Absolutely furious. Fernando had his flying lap wrecked and now we sit in 14th and the culprit gets through and might get a couple of places penalty. But the penalty doesn’t eliminate the potential of the Alpine at Alonso’s hands. There should be a new rule that if you impede a driver and they are eliminated as a direct result of your actions then you should be given their qualifying place and the driver you impeded should continue into the next round. If the marshals can’t determine that quick enough then the drivers should swap places. If you impede and qualify lower then you get a penalty, but if you cause them to be eliminated then you start from the pit.

 

 

Penalties aren’t strong enough especially at a circuit like the Ring where a lap is only 63/65 seconds.

 

 

 

 

Related. I hope Williams send a case of champers to Vettel coz they owe him for getting into Q3

Vettel given three-place grid penalty for impeding Alonso,

Vettel did deserve his penalty but it wasn't entirely his fault. He slowed at turn eight as permitted but two car passed him (Bottas and Sainz I think) who then slowed up at turns nine and ten which wasn't allowed. Vettel had no choice but to slow up too and it screwed his final run too.

 

Anyone who slowed between nine and ten should be penalised too.

Edited July 3, 20215 yr by Severin

Vettel's team defo could have done better than unleashing him into the path of a rapidly oncoming Alonso.

 

The FIA weaselled out of going after Sainz and Bottas saying they couldn't ID the root cause of the hold up. Which is a barefaced lie, they have all the data and are more than capable of it. Just means it is someone they don't want to penalise.

poor Alonso :/ crazy the difference between the 2 Alpines in Q1 with Alonso being one of the top pilots and Ocon in the Botton 5...

same with the Norris/Ricciardo

There was definitely a penalty warranted and the teams didn't do a good enough job of ensuring their drivers stayed out of the way, however on a track which is that short it's difficult to see how you can avoid that situation if close to the whole field in Q2 are doing a run at the end, the first to start their lap will always encounter traffic at the end.

Annoying to see Norris so close to P2 when he got that, imo, unnecessary time penalty.

Nice race, #1 was obvious and not very exciting

but the fight for the rest of positions was very interesting

 

Norris didn't deserve the penalty, would have been #2 otherwise!!

It looks like Max Verstappen has the Driver's Championship in the bag this year. He's got a 31 point lead over Lewis Hamilton and the gap will probably get bigger soon enough.

And we love to see it. The bigger that gap gets the more desperate and unhinged Hamilton will get. It’s gonna be so fun to watch.

 

 

 

Great recovery drive from Fernando to grab a point!

Most of the recent circuits bar France have traditionally suited the Red Bull and not really been ideal for Mercedes

 

Mercedes have upgrades coming for Silverstone and that is a track that has always been strong for the German team. If Red Bull win comfortably there then it really will look like Max's title to lose but I expect Mercedes to come back hard.

Edited July 4, 20215 yr by Severin

Eight drivers are being called to the stewards for failing to slow under double waved yellows on the last lap.

Raikkonen given 20 second time penalty following the collision with Vettel.

 

Latifi and Mazepin given 30 second time penalty for ignoring yellow flags.

to be honest Raikkonen should be banned

he drive like a crazy person sometimes, who crashes into another car in the last lap fighting for like position 17 :/

 

I have wondered for each of the last like 4 seasons when Kimi will retire.

Who poisoned the stewards' coffee during that race? I've never seen so many needless penalties handed out. What about the "letting them race" mantra they seemed to have cast-ironed these past few seasons? None of the Norris or Perez penalties were correct. The Kimi penalty is completely redundant, should be a grid penalty for the next race, 20 second penalty does nothing. Tsunoda's were fair game though, the hell was he doing.

 

Not enough criticism at the moment for Ricciardo, as much as I love him. He's having his ass handed to him more than I would ever have believed by Lando. No excuse for adjusting to the car now that Sainz/Vettel/Alonso have the measure of their teammates & Perez is doing a good enough job.

I'm very much intrigued by this title fight though. If it was 32 pts the other way I think we could say it's pretty much done but this way round it's far from over. Hoping for Sir Lewis to break the record but wouldn't begrudge Max the title at all given the way he's performing this season. Should be even further ahead but for the Baku blowout. Silverstone is gonna be wild in 2 weeks :D

In my opinion none of the Norris/Perez penalties were necessary. All three incidents were worthy of being 'noted' by the stewards but should have been given a pass. Unfortunately once they'd penalised Norris they gave themselves no option but to punish Perez for near identical moves later.

 

Meanwhile, this looks to be the first true title fight we've had since Rosberg retired (sorry Seb but no) although I'm continually perplexed by Hamilton's post race comments. He constantly talks up the Red Bull's pace advantage in a way that effectively diminishes his own achievements over the last few years and the insinuations of cheating from him and Toto are beneath them both.

 

If the Red Bull was so much stronger than the Merc then Perez would be outqualifying Lewis and Valtteri almost every time and that's not happening. Max is making a difference in the way that Lewis used to be able to. I said last year that I thought Lewis had lost a touch of his outright pace and given his age thatmay be true. It seems now though that the pressure is back on him the mistakes are beginning to creep back in. He looks more and more like the driver he was in 2011. There have been a few races this year were Valtteri has looked on a par with Lewis and I don't think the Finn has improved.

 

I've no doubt Lewis will turn it around at Silverstone but there are warning signs appearing.

Edited July 5, 20215 yr by Severin

Yeah you're right they f***ed up with the Norris one from the outset (which was the harshest of the 3 anyway!)

 

I think Lewis is just pretty chilled about the title fight as there's just so many races left to go. Him saying Red Bull are currently the fastest isn't wrong, just like RB were saying they couldn't compete with Merc in Portugal/Spain. Ebbs & Flows. Also re Perez let's not forget he's never been a great qualifier and Max is simply on another level entirely this season. I've no doubt that car us 100% tuned to Max's style.

 

I agree Lewis has perhaps lost a slight bit of pace from peak years but 2011? No way, that was his only bad season ever where he was crashing left, right & centre. And Bottas is nowhere near him, Monaco was the only race he has outperformed him in. Throw in those frankly embarrassing displays at Imola & Baku and he's actually regressed even more than last season imo.

 

This has been an amazing season though so far. It's rare in title fight seasons you even get 1 instance of the actual protagonists going wheel to wheel on track but we've had that at 5 races this season :cheer: hopefully we can end the current era with an absolute classic season!

@1412302503551590400

 

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