2020 Austrian Grand Prix - Spielberg, 3-5 July

[FrukostScones]

Racing incident. Albon should have had more patience.

[Sevach]

I never said it wasnt legal. I said it’s a challenge, because the inside line gives that driver the edge in regards to position and defense. If you are on the outside, you are always vulnerable to the car on the inside moving outwards. It’s simple physics. Not to mention last year it was deemed to be a viable “racing maneuver”.

In the end, penalty or not, Albon was in the quicker car at that point and risked his car and his position with a risky move. He finished outside the top 10 while Hamilton still finished 4th. That says enough really.

Bad for Hamilton in regards to the championship, yes, but WDC or not, i dont expect him to jump out the way every time a car tries to race him. And as others pointed out, at the beginning of the race, the positions were reversed and Hamilton was left out to dry by Albon, yet he was smart enough to back out despite being in the faster car. Tells you more than enough about racing smarts.

What irks me about the stewards penalty is because it feels like they only gave it because Albon lost so many position, not because Hamilton did anything wrong. If he was solely to blame, why not throw the book at him? This is the wrong reason to give out penalties IMO.

The whole pushing a guy wide is illegal, has been illegal forever, there's some tolerance/gray area to it(and yes the same Albon squeezed Hamilton on lap 1) what there isn't is a "well he took the risk" addendum to the rules.
But it is illegal to push someone wide if the car is far enough alongside, otherwise you might as well forbid overtaking around the outside.

Hamilton decided to wait, Albon went for it, and i think a penalty was fair, doesn't help Albon but what you're gonna do...

[McMika98]

Racing incident. Albon should have had more patience.

Nope Lewis should have been given a drive through, a 6 time world champion can control his car after turning and must be aware of the car in front.

Albon's racecraft is impressive, he knew he had a 2lap window with his soft to get to the Merc, after that he would be lapping around same laptime as them so he could not get the overtake done especially with the straight-line speed defeciet.

[El Scorchio]

What irks me about the stewards penalty is because it feels like they only gave it because Albon lost so many position, not because Hamilton did anything wrong. If he was solely to blame, why not throw the book at him? This is the wrong reason to give out penalties IMO.

100% this. They definitely gave it because Albon spun, rather than just ran wide and didn’t make the pass or lost one place. Very poor stewarding. Judge the contact and not the consequences.

What Vettel did earlier in the race was objectively worse, yet because it didn’t impact the driver he hit, no penalty. Him spinning was ‘justice’ but you can’t change how to apply the rules based on that. This is why we get into so many stupid situations and why there are so much arguments about decisions made and penalties handed out. The rules aren’t applied with any consistency whatsoever.

There are stacks of similar situations and collisions, but the decision to penalise or not seems to be utterly subjective.

[Just_a_fan]

Racing incident. Albon should have had more patience.

Nope Lewis should have been given a drive through, a 6 time world champion can control his car after turning and must be aware of the car in front.

Albon's racecraft is impressive, he knew he had a 2lap window with his soft to get to the Merc, after that he would be lapping around same laptime as them so he could not get the overtake done especially with the straight-line speed defeciet.

What utter tosh. He was penalised in a loss of race points and he had 2 penalty points added to his licence too. For a racing incident.

[NathanOlder]

Racing incident. Albon should have had more patience.

Nope Lewis should have been given a drive through, a 6 time world champion can control his car after turning and must be aware of the car in front.

Albon's racecraft is impressive, he knew he had a 2lap window with his soft to get to the Merc, after that he would be lapping around same laptime as them so he could not get the overtake done especially with the straight-line speed defeciet.

Of course, if only Albon could see Lewis left enough room, Albon wouldnt have hit Lewis. Albons racecraft was aweful in that corner.

[tpeman]

What irks me about the stewards penalty is because it feels like they only gave it because Albon lost so many position, not because Hamilton did anything wrong. If he was solely to blame, why not throw the book at him? This is the wrong reason to give out penalties IMO.

100% this. They definitely gave it because Albon spun, rather than just ran wide and didn’t make the pass or lost one place. Very poor stewarding. Judge the contact and not the consequences.

What Vettel did earlier in the race was objectively worse, yet because it didn’t impact the driver he hit, no penalty. Him spinning was ‘justice’ but you can’t change how to apply the rules based on that. This is why we get into so many stupid situations and why there are so much arguments about decisions made and penalties handed out. The rules aren’t applied with any consistency whatsoever.

There are stacks of similar situations and collisions, but the decision to penalise or not seems to be utterly subjective.

Not quite sure about that, but I don't think Vettel actually hit Carlos, I believe he just locked the brakes and spun without making contact. Don't quote me on that though.

[cplchanb]

I watched the onboards. I don't think by providing criticism I am a "hater", it is generally a very overused word. Anyways, here is some footage from his FP3 lap and the moment of the accident. So you say a difference of around 10-15 degrees is "full lock".
Also, I'd like to point out that Albon was heading for the kerb, which obviously isn't in the direction of Lewis.

Full lock
https://i.imgur.com/4Byov8Y.png

Lewis' lock during the incident
https://i.imgur.com/4Bn5Ygx.png

Edit:

Fixed images not showing.

You need to understand how steering through a corner works first buddy. Lewis would be on the limit of adhesion (limit of grip) If he adds more lock , the car understeers more. You dont just turn more to go tighter. The cars are on the limit, the front has no more grip to give, If it did, he would have gone faster. Turning the wheel like you want him to would mean the contact with Albon would have been greater.

I know this. But as you probably know, we're not talking about speeds of 250+km/h, this was 80-120, somewhere around this range. The lock on his FP3 lap was done with 71 km/h, which is his apex speed. Also, you can check the steering lock Bottas applied on the last corner of his pole lap, which is quite a lot similar to the lock Hamilton applied today. I don't know the concrete speed, but he took it in middle revs 5th gear. I'd say quite a lot faster than what Hamilton did today. You could say it's due to race setup, onboard fuel and tire wear, which is true - and this is exactly why he should've backed off, just like Norris did when Leclerc overtook him.

theres also the factor that hamiltons tyres were near the end of its life and was just after SC which means they were still getting back up to working temps. This was turn 4 so there were not that many corners to generate heat/grip on really old tyres.

[holeindalip]

Can we all agree DAS is safe and withstood wheel to wheel banging without damage??

[sprint car76]

Not only the first corner, check out the next 2 corners. Albon gave him no room. The corner where they clashed ck the room Albon didn't give him on that corner.

[siskue2005]

Can we all agree DAS is safe and withstood wheel to wheel banging without damage??

Why didnt they use to gain straight line speed on the straights? especially when Lewis was attacked by Albon?

[matt_b]

Where did Mercedes even use DAS? Behind the SC?

[siskue2005]

What irks me about the stewards penalty is because it feels like they only gave it because Albon lost so many position, not because Hamilton did anything wrong. If he was solely to blame, why not throw the book at him? This is the wrong reason to give out penalties IMO.

100% this. They definitely gave it because Albon spun, rather than just ran wide and didn’t make the pass or lost one place. Very poor stewarding. Judge the contact and not the consequences.

What Vettel did earlier in the race was objectively worse, yet because it didn’t impact the driver he hit, no penalty. Him spinning was ‘justice’ but you can’t change how to apply the rules based on that. This is why we get into so many stupid situations and why there are so much arguments about decisions made and penalties handed out. The rules aren’t applied with any consistency whatsoever.

There are stacks of similar situations and collisions, but the decision to penalise or not seems to be utterly subjective.

Yup true, Just like in Monza 2019 when Leclerc almost cased an incident and Leclerc didnt get any penalty because Lewis didnot have any damage and didnt lose any place

[siskue2005]

Where did Mercedes even use DAS? Behind the SC?

Yup and on formation laps

[Just_a_fan]

What irks me about the stewards penalty is because it feels like they only gave it because Albon lost so many position, not because Hamilton did anything wrong. If he was solely to blame, why not throw the book at him? This is the wrong reason to give out penalties IMO.

100% this. They definitely gave it because Albon spun, rather than just ran wide and didn’t make the pass or lost one place. Very poor stewarding. Judge the contact and not the consequences.

What Vettel did earlier in the race was objectively worse, yet because it didn’t impact the driver he hit, no penalty. Him spinning was ‘justice’ but you can’t change how to apply the rules based on that. This is why we get into so many stupid situations and why there are so much arguments about decisions made and penalties handed out. The rules aren’t applied with any consistency whatsoever.

There are stacks of similar situations and collisions, but the decision to penalise or not seems to be utterly subjective.

Yup true, Just like in Monza 2019 when Leclerc almost cased an incident and Leclerc didnt get any penalty because Lewis didnot have any damage and didnt lose any place

It's all about the show. Anything that adds drama to the season is OK.