Associate
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Max has been given a 1 place grid penalty so loses pole for tomorrow. Interesting decision as it was noted neither Max nor George were on a push lap
Official 2024 Qatar Grand Prix Race Thread - Lusail International Circuit - Race 23/24
- Thread starter chrismscotland
- Start date
Yea, if you read the doc it’s a bit mental and sets a weird precedent. Didn’t even know you could lose just one place.
I think he gets a penalty point too, which is even more insane. But you can do an illegal start with marshals still on track, and have to buy the FIA dinner. Definitely monkeys with typewriters in the stewards room.
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Man of Honour
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Should have been a 3. 1 is bizarre. Consistent inconsistency though.
Soldato
Penalty wasnt needed...
Soldato
Absolute bs. Big F to these stewards giving a penalty over that. What a joke.
Caporegime
Pretty clear penalty, Max's shenanigans were exactly what the minimum lap times were supposed to prevent. Should have been a 3-place drop, if just for consistency sake, giving a 1-place drop is weird.
Caporegime
It's not a penalty to do that, it's only a penalty to cross the line when pitting, unless otherwise stated in the Race Director's Notes (it wasn't).
Quick Google finds Hulkenberg in 2016 for using a set of tyres that should have been returned before qualifying and Perez in 2021 for tapping Kimi as he exited the pits during FP2, so it would appear it's not entirely without precedent to issue a very minor grid punishment.
Comes across very much as the sort of penalty where it was irrelevant enough to anyone's actual race as to be barely worth punishing but it is dangerous to be going abnormally slowly on the racing line for no good reason so if they didn't punish it at all, when a similar incident happens in future, they'd get accused of hypocrisy for penalising that but not this (not that this usually bothers them
).(On the hypocrisy topic, i'm sure someone will probably now point out that someone else did exactly this last week/month/year/decade and it was ignored
)
Soldato
What the teams said – Sprint day and Qualifying at the 2024 Qatar Grand Prix | Formula 1®
The drivers and teams report back on all the action from Sprint and qualifying from the Lusail International Circuits at the Formula 1 Qatar Grand Prix 2024...
www.formula1.com
I mean, it's not new for brand new rules to be made just for Max is it...
To be honest, the penalty doesn't seem to make sense anyway. If Russell wasn't on a push lap, doesn't that mean he just drove up too fast behind Max to force a penalty. Doesn't this set a precedent for any driver on an out lap to storm up behind someone and claim they were going too slowly/impeded them?
The whole thing is off and seems unnecessary.
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Makes it worse though. If they’re saying it was dangerous and conceivably could have caused an accident then it deserves more than a 1 place penalty
Soldato
People who hate Max will always hate Max...
It does, and I honestly hope people exploit it and question the FIA on every occurrence. Either apply a rule or don't. Applying it partially feels like they're trying to make the race more interesting or something stupid.
The penalty wasn't for impeding, it was for driving unnecessarily slowly, i.e. below the expected pace they're told to maintain - in theory, they could have punished him for that without Russell's involvement at all but that would no doubt come across as extremely petty.
From the event notes:
Makes it worse though. If they’re saying it was dangerous and conceivably could have caused an accident then it deserves more than a 1 place penalty
That's where other elements of mitigating circumstance come into it, such as the fact Russell had very good visibility of Verstappen on approach, so it probably shouldn't really have caught him quite as off guard as it did
As @Kenai said it wasn’t for impeding - it was for driving too slowly. The risk is that driving too slowly could cause an accident when those on hot laps do come up behind you at a much faster rate. Not sure how fast George was going compared to a hot lap but it looked bad. Could have been much worse if the hot lap speed there was say double.
True dat yo. Nothing to do with this topic but you said it…
Soldato
It is to do with the topic as people above have posted showing that they indeed dislike Max for being Max!
Soldato
The one place drop seems almost a pointless penalty…..