It’s been amazing racing, but I don’t think it’s amazing because of incidents like silver stone and T4. You can have tooth and nail fighting without these cheap moves. Yes, some of the most amazing battles have happened with both drivers pushing it too far, there’s a specific one I’m thinking of in around 2008 but I can’t remember who or where.
It’s too easy to just brake 50m too late. Hamilton also got penalized for those incidents you are referring to. The defense verstappen did is what I do in sim racing against AIs with no rules. Same thing shouldn’t be done in f1. It’s too easy.
My view of Hamilton’s cleanliness is probably skewed, but he still is a much kinder person than verstappen. (Since I’ve been watching)
I don’t mean it’s been amazing racing because of those incidents, I meant those incidents are a result of the competitiveness this season that we want. My mentioning of those incidents was just to say that Hamilton told everyone he competes with that he is okay racing this way, but now Mercedes is trying to penalize Verstappen for doing just that.
That gets into the debate of whether the penalty for Silverstone is appropriate, which I do not think so. A 10 second penalty for ending the race of a driver, no matter who it is, is not enough for the competition in F1. Functionally, all the FIA did was say “hey, we’re saying don’t like that, but it wasn’t bad enough for you to actually lose anything because of it.” The penalties overall should be more harsh for what is expected to be the best drivers in the world.
I’m not sure if I can think of anything that really sets one of them apart as kinder than the other. Obviously Max had his Mongol incident which was very out of line, but I’m not going to judge anyone over one incident of that “little” severity (meaning not pulling a Mazepin)
I’m very interested in the decision by the FIA on the T4 incident. If it was the other way around, RBR would also call for an investigation.
They all learn it in karting. Heck even at my level my coach tells me hold your line, if he’s trying to go around the outside he’s stupid - outside always gets pushed to the barrier. Every time.
They all know it, unfortunately some dubious stewarding has made it the done thing to do because it’s always the inside guy who gets pénaliséd when there’s contact.
No contact was made, no penalty.
About class, I don’t see Ham and Merc having class at all. You think it’s a classy thing to do to back up your championship rival in qualifying so you get to start your flying lap but he doesn’t? It didn’t work but that was just a dirty underhand classless attempt.
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If you look at what his car does and not the steering wheel. You can see Max’s car turn in on a tight radius and then it opens up.
I think the FIA should just come out and give a clear statement of what the rules are and how they should be interpreted.
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Again, only been watching for 3 years. Also, there was no contact because Hamilton turned away from him… Hamilton avoided the contact.
Well it seems pretty boring to have racing without outside passes to me
good god.
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Nice music. Curious about DB level. I assume old school f1 drivers all ended up hard of hearing.
Not gonna happen. Too much dynamic variables involved. It’s not like technical regulations. On track racing kinda needs to self-regulate (which is kinda used to do). But the modern era of DRS, cameras, massive tarmac run-offs and a hysterical fan base means we cant have this any more. All this over analysis will stay with F1 forever more.
When I went to COTA, the loudest thing ended up being the speakers… this is not to say the cars werent loud, but holy sh*t those speakers were deafening. I measured it at 119DB from my seats. Painful.
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That’s called “strategy”. 
I personally feel like this and other incidents are very unique to series which use DRS or similar. Where else do you see passing attempts to the outside as regular? This has become adopted because the speed differential with DRS is sometimes enough to pass on the outside and clear the driver on the inside, sometimes they’re not fully clear but enough to take the corner. In many series hanging it on the outside when the inside car/kart is still 1/4 -1/2 alongside is at best risky, in high competition it’s basically suicide. Most times in the scenario of the lead driver protecting the inside the outside driver’s best bet is to push the braking as late as possible on the outside to force the inside guy to out brake themselves and push wide allowing the cross over. I think both Ham and Verstappen were never going to make that corner (even if one conceded the corner), they both were playing chicken on the brakes and neither could make the corner at the speed they were going.
I was there too this year. Sitting at turn one for race day the loudest ‘sounding’ to me were actually the F4 cars compared to w series (F3) and F1. I didn’t take a reading, just my impression. I did cross the bridge before the back hairpin during FP2. That was exhilarating!
Modern single seaters including F1 sound pretty quiet compared to the old cars. I saw a 92 Williams V10 lap at the Williams birthday celebration event at SIlverstone a few years ago. They had their 2014/15 car out with it for a demo and I could barely hear it over the glorious V10… thank god. the hybrid was hideous.
I was at SIlvo in 95. The last year of the Ferrari V12… my GOD that thing was insane. I can still literally feel the vibrations from that beast.
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agreed fully. The biggest problem with DRS is when the driver pulls out of the slipstream they don’t get a dramatic reduction in drag which kinda of balances the speed differential with normal race cars. They just continue to blast past. I hate it with every fibre in my body. Utterly destroyed the more organic nature of racing we should have. Obviously I know aero wash made it nigh-on impossible to race prior to DRS… but still … it leaves a bad taste.
I was at the 1979 Long Beach GP… in the grandstands about 1/4 of the way down the Shore Line drive straight (curve). Every lap when the Ligier Matra v12 drove around the curve and it’s exhaust pipes were pointed directly at us, it was like getting an ice pick in the ear. But I still loved it anyway. Strangely, the Ferrari and Alfa Romeo v12s did not have the same effect.
The only thing that rivaled that was the first year Mazda came out with the RX7. I was corner working at an IMSA race at Laguna Seca’s T9. There were a bunch of the RX7s in the GTU class so, we would often have one entering the turn (in one ear) while another was accelerating away (in the other ear)… OUCH!!. This was before IMSA (and everybody else) figured out they should probably require the rotary-motor cars to run mufflers.
The Matra always seemed to have the sharpest tone to me. Not my favourite V12. Ferrari V12s (in F1) always seemed to have more melody and depth in the overtones.
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The way F1 cars SHOULD sound!