THE CONCRETE ROUNDABOUT (TCR)

I don’t really follow F1 and don’t really understand the rules.

Why didn’t they just establish the same gap between the drivers before the accident happened?

What accident?

_________________
It's Pete's train set, and we should all feel honoured to be granted the privilege of paying to play with it.

"Shut the fuck up, you sausage!"

The safety car came in for a reason, didn’t it? Why did they slow everyone down?

This

However, I love that LH pisses everyone off (for reasons I don't really get). I'm a huge fan of his just for that. Go Lewis!

_________________
I don't need your ill-informed, half-baked, idiotic opinions. I have plenty of those myself.

A reasonable question.

The accident (Latifi crashed into the wall spreading debris accross the track with 5 laps remaining) was in a place on the track that meant the marshalls would have been exposed to too much danger while removing the car and cleaning up the track for a Virtual Safety Car to be deployed (where every car maintains the same gap between each other, while driving at a 40% slower speed - still fast).

The commentators on both Sky & C4 agreed that it needed a Full Safety Car being deployed in this case, however.

In F1, that allows the cars that might be up to a lap behind the leader, to catch up and close the gap behind the leader - they get lucky.
In other motor racing series, the rules differ about what happens when a Full Safety Car is deployed - some close the pit lane too for a while, and the Le Mans 24h race also deploys multiple safety cars to prevent cars that might be minutes behind the leader but still on the same lap getting really lucky by having all that time deficit eliminated.

In F1 there are rules for how a Full Safety Car period ends once the track is clear.
The dispute is about how those rules were/were not applied yesterday, and why.

This article helps - the arguments about whether the rules were correctly followed may end up at CAS - HTH.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/59631665

_________________
P46_ _W _D _L PTS
07/08 29 10 _7 97 PI 1st
14/15 27 10 _9 91 KR 2nd
21/22 26 11 _9 89 LM 3rd
05/06 12 14 20 50 DW 22nd R
22/23 11 12 23 45 lm/MJ 21st R
17/18 11 12 23 45 rn/DM 23rd R
15/16 _9 12 25 39 KR 23rd R
LS: A rocky start, that's all it is.

Thanks. It seems a bit unfair that Lewis was twelve seconds ahead before the safety car was brought in and then that advantage disappeared.

There was a time when the driver won races. But at some point the technology took over and it is now the car that wins races. Which renders the Driver's Championship completely irrelevant.

If that were true, the two drivers in each team would end up with pretty much equal numbers of race wins, points, and qualifying positions etc. over the course of a season.
They usually don't, hence why the teams feel it's worth paying some drivers more than others to get the most performance from their cars.

_________________
P46_ _W _D _L PTS
07/08 29 10 _7 97 PI 1st
14/15 27 10 _9 91 KR 2nd
21/22 26 11 _9 89 LM 3rd
05/06 12 14 20 50 DW 22nd R
22/23 11 12 23 45 lm/MJ 21st R
17/18 11 12 23 45 rn/DM 23rd R
15/16 _9 12 25 39 KR 23rd R
LS: A rocky start, that's all it is.

What made it even more unfortunate than usual, and irregular, is that the race director initially instructed that no lapped cars would be able to unlap themselves, then changed his mind (for some reason) and then instructed that those between Hamlton in 1st & Verstappen in 2nd would be able to get out of the way, but not those between Sainz in 3rd place & Verstappen in 2nd, and then he almost immediately indicated that the Safety Car would come in at the end of the same lap, rather than at the end of the following lap.

The relevant regulation is here:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FGanWO4XsAo ... name=small

_________________
P46_ _W _D _L PTS
07/08 29 10 _7 97 PI 1st
14/15 27 10 _9 91 KR 2nd
21/22 26 11 _9 89 LM 3rd
05/06 12 14 20 50 DW 22nd R
22/23 11 12 23 45 lm/MJ 21st R
17/18 11 12 23 45 rn/DM 23rd R
15/16 _9 12 25 39 KR 23rd R
LS: A rocky start, that's all it is.

I have to agree it's not about driver skill, but strategy and yesterday, tyres.
If we accept the decision taken to let them go at it for a lap because that was the only option to see some racing then it was a great idea.
However, because MV had new soft tyres, it meant that he was able to overtake LH almost immediately and no amount of skill was going to prevent that.
So the entire championship came down to one lap but with absolutely no change of LH winning it because of his tyres. And he was in what is acknowledged as a significantly faster car. But cos of the tyres he lost.
Seems a bit unfair to me for that reason alone.
And I too did actually feel sorry for LH because he did the right thing on the first lap when MV went a bit mental and then gained out of it through no fault of his own imo. However, I would ask the question that if LH was leading the championship (like MV was based on wins) then would he have just thought "fuck it, I'll take us both out of the race" and be done with it? Had he done that yesterday he'd have lost the championship so there was no value in him doing it then.