Formula 1

[Johnmcl7]

Indy 500 spoilers:

Spoiler:

I don't know if anyone was watching this but will put spoilers just in case, after a strong performance his Honda engine gave up on laptop 179 out of 200. Rather amusingly the winner was another one of Button's ex-team mates, Takuma Sato.

The crazy Nurburging 24 was on this weekend as well where they race 200 odd cars across some 20 or so classes (ranging from the likes of Audi R8's down to Renault Clios and even a classic Opel Manta) on both the F1 and original Nordschleife for 24 hours. A customer Audi team managed a tremendous job leading for 22.5 hours which in such tough conditions is impressive but as the car left the pits it struggled for power and then died on the F1 circuit, it limped back to the pits and after being hooked up to the computer they got it going. Their two minute lead was long gone and they were in third chasing a deficit of several minutes. As the lead cars completed their final splash and dash the Audi hit further bad luck as they made a mistake when fuelling and the car pulled away before it was ready, forcing them to stop it and push it back into its spot losing further time.

There had been lots of footage of the customer Audi's pit team who were all despairing while the factory Audi team couldn't believe they'd been gifted the win. However as they were getting the car back to it stop and checking the fuel cap with only 18 minutes of the 24 hours left, the rain started really chucking it down so they swapped the car onto wets and set it on its way. The risk with the Ring is that with the huge size some parts can be bone dry and some soaking wet as it was in this case but the wet tyre shod Audi rocketed along the track while the rest of the field including the two lead cars were creeping along and both skidded off the track. It looked like the customer Audi was going to crash as it tried to weave through all the slow cars, it even did an overtake on the grass to get by and then easily took its lead back however it then went onto the bone dry section of the track which could be enough to destroy the tread blocks, all was ok though and it safely made it back to the wet track and came back round for the win. Meanwhile the former lead Audi and BMW both pitted to go onto wets for the last lap but then both had the same thought that they might be able to do a fast enough lap on slicks so both immediately left the pits without refuelling or tyres.

The rain stopped shortly after but really quite an incredible finish to the race.

John

[matt]

sounds mega John, Monaco was crap.

[robbo]

Yep, I watched both the Monaco GP and bits of Indy 500. Monaco was yep, boring and the bits of Indy looked quite exciting (was on BT sport ESPN) - I think it's called something like that.)

Would've been nice to see Kimi win.

I watched the start on Indy 500, flicked over and watched something else then turned back to it just as the monster, flying car smash occurred - insane and lucky not to have landed on his head into the barrier. Made the Button/Wehrlein crash look comical. (Button's got a grid-penalty for that incident, not that he'll be serving it). Turned over again and then caught nearly the end and saw what happened to the Fonz and lost interest and turned over.

Do you watch the 24 hour races in stints throughout the day? There updates to see the 'best of' bits to get you up to speed or do you just read what's been going on?

[Johnmcl7]

I was surprised how annoyed Kimi was about losing the win as a lot of the time he didn't seem to really care if he won the race or not however he was looking seriously pissed off the whole time after the race. Can't really blame him although also can't blame Ferrari for backing Vettel either particularly when Mercedes seem a bit on the back foot and that can quickly change so they need all the points they can get.

For watching the 24 hour races it depends on what's happening and which race it is, the Blancpain 24 and Nurburgring 24 races tend to focus on the lead GT3 cars so when they're quiet I either have it on in the background or listen to it on the radio and switch back when there's more action particularly if there's a shift in the weather. This year the N24 was mostly fairly quiet until the end while last year the Blancpain Spa 24 was pretty mad with a lot of short heavy showers so didn't watch much of the N24 but watched a lot of the Blancpain.

At Le Mans the classes feel more significant so tend to follow each of the battles in each class more closely which means while it might be quiet amongst the prototypes but a huge battle amongst the GT's and vice versa so I tend to watch most of Le Mans although there can be breaks if there's big crashes as the safety car can be out for a coupe of hours if there's serious barrier damage.

John

[Johnmcl7]

I'm surprised there's no chat over that little incident between Vettel and Hamilton?

On a less positive note, Silverstone are looking to pull out of hosting F1 due to rising costs:

http://www.planetf1.com/news/highly-pro ... -contract/

There's suggestions that it's just a ruse to get out of the Bernie contract with a set increment in fees every year and get a new contract negotiated, certainly Liberty Media have said they're keen to keep the core circuits.

On a different note, Amazon have an excellent mini-series on Le Mans:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mans-Racing-Ev ... ds=le+mans

It's just six half hour episodes and focuses mainly on the 2015 race where Audi, Porsche, Toyota and Nissan would all compete in the LMP1-H class with Nico Hulkenburg getting a drive in Porsche. As the race progresses it goes a bit into some of the background of the race and a bit behind the scenes chatting to various people in the garage. It doesn't go into much technical detail but just mostly focuses on the feel of the race and what makes it so special which works well. The only criticism is that the Nissan guy they focused on is irritating and completely deluded which is a shame as mostly the Nismo team have great interaction with fans (they don't run a Le Mans GT car but they do have a GT3 spec Nissan GTR that takes part in other endurance races), also Toyota despite pretty much saving LMP1 after Peugeot pulling out get almost no mention at all. That may be Toyota's choice though as the 2015 race didn't go well as they stuck with a proven, reliable system but it just wasn't fast enough.

I'd highly recommend watching it if at all curious about Le Mans.

John

[Replicant]

I thought Vettel's behaviour was outrageous and very petulant. If the tables were turned I am sure Hamilton would have been dealt with more severely.

[Johnmcl7]

C'mon, Chris it was an accident! He only wanted to speak to Hamilton and um, accidentally veered into him. I was going to say I'd heard the stop/go penalty wasn't the end of it the FIA were possibly taking further action but they've concluded their investigation and there will be no further action because Vettel said sorry. No really, I'm not joking:

http://www.planetf1.com/news/vettel-fac ... collision/

I hadn't realised that the ten second stop/go penalty was the highest penalty they could give before blackflagging the car so it does make sense to give that during the race and then a more serious one afterwards but to get nothing at all is very surprising. Particularly bearing in mind there's been much more severe penalties for more minor incidents with Grosjean getting a one race ban for causing the crash at the start of Spa in 2012, while he'd had a lot of first corner incidents that year the penalty was based purely on the crash which while serious was just a mistake. Vettel driving up beside Hamilton and deliberately crashing into him is clearly far worse than that, it's a joke he's walking away with it.

John

[Replicant]

It clearly helps when your car has a Ferrari badge on it.

[Tappy]

Meh... he didn't crash into Hamilton's car, he didn't hit Hamilton's car with the intention of breaking the car, both the cars finished.

You can bump into other cars can't you? Seems that if it's on purpose you get a penalty depending on the intent and outcome, if it's due to stupidity you get a penalty depending on severity. Intent was hot headedness, outcome wasn't much. Maybe points expunged for the race would also have been consistent? But he wasn't doing it to get more points than Hammy - like Schumey tried with Villeneuve and subsequently had all his points removed. Vettel was just rage blinded. What was the outcome of Senna and Prost when it happened? Probably numerous other instances.

I think they probably gave the correct penalty. Might not be consistent, but new management innit. I would say that Vettel now has a reputation hit, but like most F1 drivers, they don't care when their winning. They can become known as the nice guy when they are losing - i.e. driving for McLaren.

[Johnmcl7]

Source of the post Meh... he didn't crash into Hamilton's car, he didn't hit Hamilton's car with the intention of breaking the car, both the cars finished.

You can bump into other cars can't you? Seems that if it's on purpose you get a penalty depending on the intent and outcome, if it's due to stupidity you get a penalty depending on severity. Intent was hot headedness, outcome wasn't much. Maybe points expunged for the race would also have been consistent? But he wasn't doing it to get more points than Hammy - like Schumey tried with Villeneuve and subsequently had all his points removed. Vettel was just rage blinded. What was the outcome of Senna and Prost when it happened? Probably numerous other instances.

I think they probably gave the correct penalty. Might not be consistent, but new management innit. I would say that Vettel now has a reputation hit, but like most F1 drivers, they don't care when their winning. They can become known as the nice guy when they are losing - i.e. driving for McLaren.

Well no you can't bump into other cars, it's one of the most common reasons for penalties in F1 (putting aside McLaren and their incredible number of engine penalties) and no, it's not based on the outcome. That may influence it more than it should (particularly with Grosjean and his race ban) but as you pointed out Schumacher was given an extremely severe penalty despite the fact the outcome of the incident was that Villeneuve's car was unaffected and it didn't change the race. I don't see being hot-headed or rage blinded as an acceptable justification, that's what makes it far worse - he's a seasoned race drive and should not be losing control like that, just because he was lucky with the outcome and neither car was damaged shouldn't mean a weak penalty however if they had been, it's an advantage for Vettel. If a rookie had deliberately driven into another driver like that, they'd have been hammered for it...Grosjean received a full race ban for much, much less.

Vettel isn't going to be bothered about a reputation hit and he didn't care he'd done it either, he didn't see he'd done anything wrong and blamed Hamilton. The fact he walks away with no real penalty and gains more points than Hamilton for such staggeringly bad behaviour will have him laughing all the way home. He only officially 'apologised' when he was forced to do so by the FIA.

John

[Johnmcl7]

Source of the post It clearly helps when your car has a Ferrari badge on it.

It's hard to see it any other way, I was expecting a severe penalty to make it clear this behaviour will not be tolerated particularly from an experienced driver who should know better and who didn't see it as anything wrong either. The whole setup with Ferrari and F1 is wrong and hopefully Liberty Media will straighten that out and make for more balance amongst the teams as they've promised.

On the Tour de France today, one of the GC riders and currently cyclist world champion elbowed into one of the sprinters during a sprint causing the sprinter to fall over however the two aren't competing with each other. The GC rider was initially given a time penalty then the organisers reviewed the footage and banned him from the entire race, killing his chance of getting a sixth GC win in a row. I was amused to note a few comments about he should have been driving a Ferrari.

[Replicant]

John, I have to agree with you on Vettel. The fact he did it as an act of rage is inexcusable and in my opinion he should have been black-flagged in the race OR given a harsh penalty outside of it. He has form for this kind of thing when at Red Bull (even though he blamed Webber). I don't want boring racing (ironic given this is F1 and id synonymous for it) but this kind of action needs to be cut out before somebody is seriously hurt.

I saw the TdF incident and have to say that all sprints get 'a bit fruity'. That being said, Sagan definitely meant to give Cavendish the elbow and there was no excuse for it.
The penalty was tough but at least they had the balls to act decisively on it. Unlike the FIA.

[Johnmcl7]

It's interesting to seeing the two different responses as there's obviously people upset about the lack of penalty for Vettel and there's also people upset about Sagan's penalty being too severe:

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/ ... discipline

Hamilton is wanting an explanation for the lack of action:

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/ ... ettel-baku

Curiously Mansell feels the penalty was fine and this will serve as a warning for other drivers not to do similar actions whereas I'd say getting no penalty does the opposite of that.

John

[Johnmcl7]

Two big surprises in motorsport - Mercedes are pulling out of the DTM and Porsche are pulling out of FIA WEC, both to focus on Formula E.

[matt]

Source of the post Two big surprises in motorsport - Mercedes are pulling out of the DTM and Porsche are pulling out of FIA WEC, both to focus on Formula E.

Spoiler:

and the fons coming 6th + setting fastest lap