2016 F1 Spanish Grand Prix

[ChrisM40]

Are gifs OK? if not delete it:
http://i.cubeupload.com/88FW1B.gif
As a negative example - not normal line as opposed to Rosberg's normal, differences: A. in front (defending) vs next to. B. both changing line vs only one. Similarities: name and lack of penalties You can treat the other car as off track (doesn't really matter).

Not really sure what that gif proves, since its completely irrelevant and unrelated to the incident in this race. Face it, you are wrong, and just about everyone, including people far better qualified and experienced than you, think it was at worst 50/50, are more like 60/40 Rosbergs fault.

F1 is not like road driving, you cant apply normal road rules to it, which is what you are doing. Even in touring cars the 'Rosberg' car would get a penalty, let alone in single seaters like F1. Argue all you like, but it was Rosberg that didnt get a penalty here, not Hamilton.

The fact is Rosberg was SO slow that if Hamilton had backed off the car in third would have been right on them both, possibly causing a wave of braking all up the field, there may have been more accidents as a result, Rosberg was a mobile road block. In this level of racing you race flat out in the expectation that all cars around you are doing the same, if one car isnt, and decides to block, its just plain dangerous. Rosberg was lucky the Red Bull was far enough behind Hamilton that it didnt cause further trouble.

[NL_Fer]

27.6 More than one change of direction to defend a position is not permitted. Any driver moving back towards the racing line, having earlier defended his position off-line, should leave at least one car width between his own car and the edge of the track on the approach to the corner.

27.7 Any driver defending his position on a straight, and before any braking area, may use the full width of the track during his first move, provided no significant portion of the car attempting to pass is alongside his. Whilst defending in this way the driver may not leave the track without justifiable reason.
For the avoidance of doubt, if any part of the front wing of the car attempting to pass is alongside the rear wheel of the car in front this will be deemed to be a ‘significant portion’.

Rosberg was not returning to the raceline, but defending his position and allowed to use the full width of the track, slamming the door on Hamilton. Also Hamilton was not allongside at the moment Nico closed the door, not yet. So it was a legal defensive move.

Personaly i think Rosberg again failed under stress and shouldn't have forgotten to set the right engine mode.

[Carmack]

27.7 Any driver defending his position on a straight, and before any braking area, may use the full width of the track during his first move, provided no significant portion of the car attempting to pass is alongside his. Whilst defending in this way the driver may not leave the track without justifiable reason.
For the avoidance of doubt, if any part of the front wing of the car attempting to pass is alongside the rear wheel of the car in front this will be deemed to be a ‘significant portion’.


Hamilton had his front wing alongside Rosbergs rear wheel, as shown in a photo below, so, according to the rules, Rosberg should left space.



This is how I see it.

edit: Typo, and a qouting error, but you'll get it.

[aral]

Come on guys.! The race is over. The stewards have reviewed the data and video and found that it was purely a racing incident. Yes you will all have individual opinions, but that does not make any one posters comment fact or fiction. Please stop this tit-for -tat attacks on each other.
Thanks.

[NL_Fer]

Let s continue about race strategy. Verstappen told on Dutch tv they put him in the two stop, because he had slightly lower degradation then Ricciardo. Still, the speed avantage of soft was gone after 6 laps, those tires were just not durable enough to make any undercut work.

[A-Bap]

Can help but think about Kyvat:

- Could he have qualified 4th in the RB 12? Yes
- Could he have won the race in the RB with the same strategy as Max's? Yes?
- Is Max's win the grand validation that everyone seems to think it is? Don't believe so

My opinion: this a PR win more than anything else.

[Jolle]

https://youtu.be/yC05YfPIBVc

https://youtu.be/PwS88mlgsM8

You could say, Hamilton could expect Rosberg would go all the way to the other edge of the track

[GrayGreat]

- his line was perfectly normal and it's not even debatable by any objective criteria

Yeah, it's perfectly normal to cross from the left edge of the track to the right edge of the track within 200m! What makes it even more normal is the fact that the racing line was on the outer left edge of the track at that point.

Now, the sarcasm was obvious: No, his line wasn't normal in any way. If he left a car width room in this move, then yes, it would be okay. But Rosberg did not.

rules are very clear and your blind fanaticism doesn't change them.

Indeed, the rules are very clear. The rules require the defending driver to leave a car width room if the attacking driver is next to you with his front wing.

I have already stated this a lot of times, I'll try to explain one more time, so bear with me.

First of all, everyone know the rule about leaving a car's width when someone is alongside. Fair.

Now consider two cars moving in a straight line, the car behind gets out of slip stream, gets alongside, and then the car in from closes the door. Its the fault of the leading driver. No arguments.

But in this case, Nico started moving to the right before Hamilton was not even close to being alongside. Rosberg kept moving right because Hamilton was not alongside, and Hamilton kept going there as well. After that, Lewis got alongside for about a fraction of a second, before going off the track, please keep in mind that we are talking about tenths here, 3, 4, 5 at max. Now Rosberg was supposed to look in his mirrors, see that Hamilton was alongside, and change the angle of his steering wheel, all within 5 tenths at max, now let's be fair, I think that is not possible. Do you think it is possible? Stewards described it as racing incident because of the same point. Lewis was alongside for such a short period of time that it was not enough to realize what was going on, hence Nico kept going right.

[aral]

Can help but think about Kyvat:

- Could he have qualified 4th in the RB 12? Yes
- Could he have won the race in the RB with the same strategy as Max's? Yes?
- Is Max's win the grand validation that everyone seems to think it is? Don't believe so

My opinion: this a PR win more than anything else.

So, it was all a PR stunt to get the two Mercs to take each other out, thus allowing Verstappen to win?

[GoranF1]

I think Helmut Marko pulled a "Webber" on Ricciardo, whit strategy.

[Restomaniac]

No idea. I think most fanboys miss the point, that the decisions had to be made in milliseconds with this speed difference. And both drivers made them wrong. Ham did not do the easy overtake on the racing line and Ros closed the gap.

I agree that in hindsight the easy overtake was the racing line due to Rosbergs speed.
However at that moment the place you go to overtake is to the Right. Hamilton went where you would normally go only to find Rosberg going further and further Right due to him focusing on his engine settings on his wheel.

If you look at it in super slow motion yes...but in reality there was no "further and further", the situation was too fast to control.
By the way, Ros finished his wheel adjustments right when he exited the corner. So "focusing on his engine settings" was already done when he closed the gap. Also for this one I think everything just happend too fast due to the high speed difference and this is also what the stewards said.

I'm not playing the blame game here. I do still think Hamilton was probably thinking 'where the hell is Nico going?' right at the point he realised he was screwed one way or another.

[Restomaniac]

I agree that in hindsight the easy overtake was the racing line due to Rosbergs speed.
However at that moment the place you go to overtake is to the Right. Hamilton went where you would normally go only to find Rosberg going further and further Right due to him focusing on his engine settings on his wheel.

If you look at it in super slow motion yes...but in reality there was no "further and further", the situation was too fast to control.
By the way, Ros finished his wheel adjustments right when he exited the corner. So "focusing on his engine settings" was already done when he closed the gap. Also for this one I think everything just happend too fast due to the high speed difference and this is also what the stewards said.

Like it matters when it happened, it's just another excuse for usual diluting and shifting attention from basic facts. They think that talking about Rosberg changes Hamilton's driving, what was he focusing on BTW? Certainly not on getting his braking points right and keeping the car on track. At least treating some engine mode as an obligatory element or nitro boost/full stop got old. "It happened too fast"? Like every stupid attempt/collision, so what?

Now it's Rosberg focusing on his wheel adjustments that is at fault . He could have smoked a pipe or played a banjo and it doesn't change anything. His line was perfectly normal and so was his speed, what wasn't normal was Hamilton bad attempt, going off track, losing a car and causing a collision. "But you see Rosberg was going further and further and further..." on his normal one defensive move and Hamilton expected him to disappear. Amazingly he didn't.

You think Rosberg being in the wrong mode, being underspeed and having to make adjustments didn't start the chain of events?
His line was nothing like normal sorry. The normal line is over the Left edge. However at that point Rosbergs line is totally over to the Right.

Rosberg knew he was well down on speed. From there is doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that Hamilton is going to attack or he sits behind a very slow Rosberg and falls straight into the hands of Ricciardo. Once Hamilton goes to the overtake line it's either commit or drop his anchors and watch Ricciardo sail past on the normal line.
Hindsight would have Hamilton take the normal line and sail past but the overtake line is where instinctively Hamilton went. He clearly didn't expect a slow Rosberg to slam the door shut like he did.

You are turning this into an anti Rosberg comment. I said right at the start that the stewards got it spot on.

[A-Bap]

Can help but think about Kyvat:

- Could he have qualified 4th in the RB 12? Yes
- Could he have won the race in the RB with the same strategy as Max's? Yes?
- Is Max's win the grand validation that everyone seems to think it is? Don't believe so

My opinion: this a PR win more than anything else.

So, it was all a PR stunt to get the two Mercs to take each other out, thus allowing Verstappen to win?

Stunt? Not exactly, no. I didn't say that. But I think PR, and sponsors have been significant factors in the MaxV storyline that brought him to that podium.

He's a rare talent, to be sure. I don't mean to take that away. But his getting the Big Trophy on last Sunday was due to luck, politics and money, more than skill. For Red Bull, Max's importance and value transcends winning races and points. I think they're setting him up to be a massive money maker on the marketing and sponsorship front, and Riccardo is going to be the new Webber.

[Restomaniac]

- his line was perfectly normal and it's not even debatable by any objective criteria

Yeah, it's perfectly normal to cross from the left edge of the track to the right edge of the track within 200m! What makes it even more normal is the fact that the racing line was on the outer left edge of the track at that point.

Now, the sarcasm was obvious: No, his line wasn't normal in any way. If he left a car width room in this move, then yes, it would be okay. But Rosberg did not.

rules are very clear and your blind fanaticism doesn't change them.

Indeed, the rules are very clear. The rules require the defending driver to leave a car width room if the attacking driver is next to you with his front wing.

I have already stated this a lot of times, I'll try to explain one more time, so bear with me.

First of all, everyone know the rule about leaving a car's width when someone is alongside. Fair.

Now consider two cars moving in a straight line, the car behind gets out of slip stream, gets alongside, and then the car in from closes the door. Its the fault of the leading driver. No arguments.

But in this case, Nico started moving to the right before Hamilton was not even close to being alongside. Rosberg kept moving right because Hamilton was not alongside, and Hamilton kept going there as well. After that, Lewis got alongside for about a fraction of a second, before going off the track, please keep in mind that we are talking about tenths here, 3, 4, 5 at max. Now Rosberg was supposed to look in his mirrors, see that Hamilton was alongside, and change the angle of his steering wheel, all within 5 tenths at max, now let's be fair, I think that is not possible. Do you think it is possible? Stewards described it as racing incident because of the same point. Lewis was alongside for such a short period of time that it was not enough to realize what was going on, hence Nico kept going right.

I get what you are saying but let us remember that Rosberg was well underspeed. He surely musy have known that Hamilton wasn't going to hold station at that speed. Where then did Rosberg think Hamilton was going to go?
Yes it was a defensive move but at the difference is speeds it's hard to believe that Rosberg didn't see Hamilton breezing past him as a possible outcome. Yet he slammed the door shut anyway at those differences in speeds?
Not Rosbergs fault in totality as it all happened very bloody quickly but let us at least admit that Rosberg's actions to Hamilton's expected and normal reactions made a dodgy situation worse.

[anel2ka]

27.7 Any driver defending his position on a straight, and before any braking area, may use the full width of the track during his first move, provided no significant portion of the car attempting to pass is alongside his. Whilst defending in this way the driver may not leave the track without justifiable reason.
For the avoidance of doubt, if any part of the front wing of the car attempting to pass is alongside the rear wheel of the car in front this will be deemed to be a ‘significant portion’.


Hamilton had his front wing alongside Rosbergs rear wheel, as shown in a photo below, so, according to the rules, Rosberg should left space.

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800x60 ... 3LkfD4.jpg

This is how I see it.

edit: Typo, and a qouting error, but you'll get it.

Was rule 27.7 not active in Spa 2014? Honest question.