2024 Australian Grand Prix - Melbourne, March 22 - 24

[Big Tea]

Some posters do not seem to understand that Russell (or any driver) is breaking as hard as he can to get around the corner and basing the amount of grip and downforce on how it was last time.
There is no point saying he could have braked harder or he would have done it that hard on previous laps, and a shorter distance in unexpected dirty air is always going to be beyond the capabilities of Any driver in any car, or he would not be a racer worth having in the car because he was not trying hard enough previously.

[Francis Bacon]

Was the braking a factor? According to the FIA statement it wasn't.

People have died at Eau Rouge, lifting unexpectedly mid corner is hardly safe.

Would Hamilton get a penalty for that move now? I think he would

Did you read the final ruling?
Potentially dangerous defending.

Lift and coasting into what is essentially a straight is different than stabbing the brakes around blind high speed corner with a chicane after it. There is no comparison with Eau Rouge.

Alonso took the corner normally and yes I did read the statement. The issue was over him lifting off 100m early before the braking point.

Would Hamilton have received a penalty for his lift through a flat corner based off what happened today?

For the record I don't think he should have and I don't think Alonso should have received his penalty today either. I think Russell was caught off guard but was more inattentive than anything

According to the data, Alonoso didn't just lift, and the way he took the corner was anamolous, not normal...

The telemetry shows that he lifted, braked and downshifted 100m early at a corner that is normally taken with with no lift, just a pause in acceleration. Not once during the entire race did he lift at T6, much less brake and downshift as well. He slowed down so much that after the apex, he had to accelerate again and upshift.

His reasoning, that he was looking to take a different line to get a better exit, but made a mistake and slowed down too much, didn't have any credibility with the stewards. A driver with his level of expertise and experience, and on the last lap, would never do such a thing, much less make a mistake. F1 drivers don't make such "mistakes." This revealed that his move was intentional and dangerous.

That's it.

[Mogster]

These cars are very close together at 200mph. If you start backing off or worse braking erratically then the following car is just going to hit you. It’s much worse in the corners and at a narrow venue with little run off.

Actions like this actually inhibit racing. 20secs seems harsh but less wouldn’t have penalised Alonso at all. There were complaints about pointless penalties last year.

[Zynerji]

It doesn't look fair to take away Logan's car and giving it to Alex. How do you guys feel about this situation?

Meh. Employees are always dealing with similar in every other company in the world.

Aces get the places.

Aces? Both Mercedes and 1 Red Bull DNF and Albon still didn’t score points

Playing percentages still have losses.

It's basic probability

[KimiRai]

Apparently two drivers had their races ruined by tear-offs in Melbourne, Esteban and Sergio.

[AMG.Tzan]

I’ve just rewatched the whole race cause I only had seen the end of it plus highlights!

How on earth did Gasly grab a penalty for crossing the pit exit line while Norris didn’t? Didn’t he also cross the pit exit line when rejoining behind Piastri after the first pit stops??

Or am I seeing illusions?

[search]

Apparently two drivers had their races ruined by tear-offs in Melbourne, Esteban and Sergio.

wouldn't Perez have finished in the same spot anyway, most likely!?

[MassaRondo]

Regarding the Alonso Russell situation,

It would be interesting to see how many of those of the opinion that what Alonso did was "unacceptable" have a racing background.

To me, this is racing.

We've all seen drivers defend by compromising the trailing cars entry/exit in corners. It's one of the only strategies available when the DRS advantage is large.
We've all seen drivers with some pretty erratic moves before DRS detection points.

If it was Schumi behind Alonso, do you think the outcome would have been the same? How about with Seb or Lewis?

I remember watching from the fence in Montreal while Alonso and Lewis were playing games just like this.

[SiLo]

I’ve just rewatched the whole race cause I only had seen the end of it plus highlights!

How on earth did Gasly grab a penalty for crossing the pit exit line while Norris didn’t? Didn’t he also cross the pit exit line when rejoining behind Piastri after the first pit stops??

Or am I seeing illusions?

I think the line carries on past the point they are allowed to cross. It was really badly painted from a spectator PoV.

[zeph]

Thin line, regarding Alonso-Russell.

When is something good and clever defending and when is it egregious? I'm not sure where I stand, but I feel it is a slippery slope. Russell was faster, so Alonso had to be resourceful in his defense.

Next we're gonna tell guys not to defend at all, because safety.

[mzso]

It's not the same. Drivers lift and coast all the time. Stabbing on the brakes is way more erratic.

Was the braking a factor? According to the FIA statement it wasn't.

People have died at Eau Rouge, lifting unexpectedly mid corner is hardly safe.

Would Hamilton get a penalty for that move now? I think he would

Did you read the final ruling?
Potentially dangerous defending.

Lift and coasting into what is essentially a straight is different than stabbing the brakes around blind high speed corner with a chicane after it. There is no comparison with Eau Rouge.

Then he potentially should have gotten a penalty, meaning not getting one.

[mzso]

Does anyone remember hamilton brake in the straight at canada to not give drs to alonso?

Linking with a timecode would have been more interesting.

[SiLo]

Alonso effectively slowed and then brake checked, which is a big no-no. There is a difference between slowing gradually to throw someone off, and actually braking. The rate at which these cars shed speed is incredible, and the onboard from Alonso looking backwards was very telling, Russell suddenly closes the gap rapidly at a point of the circuit where he's not expecting Alonso to be braking.

Defending in a safe manner should be paramount to good racing IMO, and what Alonso did was not it.

Imagine following someone in S1 at Austin, and they suddenly lift off throttle and brake mid corner as a 'defending tactic'. The driver behind probably runs off the road entirely or spins similar to Russell.

[mzso]

Is on board footage of Verstappen's brief race available somewhere?

https://streamable.com/izwkth

Thanks!

By the way, can anyone lip read? I wonder what Verstappen reacted with "f*cking stupid".
I suspect some human error for the brake failure, like when they forgot to remove the covers for button in monaco. But they're just saying the brake "was stuck on" the whole time. Which may or may not be true.

.
Max thought it was dangerous driving to the box because his car was on fire. That was his "Stupid" about.
He would have stopped the car on the circuit immediately.

Did he?
The on-board footage doesn't support this. He was on fire for a while when they told him to box, and it was two turns from the pits, one of them being the turn of the pit entry.

I still think it was about something else.

Weird though how useless the team was in this case. No warnings of overheating. Apparently they didn't know anything was wrong until Verstappen radioed in. And the race engineer didn't respond in any meaningful way.

[KimiRai]

When a driver overtakes, goes too deep and in order to cancel the exit of the driver behind so that he does not counter-attack, brakes or lifts off at the apex, is this now considered "potentially dangerous" and "erratic" as well?

If so then you've killed another defensive trick that has been used since the start of motorsport