Poll: Saudi Arabian Grand Prix 2021, Jeddah - Race 21

[booyaka]

Certainly RB are a very one man team - Max and nothing else..... - Just look at the destruction and carnage in that "second seat" - Albon/Perez/Ric/Kvyat/Gasly - All tossed aside as they focus on Max. This is becoming their downfall as the 2nd car just doesn't support their number 1 driver....

Nothing was said by Horner about Perez yesterday, again - utterly interested in a single driver and throwing everything they can at him. Perez has really gone backwards in that car as it's so focus around Max and his driving that Perez has really had a hard time with helping the team etc.

Whilst I know at times Bottas hasn't come up to par, look at the job he's done in the last few races with nicking 3rd yesterday etc. The whole team pleased with the result.

Red Bull seriously need to get away from being a 1 man show with Max - Until they do, they will always struggle.

 

[Emlyn_Dewar]

What ever happened to the option to see poll results without voting? It definitely used to be a thing.

 

[Steampunk]

Baring in mind Max has been taken out by Hamilton and Bottas this season, it's impressive they've even level on points.

Down to Max's own actions ie "move out the way or I'll crash into you". Law of averages says that driving like that will occasionally leave Max worse off, yet it's always everyone else's fault (according to Max and Horner).

You can count the races where RBR have had a performance advantage on one hand, Mercedes have had a edge most the season but under performed on tracks they should have won on.

There are some places where Mercedes should have done better (notably Baku), but it's always the Hamilton car that's faster, rarely Bottas, so it's not just the car. This year's Mercedes is a lot fussier. When they make it work, it's great, when it doesn't work, it has to be dragged around the track by Hamilton. It's faster when it's in the zone, but much harder to get there, hence Mercedes struggling more this year to get the points. Also the Red Bull and it's engine is significantly better than it's been for the last few years.

 

[Armageus]

What ever happened to the option to see poll results without voting? It definitely used to be a thing.

It definitely did, however it was changed to prevent "sheeple" from just voting based on popular opinion

 

[ZeeWrath]

I don't think the stewards did too bad at this GP. It's just the inconsistencies from other races that give the frustration. Max is finally starting to accumulate penalty points which is the mechanism to tell him to reign it in. Race control was a shambles, sc when a red flag is needed, vscs for so long would probably have been quicker to full sc. Negoatating penalties before referring to stewards etc

I originally gave Max the benefit of the doubt for the coming together when trying to let Lewis pass but him braking hard caused the colllision.

 

[jaybee]

Improvements they could make going forward:

1: Bring back gravel traps and grass and stop making these silly massive curves and run off where they have to police track limits. The limit is physical, not virtual.
2: Ban all comms live on the radio between FIA/stewards and the teams during a race. It becomes one way only during a race from FIA to teams, unless for safety critical comms.
3: Change the red flag rule on changing tyres. Red flag, simply means come into the pits, change absolutely nothing, park the car. Wait until restart.
4: All races that do not offer at least half distance of racing (not including behind a safety car or VSC) are aborted with NO points awarded for anyone regardless of quali result.
5: Time penalties added to the end race time abolished. Instead, a better penalty system implemented. All decisions done during the race. Quicker action generally. Harsher penalties for Max style driving.
6: Clear directives on race battles and what is and is not allowed.
7: When giving back an overtake, you have to give it back and remain behind for at least one full lap which starts the next time you cross the start finish line BEHIND the person you just gave the place back to. When a place is too complex to give back because other changes have occurred, you take a drive through instead. This encourages people to give it back immediately asap, safely.
8: Abolish the sprint format races. They added confusion and complexity for quali.
9: Don't race at rubbish tracks or race at the same country twice. More variety. Obvious but due to £££ this will never happen.
10: All drivers must drive to a delta in quali 1 on selected tracks with traffic issues, at ALL times. Even on warm up and cool down times must be within 130% of a sensible time for example. OR.... Split quali 1 into two batches for tracks with major traffic issues for safety reasons. Either randomize this with a live draw or base it on championship positions so that leaders go in the first batch to give any track evolution benefit to the slower drivers. Make it clear before season starts which tracks you will do it on.
11: Ban pitting during safety cars and virtual safety cars. Why should some people get a free pit stop and others not
12: Stewarding overhaul. No steward to have any past affiliation with any team or any conflict of interest whatsoever. More consistency. Stamp out dirty driving with race bans and disqualifications.
13: Replace Massi with someone with balls.
14: Stop using fines as a way to punish teams. Doc constructor points instead. Small to medium fines generally do nothing.
15: Change the engine rules so that the richer teams cannot abuse taking relatively small penalties for rocking up with party mode engines several times like the Mercs do. What they are doing is fine and within rules, but those rules need to be altered now to keep to the whole point of it, which is to reduce the amount of engines used.
16: Sort the flexy wing saga out so it's clear.
17: Punish teams more harshly for bringing the sport into disrepute and wasting FIA time. See Redbull and Christian Horner's mouth.

 

[Entai]

When Verstappen was called to the stewards, the article he was accused of breaching allowed them to choose any punishment including disqualification. The stewards chose a ten second time penalty that did nothing to punish Verstappen for one of the most dangerous things a driver can do on a racetrack, on top of all the other dangerous things he did in that race.

The excuse of not being able to chose anything other than smaller mandated penalties doesn't apply here.

Actually as the FIA say themselves in the official release ;

" However, the sudden braking by the driver of Car 33 was determined by the Stewards to be erratic and hence the predominant cause of the collision and hence the standard penalty of 10 seconds for this type of incident, is imposed."

The imposition of a penalty up to and including disqualification, is not applicable to that particular article he was found to have breached.


https://documentcloud.adobe.com/lin...:scds:US:3b0e5676-599c-43e0-9d7d-5ab129427841

 

[MooMoo444]

Red Bull seriously need to get away from being a 1 man show with Max - Until they do, they will always struggle.

They were a 1 man show with Vettel/Webber and it got them many titles. I don't think they'll ever change. Especially as they seem to think their golden boy can't do anything wrong.

 

[GR63]

8/10.. lots of excitement, stewards and Masi had a busy day.

Can't help but feel Max is his own worst enemy. He needs to learn when to yield. He is an accident waiting to happen. So far nobody seriously hurt but we are getting close (his own 51G impact, sitting on LuLu's head in Italy) and his "defences" are dubious.

 

[MagicBoy]

People have to understand there are standard penalties for various incidents.

Stewards cannot vary the penalty in different situations because, for instance, the guy in third is so far behind because they just cannot keep pace with the front two.

Ten seconds for that incident is the most that can be applied under the rules.

Stewards cannot suddenly decide to change it to 35 seconds or 47 seconds, or whatever the gap to the next person is.

Have seen it many times in the past when a driver is given a 5 second penalty early in the race, and they then spend rest of the race making sure they are more than 5 seconds ahead of guy behind before the end, so the penalty makes no difference.

Sorry, that's nonsense. Ultimate sanction is a DSQ.

Schumacher's had a DSQ + race ban in the past for being a naughty boy. Grosjean and Irvine both got a race ban for making mistakes. It's baffling that Max got away with a 10 second penalty for that.

 

[fez]

They were a 1 man show with Vettel/Webber and it got them many titles. I don't think they'll ever change. Especially as they seem to think their golden boy can't do anything wrong.

Yeah, its all about the competition honestly. Mercedes have been a one man band most of the time they have been walking the constructors and the issues that Rosberg caused are what meant they were so happy with Bottas. Hes done enough to bring home the constructors without any aggro for Lewis. Trouble is that this season he could easily have cost Merc the constructors were it not for RB completely ignoring their second driver.

The perfect scenario for any team is having a massively better car than everyone else and two drivers who are noticeably different in abilities so they are not directly competing against each other. Happy wife, happy life and Bottas has been a good wifey.

 

[jaybee]

In Ted's notebook he said that he would use a Martin Brundle quote to sum up the weekend in a sentence...
"Max doesn't like to yield does he?!"

 

[Entai]

Sorry, that's nonsense. Ultimate sanction is a DSQ.

Schumacher's had a DSQ + race ban in the past for being a naughty boy. Grosjean and Irvine both got a race ban for making mistakes. It's baffling that Max got away with a 10 second penalty for that.

Only allowed if breaching certain articles in the sporting regs not any and all articles.

The article in the regs Max was actually sanctioned for breaching, is a, standard 10 second penalty.

 

[fez]

8/10.. lots of excitement, stewards and Masi had a busy day.

Can't help but feel Max is his own worst enemy. He needs to learn when to yield. He is an accident waiting to happen. So far nobody seriously hurt but we are getting close (his own 51G impact, sitting on LuLu's head in Italy) and his "defences" are dubious.

The problem is that Max isn't his own worst enemy.

What would have happened yesterday if Max didn't act like a massive ****? Lewis would have won the race at a trot and Max would probably have come second. What did happen? Max nearly ended Hamiltons race a few times and would have probably won the championship as a result. He came second, Hamilton first, so same outcome as if he raced fairly and he was honestly unlucky not to ruin Hamiltons race.

Thats the problem with the lack of punishment. Max knows what hes doing and its gaining him an advantage time after time. It allows him to defend from indefensible positions on the track. It allows him to potentially take out a rival in the title race or ruin his race. Its not without risk to his own race but on the balance of things he is making the right decisions to stack the odds in his favour. Its just a shame its straight up cheating.

 

[this_is_gav]

Improvements they could make going forward:

3: Change the red flag rule on changing tyres. Red flag, simply means come into the pits, change absolutely nothing, park the car. Wait until restart.

Generally agree with most of your points, and did with this one yesterday too, but I was thinking about it this morning. If a driver has a 40 second lead because they were yet to pit when a red flag falls, then it would be wholly unfair to punish them by wiping out their lead and making them start on their old worn tyres.

I can't think of a happy medium where someone isn't potentially disadvantaged.

There are also safety concerns involved, especially if the red flag is for debris.

 

[Emlyn_Dewar]

It definitely did, however it was changed to prevent "sheeple" from just voting based on popular opinion

Curious to see the overall results I just went with a 5.
It's out of position for me on the phone, so seemed like it wouldn't make much difference.

Edit: Red flag is red flag, people seeing leads wiped out just have to go with it. It's motor racing and everything is always a gamble.
I also totally disagree with the suggestions of car having to stay behind one lap after giving a position back.

The sport could benefit a lot if we had cars that were better, on tracks that were better, with less nonsense.
As suggested, get rid of well edited/chosen public team bickering. Set fire to all AWS graphics servers, materials, developers.

 

[MagicBoy]

Changing the subject I see. What does my views of Schumacher have to do with Max? It's plain as day, everyone can see it. Well, apart from RBR, Max and their fans, according to them driving like you're in a BTCC car is completely acceptable at 200+ Kph.

BTCC drivers don't brake check their rivals. This weekend was close to descending to 2021 DTM last round levels of farce.

 

[booyaka]

In Ted's notebook he said that he would use a Martin Brundle quote to sum up the weekend in a sentence...
"Max doesn't like to yield does he?!"

I agree, and have no issue with hard driving, unyielding.... In the correct manner and in a safe manner....

Apart from Silverstone, which for me is still a racing incident, Lewis has had to "avoid" contact on many many occasions this year because of Max's wild, aggressive driving manner....

I can't think of a single time where Max has had to avoid contact with Lewis due to Lewis's wild/poor/stupid driving....

 

[GR63]

Improvements they could make going forward:

1: Bring back gravel traps and grass and stop making these silly massive curves and run off where they have to police track limits. The limit is physical, not virtual.
2: Ban all comms live on the radio between FIA/stewards and the teams during a race. It becomes one way only during a race from FIA to teams, unless for safety critical comms.
3: Change the red flag rule on changing tyres. Red flag, simply means come into the pits, change absolutely nothing, park the car. Wait until restart.
4: All races that do not offer at least half distance of racing (not including behind a safety car or VSC) are aborted with NO points awarded for anyone regardless of quali result.
5: Time penalties added to the end race time abolished. Instead, a better penalty system implemented. All decisions done during the race. Quicker action generally. Harsher penalties for Max style driving.
6: Clear directives on race battles and what is and is not allowed.
7: When giving back an overtake, you have to give it back and remain behind for at least one full lap which starts the next time you cross the start finish line BEHIND the person you just gave the place back to. When a place is too complex to give back because other changes have occurred, you take a drive through instead. This encourages people to give it back immediately asap, safely.
8: Abolish the sprint format races. They added confusion and complexity for quali.
9: Don't race at rubbish tracks or race at the same country twice. More variety. Obvious but due to £££ this will never happen.
10: All drivers must drive to a delta in quali 1 on selected tracks with traffic issues, at ALL times. Even on warm up and cool down times must be within 130% of a sensible time for example. OR.... Split quali 1 into two batches for tracks with major traffic issues for safety reasons. Either randomize this with a live draw or base it on championship positions so that leaders go in the first batch to give any track evolution benefit to the slower drivers. Make it clear before season starts which tracks you will do it on.
11: Ban pitting during safety cars and virtual safety cars. Why should some people get a free pit stop and others not
12: Stewarding overhaul. No steward to have any past affiliation with any team or any conflict of interest whatsoever. More consistency. Stamp out dirty driving with race bans and disqualifications.
13: Replace Massi with someone with balls.
14: Stop using fines as a way to punish teams. Doc constructor points instead. Small to medium fines generally do nothing.
15: Change the engine rules so that the richer teams cannot abuse taking relatively small penalties for rocking up with party mode engines several times like the Mercs do. What they are doing is fine and within rules, but those rules need to be altered now to keep to the whole point of it, which is to reduce the amount of engines used.
16: Sort the flexy wing saga out so it's clear.
17: Punish teams more harshly for bringing the sport into disrepute and wasting FIA time. See Redbull and Christian Horner's mouth.

Agree with all you suggest... which is unusual.

#15 it was Honda who lobbied for engine change rule being tweaked as they were providing chocolate engines to Macca at the time if memory serves. Rather ironic they don't like it now!

 

[MagicBoy]

Max is a great driver. He goes for it. On the edge. I like that. Others are scared of his driving. Its racing.

It's not a new thing. Kimi and Vettel made the point that his driving was unacceptable BACK IN 2016. Max has been getting gaslit ever since by the FIA and RBR.