2008 Japanese GP - Race 16/18

[JRS]

So, Hamilton reckons that Massa deliberately turned him around.

There's nothing like being the bigger man, and this from Hamilton is absolutely nothing like being the bigger man. Massa says he respects Hamilton, Hamilton doesn't reciprocate that respect. Instead, he flat-out accuses Massa of cheating.

I don't think Massa made every effort he could to stay off of Hamilton, but to say that he took a deliberate decision to ping Hamilton around? I don't buy that. Not unless Massa really has learned the Dark Side of the Force well from Emperor Schumacher....

And besides, it's not as if Hamilton left a lot of room on that apex for the distinct possibility of Massa coming back for a nibble at him. Like I said earlier in the thread - he ought to be glad that Massa only got two points back on him. If you think about it, Massa clobbering him was the best thing that could have happened - Hamilton had to pit well out of sequence for new tyres anyway, and at least with the way it all worked out Massa got a drive-through that hampered his chances of a large points haul.

 

[JUMPURS]

TBH i can't see why people are still arguing the Hamilton decision, it is completely moot anyway.

poor Bourdais, he is the one fighting for his F1 career, got a bad decision taken against him, yet people are still going on about Hamilton.

 

[utajoker]

going off what alonso has said were he would attempt to help massa in anyway, what would happen next race if alonso took hamilton out on purpose but not obviously like massa did last weekend?

obviously massa wont be involved but alonso's actions were to help massa, alonso would pick up drive through penalty but lewis' penalty would be losing the championship.

 

[utajoker]

I don't think Massa made every effort he could to stay off of Hamilton, but to say that he took a deliberate decision to ping Hamilton around?

the bump could have been avoided easily, but massa chose not to, im sure massa new if he just caught him slightly hamilton would spin. isnt that the same as doing it intentionly.

if i crashed into the back of someone because i chose not to break or swerve is that an accident?

 

[jaybee]

Just consider that in football, when a player slides in agressively and "nearly" commits an obscene foul but doesn't because the player jumped the challenge by taking avoiding action, are they given a penalty? No because there was no contact. You can't go dishing out penalties for every piece of action or it will ruin F1.

 

[JRS]

the bump could have been avoided easily, but massa chose not to, im sure massa new if he just caught him slightly hamilton would spin. isnt that the same as doing it on purpose.

Massa could have taken the escape road right at the entry to the corner. He didn't, and committed himself to trying to make the turn. He ended up on the grass and curb on the inside of the second part of the corner. Hamilton took the standard tight racing line, Massa slid back towards him, there was contact and Hamilton spun.

You honestly think Massa had that one figured out at the braking zone for the corner? I mean, exactly figured out the speed and angle required to send Hamilton around without damaging his own car? Get it slightly wrong and he'd have lost his front wing, or damaged his suspension, or punctured a tyre. If it was completely deliberate, it was ******* brilliant.

If his life depended on it, Massa could have kept off Hamilton. He could have hit the brakes, lost a bunch of positions, probably even spun himself. He could have taken the escape road at the corner entry and lost a few positions but what the hell, at least The Messiah™ wouldn't have had his race further compromised after his brainfade at Turn 1 huh?

 

[jaykay]

TBH, i think the one way all these penalities can be sorted out, is if the FIA employ us to be the stewards for every race.

Im sure we would do a pretty good job, with half of us hating Hamilton and others loving him.

 

[JRS]

Oh, and just to show that it isn't just F1 with a governing body that makes stuff up as they go along....

A few weeks ago, NASCAR was at Talladega (a big 2.6 mile flat-out superspeedway). Now, at Talladega you aren't supposed to go below a yellow line around the bottom of the racetrack to advance your position. If you do, and don't give the place back then you get a penalty. If you're forced down there, then you're okay. All fair enough. NASCAR has said in the past though that on the last lap, when you can see the chequered flag then pretty much anything goes. The truck race, they allowed three trucks to go below the line at the final turn. This is okay, they've said before that they'll allow it when the drivers can see the flag about to wave. No inconsistency here.

The cup race, though....slightly different take on the rules. Regan Smith tried to pass Tony Stewart on the last lap, within sight of the chequered flag. He ended up below the line, and it looked for all the world like he'd been forced down there by Tony. Regan crosses the line first. NASCAR demotes him to the end of the longest line - 18th place.

W....

....T....

....F?

But of course - NASCAR has to judge these situations on their individual merits. If they hadn't demoted Regan, then a Toyota wouldn't have won. And they'd have had to listen to Tony Stewart whine and whimper for weeks. So my only real refuge from the lunacy of this F1 season is pretty much just as bad.

*sigh*

 

[NathanE]

The correct penalties for the race should have been...

1. Massa gets a penalty for colliding with his direct championship rival. Considering the damage it did to LH's race he should have got a stop-go penalty, or at the very least a drive-thru.

2. Massa gets a penalty for colliding with a rival. No penalty needed to be given as it was merely a racing incident and didn't affect the outcome of the race. "Brain fade" on the part of Massa. We have seen Ralph Schumacher make these sort of mistakes every other race in the past and he rarely got punished.

3. Massa gets a penalty for overtaking outside the confines of the circuit. This should have got a drive-thru penalty. Same as what LH got in Spa and France.

LH should have got a € fine for his Turn 1 antics but nothing more. Simply a "don't do it again" slap on the wrist. Same thing that Massa got for Valencia and his pit stop.

 

[El_Watcher]

at least The Messiah™ wouldn't have had his race further compromised after his brainfade at Turn 1 huh?

You keep calling Hamilton the Messiah, having brainfade, and being petulant, but I see Massa as being just as bad.
Not only did he cheat to try to keep his place in front of LH (cutting the corner) when he could have easily stayed behind him and fought later, but he then does a similar thing to Bourdais seeing as he had about 100 metres outside to drive in when Bourdais had about 100cm to his inside.

I know that LH isn't perfect, but I support him because he is British, just the same as I would support Button if he had a good car, or Coulthard if he wasn't drawing his pension.

 

[JRS]

You keep calling Hamilton the Messiah, having brainfade, and being petulant

"Keep" calling Hamilton The Messiah™? That's a stretch. I've laid off that one quite a bit. I certainly don't use it anything like as much as I did last season. As for petulant - that's Alonso, not Hamilton. And after what's gone on this season I'm seeing an awful lot less of that in him. And brainfade - well, it was. And so was Canada. And Bahrain. And France.

but I see Massa as being just as bad.

Key point there - "just as".

Neither of them has had a perfect year. In fact, both at times have been just plain amateurish. Massa chucked it off the road in Malaysia, had an appalling race at Silverstone, he didn't set the world alight in Monza and the less said about the mess in Singapore the better. Hamilton had his Bahrain horror-show, the pitlane incident in Montreal, the chicane-hopping and ragged driving at Magny-Cours, and lost his head in Japan.

I know that LH isn't perfect, but I support him because he is British, just the same as I would support Button if he had a good car, or Coulthard if he wasn't drawing his pension.

Which is fine. I have no problem with the vast majority of Hamilton fans (hell, I'd like to see him win a title as well). It's that lunatic mob that thinks the sun shines out of his rectum that annoys me.

He isn't Senna. He isn't Christ incarnate. He's Lewis Hamilton, and if the hooting twits who think he can do absolutely no wrong would just shut the hell up for a while then the world would be a better place.

 

[NathanE]

He's Lewis Hamilton, and if the hooting twits who think he can do absolutely no wrong would just shut the hell up for a while then the world would be a better place.

To be honest JRS I don't see anyone matching that description on this forum. Maybe on other forums but even then it's pretty rare. You'd have to be a bit dumb to still think LH was perfect after some of his horror shows this season.

 

[JRS]

To be honest JRS I don't see anyone matching that description on this forum.

Which is why I said the world would be a better place, not just this forum

I know it sometimes seems like OcUK is the entire planet, but it really isn't - honest!

 

[Sadgeek]

Just consider that in football, when a player slides in agressively and "nearly" commits an obscene foul but doesn't because the player jumped the challenge by taking avoiding action, are they given a penalty? No because there was no contact. You can't go dishing out penalties for every piece of action or it will ruin F1.

Wrong. A penalty could still be given for the intent

Anyway, back on topic

 

[TheStig1]

There is no way Massa hit Lewis on purpose, these cars are so fragile that Massa would have to be a supreme genius to know it would not end his race by hitting Lewis, could have easily broken his suspension. Sure he made a mistake by trying to re-take Lewis in such a way, but to accuse Massa of hitting him on purpose is just not right and clearly not the style of Felipe.

 

[Sadgeek]

The correct penalties for the race should have been...

1. Massa gets a penalty for colliding with his direct championship rival. Considering the damage it did to LH's race he should have got a stop-go penalty, or at the very least a drive-thru.

2. Massa gets a penalty for colliding with a rival. No penalty needed to be given as it was merely a racing incident and didn't affect the outcome of the race. "Brain fade" on the part of Massa. We have seen Ralph Schumacher make these sort of mistakes every other race in the past and he rarely got punished.

3. Massa gets a penalty for overtaking outside the confines of the circuit. This should have got a drive-thru penalty. Same as what LH got in Spa and France.

LH should have got a € fine for his Turn 1 antics but nothing more. Simply a "don't do it again" slap on the wrist. Same thing that Massa got for Valencia and his pit stop.

Interesting take on penalties. Suggestion 1 would be an interesting one to put into place, and would certainly make people think twice about circumstances similar to Senna on Prost at Japan in 90. The penalty has to fit crime though.

Penalty 2 - I don't think you could get away with penalising someone twice for the same incident, though I dare say the stewards are trying to figure a way around that one.

Agree with 3 and 4. I don't see that the overtake on Webber was any different than Hamilton at Spa, as the overtake was done off the track. Massa then gained an further advantage as he was able to use the pit-lane to complete the move.

I'd suggest a further change in that the Bourdais penalty was a non-event. Massa served a penalty by losing time, it was his mistake that caused the incident. Npthing further needed to be done.

I'm curious though as to the timing of the investigations. The first we knew about the stewards looking into events was that they were investigating incident involving cars 1,2 and 22. Surely this should have been cars 1 and 22, then subsequently 2 and 22? It otherwise smacks of "well we've got to do something about Massa because we penalised Hamilton last time for the same thing. Now, what can we do to level the playing field and penalise Hamilton?"

 

[El_Watcher]

Interesting take on penalties. Suggestion 1 would be an interesting one to put into place, and would certainly make people think twice about circumstances similar to Senna on Prost at Japan in 90. The penalty has to fit crime though.

This is the problem with officils, punishment rarely actually fits the crime. A driver could crash into someone, get away with no damage and a "drive-through", where the person hit gets a broken suspension.
Similarly in football, a player could tackle someone, break their leg, get a red card, out for a couple of games, but the other player is out for half a season.

Unless you can stop time, look at the exact outcome and assess if anything extra needs doing, there is always going to be a imbalance.

Penalty 2 - I don't think you could get away with penalising someone twice for the same incident, though I dare say the stewards are trying to figure a way around that one.

As above, IMO it was Massa's fault on Bourdais, so penalise Massa, but because he spun and lost time, he penalises himself, so no drive-through necessary.

 

[El_Watcher]

It otherwise smacks of "well we've got to do something about Massa because we penalised Hamilton last time for the same thing. Now, what can we do to level the playing field and penalise Hamilton?"

It smacks more of "let's allow my pet monkey to choose when and who to penalise"

 

[IPBA]

IMO Massa outbraked himself and then tried to cut back and made a meal of it and deserved the penalty - but why Hamilton needs to spit his dummies out of the pram is beyond me.

IMO Massa has took his penalty on the chin and told the press his relationship with Lewis is still strong and yet Lewis blames Massa for intentionally hitting him - Lewis your are officially a PLANK in my books.

 

[Dutch Guy]

IMO Massa has took his penalty on the chin and told the press his relationship with Lewis is still strong and yet Lewis blames Massa for intentionally hitting him - Lewis your are officially a PLANK in my books.

Easy to do if you gained points on your main rival, I guess his words would have been a bit different if Hamilton did not lose any places and Massa his suspension was damaged.

Maybe it wasn't intentional but he did not try to do everything to avoid hitting him.

And lets be honest, what Massa did was way worse than what Hamilton did yet both get a similar penalty