bhall II wrote:turbof1 wrote:Ben, I hate to make this a matter of symantics, but I there is a difference between diving into a hole (as in taking a certain open line to overtake in a corner) and divebombing into a hole (the same as above, but braking too late without a chance to make it stick into the corner).
And what we saw was a case of the latter.
As Verstappen said himself, he did lock up...
Call it whatever you want. If a maneuver is so aggressive that the laws of physics transform the driver into a passenger, everything else is irrelevant.
Verstappen said after the race he did
not lock up. Did he correct himself later on?
I still don't judge that as divebombing. Agreed, he was always going to have a very slow exit out of the corner due a too tight line to carry momentum. However, if a driver has his car alongside another and this is significant before corner entry, and also given they did not went down that straight at full speed due the standing start, like here;
Then that's nothing more then putting your car rightfully there. You can argue it's a fools gamble to get anything worthwhile out of that move, but he had the right to choose that line.
If he entered the corner with too much speed, I would fully agree with you and then it becomes divebombing. Nothing you or anybody else who provided anything substantial he carried too much speed into the corner and effectively was a passenger.
The passengers where Verstappen and Raikkonen, who got a ride on the Vettel rollercoaster. Squeezing is fine as long as your competitor makes room for you. If he does not, you'll get trouble when you continue squeezing. IMO, it was poor judgement from Verstappen in the sense he would not get anything worthwhile from sticking to the inside of the corner like that, but it was a lot more poor judgement from Vettel who did not act properly on Raikkonen not moving more to the right.
For the record: what he did with Vettel, Perez and Raikkonen later in the race was way too agressive and borderline moronic.
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