I remember seeing that live - and could not believe he got away with it.
The down the hill part is cheap, indeed.I assumed he got a penalty but, no.
It was a thrilling late-braking maneuver, followed by an excellent display of car control just to keep from not crashing after the pass was made. But at the Surfers Paradise Indycar race the year before, Gil de Ferran made a pass at early in the race and short-cutted the chicane a bit, after the pass was made. He subsequently received a stop-and-go penalty for the move later in the race.
My guess for why they didnât penalize Zanardi was because:
-It was the on the last lap of a hard-fought race.
-The pass was a lot more spectacular than De Ferranâs.
-CART needed the good PR after the events earlier in the season; the disastrous pre-start crash at the U.S. 500, Jeff Krosnoffâs fatal accident at Toronto, Emerson Fittipaldiâs career-ending accident at Michigan, right after Toronto. Most of all, it was 1996 and the first year of The Split.
Now I think Zanardi was a great driver and still is an inspiring individual, and I donât know if the CART/Indycar rules for passing in a chicane were changed between the two years, but if they werenât and the race officials were consistant with the rules, he should have gotten a penalty for that pass.
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So what do you all think after the testing?
Is Mercedes sandbagging as usual or do they really have some issues that may take more than a couple weeks to resolve?
After testing Iâm going to go out on a limb and say HAM - BOT - VER.
My non-cheeky answer is that Lewis playing sbinnala gives me a faint glimmer that we might see a battle.
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I have a feeling that they might actually be in trouble this time. They usually find themselves near the top of the âlaps completedâ chart, with this year seeing them at the bottom. Then thereâs also the fact that the rear looks nervous with Hamilton even beaching the car. Mercedes are a brilliant team, no doubt, and theyâll likely make a recovery, but I think the first few races could be interesting and competitive. Even if Mercedes do recover and dominate, itâd be nice to see them have to come from behind in the championship, battling with two drivers in Max and Checo.
Mercedes will be fine. I think testing was a legitimate flop for them, but remember they were able to bring basically a spec-b car to the first race after testing a couple years ago, so they have the resources to get on top of it before Bahrain.
So testing went pretty poorly for Mercedes, but look, this is a team that has won the constructors championship the last 7 years, theyâre still gonna be up at the front. Theyâre starting a bit on the back foot cause of the poor testing but theyâll be fine. Now I think this year, based on what we have seen from testing, Red Bull look very strong, both Verstappen and Perez. I think this year, Red Bull can definitely take it to Mercedes and challenge. And I think Red Bull absolutely need to take advantage of Mercedes poor start, and get a couple of wins early.
But again, we wonât know for sure until Bahrain I think, despite the poor testing from Mercedes, Bottas was still quickest in testing day 2, so donât count out Mercedes just cause they had a poor start. Theyâll be back quickly, but Red Bull need to take advantage of this
The only thing to remember is that testing times mean nothing. AlphaTauri ran glory runs at the end with Tsunoda and we know he/that car isnât on par with Verstappen in the Red Bull. We wonât know the pecking order until after qualifying.
The other thing to note this year is that we are starting in Bahrain, rather than Australia. This is notable because Melbourne Park tends to be a little less of an indicator of pecking order, since itâs a semi-street circuit, and it doesnât always show a true picture of the field. Bahrain is more of a traditional circuit with a good mix of fast and slow corners, so the order will be more representative there.
The floor changes this year definitely seem to have hit the low-rake cars more, as they were relying more on the floor for rear downforce. Mercedes have said the car is very oversteer-y right now, and they were running through setup changes, including raising rear ride height to induce some rake. I bet with some setup changes and a few aero developments they bring to the first race, theyâll be just fine.
The other low-rake car, the Aston, had a variety of other issues so we donât really know where they stand on pace.
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KARTPULSE for ALL your F1 reporting!!
Some top quality comments in this thread
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WHOS READY FOR BAHRAIN! Looks like itâll be a really tight battle with Red Bull and Mercedes with Ferrari, McLaren, and AlphaTauri coming in to the party. Excited to see Alonso back in action, definitely outperformed the car today. Ugh, so much to be excited about.
Also, on an un-F1 related note, hoping that the rain stays away tomorrow so that the NASCAR dirt race can happen 
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Really looking forward to this first race. Super impressed by Gasly in Quali, and the Japanese dude!
Iâd watch it after church, but both my sonâs and my F1 TV accounts arenât working and their customer support is MIA. Hope max does good, that new Honda engine seems to really good.
What an exciting start to the season! At the front it was a battle of pit stop strategy deciding the outcome and great driving from both Lewis and Max. Max was clearly down afterwards, as RBR had the better car this weekend. Once Perez starts qualifying on the 2nd or even 3rd row, we are in for an absolute treat!
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Donât really want to give any spoilers, in case some people still havenât watch the race replay yet, but I canât shake the feeling that ______ shouldâve pitted a few laps earlier in his second stint instead of staying on the old mediums. Sure he had a clear track ahead, but _____ was closing the gap every lap on the hards and by the time _______ finally came in the gap was bigger than what it wouldâve been if he pitted earlier. ________ had the chance to win, but I think they waited too long to put on the new hards.
Those who watched the race will know what I am talking about
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Gave up and watched the short highlights video. You would think they would actually have support people available on a race weekend⌠Liberty media might as well throw in the towel on F1 TV and just let us buy SkyF1 streaming coverage instead.
Also⌠time to lose the useless masks you keep having to adjust.
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Whatâs Liberty media? By any chance the two Ozzies? Thatâs the English feed here if so, theyâre useless
And in the pits come Fernando no I mean Lando in his Mercedes sorry McLaren they both start with M 
Race wise, excellent start to the season. Iâm curious if Max hadnât yealded and the fia held up Merc inevitable protest, what would the penalty have been? Was it not worth the risk?
My coach teaches me âif you make a mistake, stick with it and carry on right or wrongâ
I watched this morning on ESPN2. Perhaps you could pick up ESPN+ and stream it live or catch the replay a few hours later. They basically run the Sky broadcast.
As for the race itself, thought Checko put in a grand effort. Starting from the pit exit and climbing his way back up to 6th. Huge! Had he not had the electrical malfunction on the warm up lap, he surely would have been vying for the top three.
As for the Max and Louis battle, I think Max got too impatient and tried to pass in the wrong spot. Had he waited he could have pulled out clean knowing Louisâ tires were falling off fast. The announcers speculated that Max should have waited for a better spot to let him by after the track limit violation, but with 3 DRS zones I donât think Max could have pulled a 5 second gap on the veteran to offset a penalty. Even with his failing tires, Louis was only losing about 0.5 seconds a lap to Max and with only 3 laps to go the math does not add up. Now if by waiting, there was no penalty it might have been worth it.
Cheers to Valtteri for pulling out Fastest Lap at the finish. Perhaps its the media coverage, but one gets the feeling like he is getting tired of being second fiddle. It doesnât help he has been plagued with pit stop issues the last few races.
The mid field battles were great. I hope the rest of the season holds the same!
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Multi billion dollar corporation and the mask I made with little to no sewing experience is miles ahead.
The company that owns Formula 1 rights.