At the end of the day, it comes down to FIA wants drivers to battle but hasn’t made rules of engagement.

I think Hamilton probably should have backed out because Max clearly had the speed and angle to tackle the second part of the chicane. FIA’s ruling only makes sense if they are basically arguing the entire chicane is just one “feature”/turn. I don’t know any that says anything to that effect. Let me know if I am wrong on that.

I'm not an expert and wouldn't know who is to blame, but what kind of irks me is that Lewis was blamed for silverstone, got 10s penalty which he shrugged off easily and still won the race. Now Max gets a penalty after taking both out of the race and it is a very significant penalty that basically can not be overcome

What Max and Lewis say after the race is ofc totally standard. Nobody wants to accept the blame. Neither did in Silverstone.

In the mean time, F1 is licking their chops and social networks explode. There is no better way to get publicity for the sports.

Mercedes is playing the "OMG Lewis could have been killed without that halo" card

I would prefer to be Lewis in this accident over Max in Silverstone accident, AINEC

Since he could have been killed without the halo, it is still a decent card to play.

Obviously in a vacuum a crash at a 190mph corner is going to be more dangerous than at a slow chicane but 95% of the safety features in these cars are geared towards making high speed collisions safer.

I would say that the risk of any injury was higher in the Silverstone accident but the risk of life-altering injury/death is probably higher in this sort of freak accident. Max's wheel was directly on top of Lewis's helmet at one point and without the halo it's not hard to believe that he would have had serious neck/spinal damage.

In terms of fault and punishment it seems like a roughly equivalent penalty to what Lewis got at Silverstone and that seems reasonable to me.

Considering the penalty on Hamilton meant absolutely nothing, it's hard for Max's grid penalty to be worth less.

Well the penalty meant nothing because Lewis was so much faster than the rest of the field and was able to overtake. If Max were to be similarly fast in the next race then the 3 place grid penalty would be equally meaningless. In fact iirc Hamilton effectively lost 3 places immediately due to the incident and penalty.

In terms of the harshness of the penalties relative to other penalties Hamilton's was larger than the minimum 5s in-race penalty whereas I think Verstappen's 3 grid spots is the minimum penalty that is given for future races.

The only real reason that this penalty could be seen to be harsher is that Lewis will be in the race where Max is serving the penalty while Max was out of the race when Lewis served his. However for that to be a real argument for things to be different (as opposed to just arguing that it's unfair but acknowledging that there isn't a better option) you'd have be asking for penalties to be based not just on the severity of the infraction but also on the subjective opinions of the stewards as to the impact that the penalty would have. Personally I think that would be absurd and achieve nothing other than creating even more controversy.

And just to be clear I'm talking specifically about how penalities are given when the stewards have deemed someone to be at fault. There are certainly reasonable arguments about whether or not the incidents warrant penalties at all but given that penalties were being given in each case they're as equivalent as they could be.

Isn't Max just gonna get his engine change out of the way next race and render the 3-grid penalty moot also?

the problem here is that max shouldnt get a penalty at all for that specific incident at all, but imo he should get some sort of sanction for the lap 1 move. at least a warning. i wonder if the stewards penalized his "body of work" during the race?

Apart from the fact that the race had already begun when Lewis got the penalty and so avoided the crazy antics of a 1st few laps of a race that Max is going to have to deal with being slightly buried or completely buried in the field depending on whether he takes the engine penalties as well next race.

I think the decision is fair with Max getting a penalty while Lewis also got part of the blame because he squeezed him onto the curbs. If there were no sausage curbs then both would most likely still be racing after just bumping a bit.
Penalty itself is meaningless. Next race was always the most likely for Max to take a new engine as it is not a RedBull favoured track and Max can overtake there like he did before by going from last to within the points in 3 laps or so. Now it is a no brainer.
Interesting question is that Mercedes says they want another engine in the pool for Lewis as well so is he going to take that at the same time. Odds of them crashing again when both starting at the back has to be pretty high.

The current engine is only 4 races old.
They have 8 races to go. I would expect Red Bull to not be thrilled with this development.

This guy has a pretty good analysis again:



Cliffs: he says "Racing incident" but is blaming Lewis a bit for giving Max some room, where he didn't have to. If he'd gone more aggressive, Max wouldn't even have tried. Now he let the door open a bit, Max went for it even though has was always going to be running out of road. So imo Max made the last mistake and he made it when he was behind, so he gets the majority of the blame.

Whether it is enough to warrant a penalty - the stewards thought so.

This. The whole "results are not looked at" thing is pure crock. They are making up rules post-incidents so they just ignore all infractions that don't result in "incidents."

I'm perfectly fine with the analysis. But it's not the analysis FIA offered. My sense is this should have been a racing incident where neither is truly at fault. If I had to assign fault, I am still leaning toward Hamilton not really communicating what he is trying to do, giving Max reasons to think he could fight there.

PS: the video said it's "almost a miscommunication" almost as soon as I finished typing. So looks like I am not the only one to think so. Again, better definitions of rules of engagement and letting drivers know what to do would have probably helped here.

Lewis should have been penalized for Silverstone as he knocked Max out of the race and he was able to continue (and win). They both share some blame.

In this race they again both share some blame but they managed to knock each other out of the race. No penalty for either. I'd personally like to see them both penalized and make them start from the pit the next race. It would be way more interesting than this horseshit and might teach them a lesson.

now thats a good idea right there

Then Mercedes would just throw another engine into the pool so they still win.

This has occurred to me too. Give them both a grid penalty, the same or Max +2 if you think he was the main cause of this accident

As a signal to: stop this bullshit

I doubt they will even consider such a thing, because F1 thrives with this kind of drama

I honestly don’t see what Lewis did wrong in that last race.

He didn’t let Max past, Max took an insanely tight spot and caused them both to crash out.

On Sat in a similar spot with Lewis trailing, Max didn’t let him past and Lewis pulled out

Excuse the language but it will do - watch the first corner https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQgJ1T8V7hQ

Here's from Max's view

https://youtu.be/4egdMwxAFl4?t=34

- You can see going into the first turn that Lewis very purposely moves over to the left to cut off Max
- Max maintains his outside line and stays as close to the curb as possible
- Lewis refuses to give him room even though there is room for Lewis to his right which he could use to prevent a collision.

Both of them are driving dangerously. Max is forcing his way in and Lewis is very purposely squeezing Max in to force him on the curb and slow him down so he either goes off the course and can't pass or he has to drop back.

They both know what they are doing.

im 100% a lewis fan, but i am not allowed (by myself) to let that cloud judgement. i always ask: "what would i say if the cars were exactly reversed", and in that case, id be pissed. max had an overlap the entire time, so in my mind, he is entitled to space (just like lewis was on lap 1). for me, the crash was either a racing incident or a lewis at fault slightly. however, again, i feel like the stewards are penalizing max for his "body of work" that race.

Quite a few people that do have infuence within F1 are saying the same thing so maybe it will happen. Could even increase drama when Lewis and Max both need to pass Bottas and Perez. Would be even better if you have a 3 way fight for WDC/WCC because then this type of squeezes and risk taking would definitely drop a lot as the person not in the crash gains too much.

only just realised that the title thread is 2020-21 Formula 1 rather than 2021 Formula 1, why is that?

It is for both years.