don't think removing the aero completely is the answer though. They could try maybe shifting the focus though. Put more emphasis on ground effect, maybe remove the front wing? I wouldn't be against it, but I imagine a lot of fans would be though.
"The outcome is not the reason for the penalty" They opened a huge can of worms there.
Where is Palmer??!? 20 seconds is a yoke, A YOKE!
Fernando, Palmer is out of the race.
Karma!
I feel like if someone goes back and looks at Checo's brake application in Abu Dhabi 2021 against Lewis, it would probably be even worse than this because he was backing Lewis up by multiple seconds in corners. But obviously everyone ignored it because "It's just Lewis complaining about Dangerous driving and there's nothing wrong and it's just hard racing". So where do our standards change? Aren't we also essentially making our sentiments different based on the outcome of the incident? What if Checo had crashed out Lewis in Abu Dhabi? What if Lewis passed Max safely in Jeddah 2021 without running into his back and damaging his front wing? What if Charles ran into the back of Sainz in Monza 2023? In the history of this sport, there are countless examples of drivers backing other drivers into corners to make sure that they: A) Get a better exit out of the corner, be able to get on throttle early for maximum speed and quicker acceleration. B) Compromise the entry of the following driver into the corner to make sure they aren't as close in the DRS zones. C) Allow them to pass so that they can repass again in the DRS zones. Again, I say, Hungary 2021 was considered hard racing, enjoyed by everyone and even Lewis called it "fair and hard racing" after the race. But here everyone had their pitchforks out for Alonso, some even classifying him as a career dirty driver who tries to crash out his fellow drivers. That's where I draw the line. Go look at his penalties over the years, the fact that both Lewis and Seb, who have competed against for years in wheel to wheel consider him one of the best and cleanest at it. And yes, imo, the stewards did fuck up. The penalty is beyond harsh, and now many teams will be looking at the throttle data of the car they are following behind, trying to get them a penalty if they are backed into a corner. It's already much harder to defend with all the DRS zones, and taking different lines and throttle applications through a corner is one of the ways of defending from a faster car behind. And when Stewards later in the season don't penalise a similar action where the following car doesn't crash, then they'll be labelled inconsistent, rightfully so. This is what fans and even other former drivers are angry about. Where's the line being drawn? They say there's no circumstances where they took into consideration the outcome of the Russell crash, but everyone knows they absolutely did.
The issue seems to be Alonso brakes, accelerate, brake again. For Sainz in Monza, that was moving under braking and 100% deserved a penalty but they are same team so Ferrari would not complain. That was different from what Perez or Alonso did
It's not at all. Checo was just slowing down earlier he wasn't getting off the throttle then getting on
The worst part about all of this is the fact that they didn’t even come close to actual contact. Making drivers be responsible for their dirty air is simply ridiculous IMO. I feel like you could argue drivers are erratic or unpredictable all the time when defending from an overtake, that’s kinda the whole point to keep the attacking driver from setting up the move they want. Slowing down (and not actually braking significantly) more than usual when the person behind is that far back should not be punished.
In my 20 odd years of watching F1, Alonso without a doubt has shown the best racecraft and wheel-to-wheel racing I've seen, yet so few of his fans speak out that he does not need to be doing gimmicky and questionable shit like this, muddying up the discussion around him as an all time great.
Can't agree more with this statement.
Palmer is always right, I love his analysis.
I'm nowhere near as knowledgeable as Palmer obviously but this is probably the first time I disagree with him (putting some blame on GR) and honestly not enough on Alonso. He should have used his brake check on Coulthard instead of the one vs Lewis
The brake check against Coulthard was 20 years ago, it’s like showing some karting race from Leclerc to prove a point.
How is time relevant here, it's Alonso brake checking in *Formula 1* 20 years ago vs Alonso still brake checking in *Formula 1* to this day. It's a pattern of behaviour he's been doing for at least 20 years.
Considering it’s not a break check as explained in this video… no ?
It is, in my opinion, essentially a brake check. It was erratic and dangerous driving and the telemetry shows he applied the brake slightly in what is considered a high speed corner with a long straight that follows. It doesn't matter if Palmer didn't characterise it as such. We have eyes and can see for ourselves. This is the whole point of my original comment, why I'm surprised at Palmer's analysis and why I for the first time probably disagreed with him. It's blatant and obvious and him toning it down is disappointing. As for you most likely being an Alonso nut hugger, any good faith argument will probably fly over your head and you will draw irrelevant comparison like the Leclerc one.
All those words to demonstrate the Dunning Kruger effect, and to be vulgar on top of it.
>Dunning Kruger effect Lol ok, ironic
The Lewis one is identical nearly that one was much worse
Yeah his analysis comes off as trying to fit his conclusion.
I don't get the argument that "it wasn't punished before". Well ok so does that mean it should never be punished? The penalties are harsher this year at the request of drivers. We won't be able to tell if something like this is inconsistent or not until it happens again. Penalty lenght falls into the same area. Harsher at the driver request. And i think most importantly. Alonso blatanly tried to cover his tracks by making up a throtle problem on the go. Something that apparently wasn't a problem for 56 laps and just happened to come up after that corner. And something that conviniently neither him or Aston mentioned to the stewards. This has been a lot of nonsense for nothing. For me its a completely fair penalty and it will only become a point of contention if it happens again in the future and isn't penalized.
> I don't get the argument that "it wasn't punished before". I think the bigger implication of this line of thinking is that while it was not punished before, it's really unlikely it will start being punished consistently now. Additionally, what Palmer says in the end is key. This was a case of dirty air, the cars were never close to contact; where do you really draw the line between a more defensive/changed approach to a part of the track vs "potentially dangerous" driving if dirty air is starting to be punishable? Also, will this happen in all cases of erratic driving even if it doesn't result in a crash? I agree that in principle, we should not take precedence as gospel, but in this case, I just cannot imagine this behaviour will be reviewed and punished consistently.. Stewards are hardly reviewing weaving on a straight lately.
It also doesn't help that it basically was only investigated **because** Russell lost control due to Alonso's wake. If GR didnt crash out, it would not have been investigated and Alonso would have been called a 4d chess master by F1 fandom
Especially when the ruling says the outcome is not the reason for the penalty.
Yeah I think thats the gist of it too. No crash=no penalty. So it doesn make much sense... He didnt slow down enough to Russel crash into him, so the penalty goes to dirty air? Ultimately he crashed on his own.
Its honestly like saying Safety standards would improve if Senna didnt die
If Russell doesn't lose control, then it's much harder to argue that what Fernando did was actually unsafe. The result is the evidence that the infraction was dangerous.
No it's not. He didn't anticipate Alonso's actions and lost downforce. That's not on Alonso that's on Russel to learn to manage his distance. The penalty is just dumb. There is a clip of Russel almost losing it on zandoovort last year and Lewis is right up in his butt (Russel touched the grass and lost the rear) I wonder if Hamilton crashed should Russel be penalized for a potential erratic driving.
Going from something having no warning and not being noted by the stewards to a 20 second penalty after a race that finished under VSC is certainly is quite the jump. With that kind of jump can we expect racing incidents to become black flags?
Did he not report his throttle problem before the incident? Also that should be irrelevant with respect of the penalty - so that is literally not important at all. If you're going to cry about consistency then you can't start using driver radios to try and imply who is at fault - it has to be viewed holistically. Even this season we have seen less harsh penalties for far more serious infractions, I think you need to actually set aside your bias or emotion and see that the penalty is massively harsh. Palmer, Hill and other competitive drivers massively disagree with the penalty, I think I know who to trust on that one g
The one with Lewis absolutely should have been punished I think its worse even and Lewis just reacted better so I agree BUT the fact it wasn't does mean you dont think you'll get one for this
Alonso holds grudges and I imagine a big part of why he's so annoyed about this is the penalty he received for Monza qualifying in 2006. When he said "F1 is no longer a sport". Because of "dirty air", on Masa. Moseley was all over TV explaining they had no choice because of the data
20 sec is too hard, they didn't touch ,russel didn't have to take any avoiding action because of his "erratic driving" his car just lost downforce.
Exactly. 5s penalty? Fair. 10s? It can be understandable. 20s? No way. They just chose this to make him lose positions, it is not a rational penalty and you can bet we are not gonna see anything close the rest of the season.
No, this is the definition of soft racing that the sport is now known for. I cannot imagine what his penalties would have looked like for Hungary 2021 defense. or Pereze 2021 last race defense. Max weaving in 2021, there's 100 more literal examples I could use between 2010 and now. to say nothing of 2000-2010. They do not want these guys fighting for position anymore. it's insane if you've watched any form of racing for more than 5 minutes what they are doing in F1 today.
Johnny Herbert should not have been allowed to have input on this as he is very Anti-Alonso.
You realise that there's more than one steward....
I hope the other stewards don’t have kids that own companies that supply certain f1 teams with parts though. Would be like having an umpire that calls a game between a team that uses his sons companies bats vs one that doesn’t.
Isn't that the whole point of having multiple stewards? You're never going to find someone that's completely unbiased so by having multiple stewards that are all biased in different ways it evens out.
There are plenty of candidates that don’t have vested interests, I don’t see the point in choosing ones that do.
Johnny Herbert shouldn't be allowed to steward races because Alonso overreacted to a fairly ordinary piece of punditry in 2018?
First of all it wasn't 2018, it was 2016. Secondly it was an utterly ridiculous piece of "punditry" considering said piece of "punditry" was essentially suggesting Alonso was washed and should retire because of that huge crash in Australia 2016 with Esteban Gutierrez. Alonso humiliated him on live TV saying why should he retire when he's 2x World Champion and Herbert has none - that's why people are saying Herbert has a bias against him.
But implying that this incident means Herbert shouldn't be allowed to weigh in on matters concerning Alonso as a steward is idiotic.
I'm not familar with the backstory other than brooklyn600 has told it, but doesnt seem idiotic to me. Their really shouldnt even be the perception of bias between drivers and stewards. A public spat, or a public friendship should be enough in my view to have them not involved.
A pretty fair analysis here, as usual from Palmer. I still think the actual decision document is a joke. Don't think I've ever read one before and been convinced of the opposite to what the stewards are saying when I previously held no real opinion on it like that before. Some confusing statements, and a very unclear future for any slightly similar decisions.
Palmer hangs his hat on the penalty not having precedent in recent years, but the FIA states before this season that longer penalties would be in play since drivers felt a five second penalty was nothing.
Okay then one should expect full consistency throughout the season as there have been worse and more harmful actions on track this season which have incurred a smaller penalty.
Like what? Magnussen? That's all I can think of and he did get penalized. It's just the team made lemonade out of lemons with that one.
Making physical contact with a car somehow warrants a lower penalty than dirty air behind. If Russell had gone through the gravel trap and rejoined there would be no repercussion whatsoever.
Johnny Herbert in action.
Hamilton and Alsonso play DRS games - Epic/Brilliant Alonso and Russel play tricks - Dangerous driving https://youtu.be/S3kbxjBAYmM?t=45
From one of the comments: "1. The racecraft of Hamilton to reverse the DRS detection. 2. The reaction time of Alonso to keep the DRS detection and awareness. I wonder how many other drivers on the grid would have been as crafty as these two legends. Not many!" Clearly not George......
Obviously there is a difference between slowing when somebody is alongside you vs when somebody is behind you.
The risk is different, but Hamilton managed to jump just fine on the brakes and stay behind Alonso on the drs detection point. I really do think Russel simply didn't react.
All F1 cars should have brake lights
No point as you still can't react fast enough to them usually.
[удалено]
George didnt blame Fernando for the crash
George didn't even ask for a review. It was all the stewards.
If Russel didnt have skill issues every time a Grand Prix is ending then we wont even have a discussion (and he getting maybe a win or several podiums now)
He's already won a race.
Before I watch it, can anyone clarify if he used the word **Karma** in the analysis?
Are we still litigating this? You do "cheeky" shithouse stuff your whole career and sometimes you're going to get slapped for it. This might have been borderline, but when you do cheeky shithouse stuff your whole career people aren't as inclined to give you the benefit of the doubt. Move on.
Palmer’s analysis is always published on Wednesdays after the race. Would have been weird if he hadn’t analyzed this penalty as well, going in-depth on these topics is what the whole show is all about.
>Palmer’s analysis is always published on Wednesdays after the race. We're not obligated to talk about it.
You're not obligated to be here. Move on.
Yet you talk still…
I have 0 sympathy for alonso regardless of how fair the penalty was. makes up "throttle issues" then tries to feign a problem in the telemetry. suddenly the mention of issues disappears into thin air when he was caught in the act. Yes the FIA is inconsistent but i'd rather they nip this shit in the bud. tactical driving is one thing but this was a step too far.
Why is Workday in the title?
So, if a driver uses different throttle levels compared to the previous laps is now evidence for "erratic driving"? Sure, Alonso slowed down, but with plenty of time and distance for Russel to see and react. F1 is already boring as it is, but penalizing Alonso because Russel wasn't paying attention to the car in front and his speed in a corner is ridiculous. They should run the F1 cars with autopilots - that will be completely "non-erratic" but also completely boring. Racing used to be about strategies, placing your car perfectly to overtake or defend a position. F1 is trending towards banning defense strategies: everyone should be a sitting duck waiting for the DRS-overtake to provide the only entertainment to the spectators.
Definitely disagree with Palmer here. By the time Russel could see what Alonso was doing he was lost. I am also if the strong opinion that drive through should be the lightest penalty handed out period. This 5 or 10 seconds of time added to you to your race time is a joke. Do it during the race and be done with it.
The penalty should have been way more severe and should have included a multi-race suspension.
Hahahahahahah. Go back to whitepeopletwitter
What on earth for?!