I must say, his throttle application does seem a little weird if you take into account the previous corners, but that might be confirmation bias. The data will reveal all though. if he smashes the throttle it’ll be clear as day. But still a risk considering gearbox penalties.
The issue really here is if this is what Max is still annoyed about, he’s basically just told the world.
The quesiton here is why would Perez deliberately crash to keep hold of P3… that’d be even stranger.
… butttt… it was odd how quickly the whole media circus knew something about Monaco and Max not being happy. Thus rumours have been going around for a while.
Do you not think he smashes the throttle a bit hard compared to his previous lap?
He does, interestingly, blip the throttle a tiny bit then smoothes it in… as everyone else does… But the fact he doesn’t even correct the steering while smashing the throttle a good 5-10m metres before usual. It does look odd to my eyes. It’s SO different to his first lap in approach.
I am open to both theories, but the data would tell all.
I see it as he starts hitting the throttle on the kerb on the previous lap and just before the kerb on the final lap. Its hard to tell but it seems like he’s earlier on the throttle the previous two corners also, to me.
It looks much earlier to me… Considering you load the front at Monaco that application looks to the point of “what was he thinking, that’s impossible to put that much throttle on there” territory. The lack of correction on the steering is a bit weird too. That kind of difference you might have from your first lap to your fastest, but between your two flyers in Q3?
I will say that if it’s an error, it’s an error, but it does look… weird to my eyes.
What other reason would Max have, who presumably has the data and knows what happened, for ignoring team orders today? That’s the thing.
I don’t think that really is an answer though. He can still be a dick, but Max isn’t stupid. He is the best driver on the grid, and has made a judgement with evidence none of us have i.e the full data. The video is clearly strange, and I’ve never seen anyone take that corner in a manner it appeared Sergio was trying to take it. The whole media circus seems to know that tensions about this have been there because as soon as it happened everyone said “this is about Monaco”.
If these Twitter posts are to be believed, the difference in throttle applications are enormous.
Erik van Haren is a reputable source and says he was personally there when Helmut Marko confronted Checo about it in Baku. Checo was apparently in deep shit after Monaco. One can’t help but notice there was a downturn in Checo’s form in the middle of the year…
The bigger story here is that if this is actually true and Checo purposely crashed, that is a huge issue to the FIA and likely would carry a VERY strong punishment if proven true.
Seems odd it is all coming out now. Maybe tensions just have finally boiled over within the team. Red Bull does NOT need this going into 2023 with a resurgent Merc coming at them again so I imagine Marko and co. will make sure their drivers thoroughly clear this up right away.
I think the issue is about whether you can prove it. I know Schumacher was punished in '06, but the burden of proof I imagine today would be higher. You’d need witnesses to confession, recordings etc… and that could put the whole team under the microscope because the fallout would be massive.
Max did say “I told you last summer” so it might not be related to Monaco.
Couldn’t tell if it was the contact, but max wasn’t even close to making the corner when they wrecked. He was literally all the way on the inside, and going as fast as someone who had a MUCH straighter line. If they didn’t collide max seems like he would’ve gone completely wide and off the track on exit.
I feel like the risk to reward ratio here speaks volumes. Risk? A lot. Purposefully crashing has brought some of the harshest punishments in F1.
Reward? Literally nothing… I guess he keeps max behind 1 position, but that’s not much
Not sure about that since that exact pass was made multiple times in the race without incident. I think if given another foot of space so that Max didn’t end up having to take curb, they would’ve gotten through there.
Well Checo won the race. That seems like enough of a reward. It’s Monaco so you can’t pass, whoever qualifies pole has a huge advantage. Plus Checo was still thinking he had a shot at the title at that point.
I couldn’t tell if it was the kerb or not.
You can see in most of the passes that inside driver (in respect to T2) has about a cars width to the inside. Verstappen was riding the inside kerb to the turn the entire way.
I’m gonna be biased though but that’s just what I’m seeing from onboards
Checo ended up qualifying 3rd, only 1 position ahead. The win didn’t seem like a DIRECT result of him qualifying one position ahead. It certainly didn’t hurt though.
If he did it on purpose, that means that he knew he had to pull dirty tricks like that to win the championship. Which also means he knows he has to do that for the rest of the season, and there’s no way you can continue doing stuff like that for another 10 races.
Seems like an extremely desperate move for a marginal gain in a championship that’s not even halfway through
The data is certainly odd though… so I have no idea.
Seems like way too stupid of an idea for someone to actually try it, but I don’t see any other reason for him to blip the throttle like that
There was a rear shot that showed Max getting put onto the curb trying not to make contact.
The outside driver also has to leave that extra car width of space on the inside, Hamilton did not. Lewis basically drove that entire T1-T2 section like Max wasn’t there, even though Max was ahead at the entry to T1.
Actually, if you look at the onboard, Lewis went narrower than George did ahead of him with nobody on his inside. Looks an awful lot like Lewis drove into the corner specifically to not leave space for a car overtaking him.
