TheĀ StewardsĀ doĀ notĀ considerĀ thisĀ toĀ beĀ aĀ typicalĀ caseĀ ofĀ āchangingĀ directionĀ under brakingāĀ althoughĀ itĀ isĀ ourĀ determinationĀ thatĀ theĀ driverĀ ofĀ CarĀ 44Ā couldĀ haveĀ done moreĀ toĀ avoidĀ theĀ collision.
Iām honestly a bit surprised. Saying Lewis could have done more to avoid is irrelevant to if Max caused anything. Max was never going to make that corner at that speed. So long as Lewis wasnāt weaving under braking, it is my understanding he can pretty much take the corner how he wants to. Iām not an encyclopedia for past incidents, but I think drivers have been penalized for behavior similar to what Max did in the past.
On overall balance I think itās not too wild to filter this as a racing incident and leave it there, but I agree that even suggesting Lewis should have done more is strange. Itās definitely on Max here.
I feel like its rare they donāt blame one driver for late race incidents. With no evidence or examples, I feel like Iāve seen more questionable incidents lead to penalties. I know they say they donāt take outcome into consideration, but both cars drove away mostly undamaged and Max lost a few places.
If Max had taken them both out, which was entirely possible, then weād be looking at this very differently. Heās definitely very unsettled now which is showing in his driving and radio
Heās insufferable on the radio, honestly. I only got a chance to watch 10 minutes of highlights and he annoyed me to no end in that time. Being pissy with his team and then with everyone else.
This is going to keep happening as the cars are a lot closer at the front than they have been for years unless the FIA start clamping down on it. You canāt overtake if you canāt make the corner and you cannot make the corner if you lock up both fronts because you went it far too hot. Even if Lewis braked to a standstill Max would have still locked up and over shot as he did earlier in the race
He clearly lost control of his vehicle.
This race I was surprised by two things: how easily Max lost his chill and that this incident wasnāt punished.
I things keep going like this, the constructors might be in danger, but Max himself is comfortably ahead. But if he always removed around and damages morale like that the moment heās not ahead, that will drag the team down.
And how TF could a dive bomb with contact like that go unpunished? At first I thought Max was out to get Lewis - it looked more like a soccer tackle than an attempt to navigate the corner. Is this really how weāre racing in the fastest series? Crazy.
And how TF could a dive bomb with contact like that go unpunished?
So if Lewis avoided the contact, which believe me he could have easily, should there have been no penĀæ?
Landoās 2nd divebomb in Austria was very similar(with both fronts locked up and coming in way too hot) , the difference just being that verstappen opened his steering and avoided Lando. There was not even a discussion if that was a dangerous move.
I find it very hypocritical that peopleās(including the stewards) opinion changes wildly depending on the outcome even though everybody preaches that the penalty shouldnāt depend on the outcome
This race Verstappen seemingly got emotional about all that went wrong internally at Red Bull this season. Weāve seen him fuming on the radio before, but today it impacted his actual racecraft leading to mistakes we admittedly rarely see by Verstappen (some people mindlessly echo Crofty seemingly knowing exactly how much sleep Verstappen needs, lol).
Also, while I like GPs passive-aggressive banter, it didnāt really help to calm Verstappen down today. It likely made it worse.
I donāt think Hamilton couldāve done a lot more besides moving further to the outside, but I donāt think he expected Verstappen to lock up so it wouldāve been insanely hard to react to. Calling this a racing incident is honestly fine I think. The divebomb was optimistic at best, but Iāll say that this was driver error instead of malicious intent or intentional rule-breaking.
While itās still highly unlikely that Verstappen switches teams anytime soon, it might not be as far-fetched as we thought. Iād honestly love to see him in a different team like Mercedes.
Will be interesting to see how good Red Bull will be at Spa.
What a joke a cry baby Max is. Too much sim racing for him