Hamilton's Driving

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Originally Posted by tintop

How so? Lifting at those speeds wouldn't have upset anything. That is, in fact, what Hamilton should have done. They were both being incredibly competitive going into and within the pit area, Vettel got out first and Hamilton should have tucked in behind him. Not sure what the appropriate penalty should have been but that is the easiest way to generate a fatal incident - car to car contact around unprotected and proximate people focusing intently on the job at hand i.e. pit crews

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Pit crew are only allowed in the pit area when their car is pitting, right?

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Originally Posted by SGWilko

Pit crew are only allowed in the pit area when their car is pitting, right?

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Or when they are about to pit. Your point being?

Look at all of the nice people in blue uni's that could have been taken out.

http://www.motorsportforums.com/foru...2&postcount=95

Tintop: I think airshifter was suggesting that because vettel and Hamiltons wheels were interlocked, Lewis could not lift without probable wheel to wheel contact. Hell, its not like Hamster could have eased right to leave some room to lift off the gas and slot in! :D ;)

Anyways I think this debate has run its course now, well certainly from my POV so goodnight everyone. :)

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Originally Posted by fandango

The stewards have made their judgement, so it's all academic, but for the sake of passing time on a Monday morning, here is my reading of those photos.

The first one shows Vettel on the blue area as he gets away from his pit. You could say he's trying to cut Hamilton's getaway, but in the second photo Vettel is clearly well into the centre of the lane, where he should be. It seems to me that Vettel won the getaway from the pits contest, but that Hamilton was the last to realise or accept this.

In my view Vettel is trying to stop Hamilton from doing something that Lewis shouldn't have been trying in the first place, but that the stewards cannot be relied upon to rule clearly on.

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Somebody get this guy a gold star!

Pretty much exactly how I read it.... but you said it with much less words. :p

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Originally Posted by SGWilko

What, you reckon all the stewards walk away with a nice shiny new TAG watch and matching Vodafone iPhones????

Phoooeeeyyyyyy.

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Now that you mention it............. ;)

http://img265.imageshack.us/img265/1981/bernie.jpg

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Originally Posted by tintop

How so? Lifting at those speeds wouldn't have upset anything. That is, in fact, what Hamilton should have done. They were both being incredibly competitive going into and within the pit area, Vettel got out first and Hamilton should have tucked in behind him. Not sure what the appropriate penalty should have been but that is the easiest way to generate a fatal incident - car to car contact around unprotected and proximate people focusing intently on the job at hand i.e. pit crews

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I'm not stating that lifting would have upset the car, simply that after they had already made tire to tire contact lifting would have upset BOTH cars if the wheels touched again. Lewis did lift and tuck in once clear of the air hoses and such towards pit exit.

Had Vettel not kept him crowded to the right we might know what Lewis had done given some room.



Speaking of the entry, did anyone get the full coverage of the initial pit lane entry around the final corner? SpeedTV only showed it as they exited the corner.

In the Alonso/Massa entry Alonso clearly had all four tires to the inside of the marked lines. From where they cut in to the Vettel/Hamilton incident it only shows a couple of tires inside the line.

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Originally Posted by airshifter

I'm not stating that lifting would have upset the car, simply that after they had already made tire to tire contact lifting would have upset BOTH cars if the wheels touched again. Lewis did lift and tuck in once clear of the air hoses and such towards pit exit.

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They were only close before Vettel moved over after it became very apparent Hamilton had no intention to move in line behind him being that he was a metre behind and had no lane.

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Had Vettel not kept him crowded to the right we might know what Lewis had done given some room.

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Not true. Lewis WAS given room but chose to race instead. On doing this Vettel closed the door and moved across on him. Was it the wrong thing to do from a racing perspective? Absolutely not... Vettel owned that space and Lewis should have moved back. Was it the wrong thing to do from a safety perspective? Absolutely yes.... when Vettel moved across he himself put engineers at risk.

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Speaking of the entry, did anyone get the full coverage of the initial pit lane entry around the final corner? SpeedTV only showed it as they exited the corner.

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Hamilton went in first....

[youtube]ReNA_VaSV50[/youtube]

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In the Alonso/Massa entry Alonso clearly had all four tires to the inside of the marked lines. From where they cut in to the Vettel/Hamilton incident it only shows a couple of tires inside the line.

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Not sure what you're saying here sorry!!

End of the day, pit lane clearly has space to accommodate two cars within the marked lines.

As I said earlier, they were both at fault. No doubt the stewards saw their behaviour in a competitive light, each transgression cancelling the other out, so deemed a reprimand for both appropriate.

Of course, maybe saturn has run rings around uranus and this is the result, but the former seems more plausible to me.

And, in the pits, the only other crew out in the entire remaining pit was Williams.

Perhaps we need a chap with a red flag to escort drivers to their pit.......

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Originally Posted by Daniel

Tbh I'd forgotten about what Hamilton did to Vettel because of what happened about 30 seconds later but yes that was dumb.

You don't get it. You really don't get it. I never said Jenson's driving was erratic in terms of acceleration or decelleration or weaving. Neither did Brundle, what Brundle said was that Jenson failed in his obligation to drive in a manner which was not liable to cause an accident. Tbh if Jenson had done that in a dry race then it would have been fine. But

1) It was damp
2)We'd just had a safety car so people were on coolish tyres
3) Some people were on slicks
4) Some people were on rather worn intermediates

etc etc and if you don't get that then there's little hope. All it would have taken would be one driver misjudging things and there would have been a stupid pileup, thank god Shanghai is one of Tilke's uberwide borefests or there wouldn't have been room for everyone to get out of the way.

There seems to be a school of thought that if someone's reckless actions didn't cause an accident this time then it's all good. That's just complete BS. PSfan has come out and found the reg anyway which shows how much of a ballbag Jenson is and that what he did was wrong.

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Ease off on Jenson - he's just been watching too many NASCAR restarts! :)

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Originally Posted by tintop

How so? Lifting at those speeds wouldn't have upset anything. That is, in fact, what Hamilton should have done. They were both being incredibly competitive going into and within the pit area, Vettel got out first and Hamilton should have tucked in behind him. Not sure what the appropriate penalty should have been but that is the easiest way to generate a fatal incident - car to car contact around unprotected and proximate people focusing intently on the job at hand i.e. pit crews

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Agreed! If two cars touch wheels on the course, they end up off in the grass, armco, wall, etc. If it happens in the pits, they could end up in mechanics, other pitted cars, garages, etc. Seems to me that there needs to be a strict rule that cars in the pitlane must be single file or face (real) discipline, not a reprimand. The second car should fall in behind the first even if it is released 1 cm behind the other car.

You might lose a position, but we are talking about protecting lives - that's a bit more important!