Poll: European Grand Prix 2017, Baku - Race 8/20

[Greboth]

Public back lash shouldn't have any effect on the penalty, since we don't decide the penalties.

Agreed though it seems the penalty was given with thought to what the fans would like to see - Hamilton and Vettel close together on track. However the negative media and back lash may give a pause for thought that fans would rather a punishment fit the crime (as the saying goes) rather than the punishment be for entertainment.

 

[Leeroy Jenkins]

Vettel is nothing but a brat. I don't know what he was thinking to hit Hamilton intentionally.

However a line was drawn and that should be the end of it.

 

[drunkenmaster]

Vettel is nothing but a brat. I don't know what he was thinking to hit Hamilton intentionally.

However a line was drawn and that should be the end of it.

Frankly nonsense, if the line was drawn incorrectly by a few stewards on the day including what is in effect, temporary staff, and it doesn't reflect the line the FIA/teams in general/owners of F1 want then no, it shouldn't be the end of it.

That's like if one ref saw a player purposefully brake a guys leg in football, then punch the ref, but he chooses not to send him off because of some random reason... a bad decision doesn't just get completely ignored(truly bad) and the referee would likely be fired for letting that go. If the FA did nothing, said the decision was fine and kept the ref then that sets the benchmark for other referees. Obviously that wouldn't happen I'm making an extreme point to highlight it. FIA set the rules, if people on the day don't follow their directives and apply the rules incorrectly then why on earth should the decision stand?

Personally I think a deliberate hit is an auto black flag, and i think hitting anyone under a safety car without extremely good reason, is also something that should carry a hefty punishment.

I seem to recall Ham having a drive through a few years back(2013 maybe?) when he went like a foot over the white exit line on the pits, how can any unreasonable collision or deliberate collision under safety car end up with respectively, no penalty and only a stop/go in comparison.

IF it was wet conditions and Vettel aquaplaned into Hamilton.... even then, if the conditions were that bad being that close is pretty inexcusable but I could see no penalty, if Hamilton drives erratically it wouldn't be Vettel's fault and is already covered in the rules. The stewards forgot the first impact because they focused only on the second when usually the first would carry a punishment as well.

Also I'll go back to the whole, they punished vettel right after knowing Hamilton was losing ~30 seconds, we have no idea what they would have done if Hamilton didn't have that pitstop. They spent 35 or so minutes extremely reluctant to actually give Vettel the penalty which is a completely absurd and unreasonable amount of time to make such a decision, not least that with a red flag much of that time had nothing else to be considered at all and no racing to keep an eye on. Once Hamilton was going to drop 30 seconds it suddenly became easier to give Vettel a stop/go because it wouldn't effect the championship as much. Stewards giving out weak penalties and waiting to give them too long are things that shouldn't become standard just because they did it once.

 

[mmj_uk]

I agree I think the 10 second stop and go penalty was simply opportunism, I don't think they knew what penalty to give him but suddenly there's this great opportunity which arises to both punish Vettel and try to satisfy Hamilton fans WITHOUT affecting the championship in any significant way. The trouble is most people have seen it for what it is, a complete cop out and hence the public back lash.

That said the FIA are probably more concerned about the anger element what with Vettel vocally abusing Charlie Whiting over the radio and now this. How many times do you let a driver get away with minor penalties for bringing the whole sport into disprepute before saying enough is enough?

 

[Steampunk]

Confirmed they let Vettel off lightly because he's in the championship leaderboard:

An F1 steward says his colleagues considered a harsher penalty for Sebastian Vettel last weekend in Baku.

On Monday, which is also the German's 30th birthday, the FIA will meet to consider imposing an additional penalty to supplement his 10-second stop go.

"Of course we could have issued a more severe penalty," steward Paul Gutjahr told the Swiss newspaper Blick.

"Like the black flag or a race ban. But Hamilton had no damage and we did not want to influence the world championship too much," he added.

It seems like the stewards are more interested in creating entertainment than giving out fair punishments. Presumably, if a driver not in the championship run, doing the same thing would get a black flag, but Vettel and Ferrari get special treatment.

 

[koolpc]

Public back lash shouldn't have any effect on the penalty, since we don't decide the penalties.

Penalty was not enough.

 

[MooMoo444]

Confirmed they let Vettel off lightly because he's in the championship leaderboard:



It seems like the stewards are more interested in creating entertainment than giving out fair punishments. Presumably, if a driver not in the championship run, doing the same thing would get a black flag, but Vettel and Ferrari get special treatment.

This isn't new info though, we knew they only cared about the championship/race because of the invented sudden penalty when Hamilton was going to drop points.

 

[Steampunk]

This isn't new info though, we knew they only cared about the championship/race because of the invented sudden penalty when Hamilton was going to drop points.

That was conjecture, this is the first time I've seen it admitted.

 

[Kerazee]

Don't normally post in the F1 threads but how can the stewards not see that by performing this act that Vettel actually influenced his own championship.

He performed the act(s) so should be appropriately penalised as it is as much errors and driving behavior that decide the championship as winning races does.

 

[Vertigo]

Public back lash shouldn't have any effect on the penalty, since we don't decide the penalties.

There is a charge of bringing the sport into disrepute which is directly related to its perception by the viewing public.

 

[Jono8]

Don't normally post in the F1 threads but how can the stewards not see that by performing this act that Vettel actually influenced his own championship.

He performed the act(s) so should be appropriately penalised as it is as much errors and driving behavior that decide the championship as winning races does.

This - by not punishing him, they are influence the championship.

 

[mmj_uk]

Don't normally post in the F1 threads but how can the stewards not see that by performing this act that Vettel actually influenced his own championship.

He performed the act(s) so should be appropriately penalised as it is as much errors and driving behavior that decide the championship as winning races does.

It's not just about not influencing the Championship but had they black flagged Vettel like they should have there would have no longer have been the Hamilton/Vettel dual for the rest of the race, so immediate entertainment goes down. Had Hamilton not had his head rest problem I'd have expected them to put out the "investigate Vettel after the race" message and keep their battle going.

It's also in their interest to keep the Championship as close as possible for marketing purposes, Hamilton is odds on favourite so they'd probably not want to punish Vettel points-wise. Basically it's the biggest problem with F1 imo, too much is done with entertainment as main priority. Why? £££££

 

[drunkenmaster]

Something I read elsewhere I was wondering if anyone else could confirm. Someone said that on the grid walk(which I rarely watch) Brundle spoke to Horner about oil burning and he said someone who went from Ferrari to Mercedes(Allison presumably) asked the FIA for some clarification on rules around oil. Saying it was a bit of back and forth, Ferrari complain about the suspension, Mercedes subtly cause the FIA to look more closely at cars over oil burning which screws Ferrari back.

If true then I'm even more certain that Ferrari have lost performance as they can't use oil burning. The thing is the first push for it came from Horner and he accused Mercedes. I think that was just political games, want to hit Ferrari, but don't want the hate from Ferrari fans for going after Ferrari so accuse Mercedes who you don't suspect but their goal was to make the FIA test more thoroughly and catch Ferrari. There was also a rumour I haven't seen confirmed anywhere that in the FIA testing on this in Canada that one of the teams had a 'dubious' result, not failed but not passed and everyone else was fine, so again I suspect that would be Ferrari.

I get the feeling more and more that Merc will dominate the rest of the year now. I think it's kinda clear Ferrari were cheating a bit there and can't get away with it now, but I think Merc also effectively started the season with a hybrid 2016/2017 car, new chassis, new suspension but it looked more like the 2016 car. In, was it Spain, they brought that nearly complete overhaul of the aero, entirely new nose and bargeboard area. I suspect that was their true 2017 car but due to the nose not passing crash testing their major 2017 concept couldn't go ahead without it. So since Spain they've had their full 2017 car. The new car with different setup cost them big in setup in Monaco but the last two races they've absolutely killed it in terms of setup and ultimate performance in qualifying.

So to start the season we've got not final 2017 Merc vs oil burning final 2017 Ferrari, Ferrari seemed to have the lead in pace but lost out on strategy a couple of times leading up to Spain. Monaco, 2017 Merc but difficult setup at difficult track to go in with a new car. Canada, 2017 Merc with a lot of feedback and learned from their mistakes, incredibly fast, Ferrari not a match and Baku, Ferrari lose oil burning and end up over a second off the pace in qualifying.

 

[413x]

F1 is entertainment not a sport.
Is a business that needs ratings so I guess you have to allow for things like this.

Vettel wouldn't have gotten anything if Hamilton didn't have to come in.


Nicely engineered race. Thanks stewards!

 

[Glaucus]

peter Windsors/Jackie Steward discussing it and a good show anyway, I didn't realise you could watch the flying lap for free.
Wondered where scarbs stuff had gone.Liberty media really should buy scarbs and force the tv contracts to show his stuff in the build up. I maintain that f1 is a sport that requires huge time investment and understanding to appreciate it. Even better would allow the tv contracts to lapse and build up online presence first and foremost. If tv stations want to buy non-exclusive contracts allow that, but they should have an online around the word sign up.

https://motorsport.tv/channel/motorsport.com/video/episode-14/152

and totally agree the stewards need to be the same race to race and you need to get rid of the 3 fia to only one driver. do we even need 4, perhaps one of each. They have so much data these days its not like the 70s

 

[Steampunk]

Something I read elsewhere I was wondering if anyone else could confirm. Someone said that on the grid walk(which I rarely watch) Brundle spoke to Horner about oil burning and he said someone who went from Ferrari to Mercedes(Allison presumably) asked the FIA for some clarification on rules around oil. Saying it was a bit of back and forth, Ferrari complain about the suspension, Mercedes subtly cause the FIA to look more closely at cars over oil burning which screws Ferrari back.

If true then I'm even more certain that Ferrari have lost performance as they can't use oil burning. The thing is the first push for it came from Horner and he accused Mercedes. I think that was just political games, want to hit Ferrari, but don't want the hate from Ferrari fans for going after Ferrari so accuse Mercedes who you don't suspect but their goal was to make the FIA test more thoroughly and catch Ferrari. There was also a rumour I haven't seen confirmed anywhere that in the FIA testing on this in Canada that one of the teams had a 'dubious' result, not failed but not passed and everyone else was fine, so again I suspect that would be Ferrari.

I did read somewhere that after the last round of FIA checks that Ferrari were forced to remove an "auxiliary oil tank", and since then their performance has not been as good.

 

[vanpeebles]

I wonder how it works, it doesn't make my MGB faster

 

[Steampunk]

I wonder how it works, it doesn't make my MGB faster

Oil is more energy dense, so if your engine can cope with it and burn it, you should get more power out of it as a fuel. This is why people have been pointing fingers at it as a way of cheating the fuel/flow rules. I would guess there are trick oils and special engine mappings for using it this way.

 

[vanpeebles]

I wonder how they hide the signs of it, no blue smoke or smell. It's like two strokes

 

[Steampunk]

I wonder how they hide the signs of it, no blue smoke or smell. It's like two strokes

Well it's used as an additive, so they are not burning pure oil, plus I guess they are burning it completely so there's nothing to be seen in the exhaust. All those engines must burn everything during combustion, or else they are chucking fuel (and thus power) out of the exhaust.