2019 Italian GP - Monza

[truefan72]

Well well well. The stewards gave leclerc every benefit of the doubt in this race. But he drove a solid race. So congrats. the ferrari was always gonna be strong in this race. Almost like they built the 2019 car for this race.
Hamilton tried but ran out of tires. Good damage control to finish 3rd and fastest lap to minimize his wdc. Bottas had a moment but chuffed it on turn 1. Solid drive from him.
Im really happy for renault. A mighty result.
Finally some points for Gio. Norris and verstappen did well. Not much to say about vettel.

[Nitrodaze]

Well well well. The stewards gave leclerc every benefit of the doubt in this race. But he drove a solid race. So congrats. the ferrari was always gonna be strong in this race. Almost like they built the 2019 car for this race.
Hamilton tried but ran out of tires. Good damage control to finish 3rd and fastest lap to minimize his wdc. Bottas had a moment but chuffed it on turn 1. Solid drive from him.
Im really happy for renault. A mighty result.
Finally some points for Gio. Norris and verstappen did well. Not much to say about vettel.

I am happy for Ferrari and Leclerc for the win at Monza. They deserved it. But l found the Stewards leniency questionable. It looked more like someone got their hands greased. There were very clear infractions, firstly, forcing Hamilton of the track when they were clearly side by side. Secondly, weaving from side to side while the Mercedes was trying to overtake. Leclerc had the right to defend, but that sort of defending can be dangerous. Finally, cutting the chicane and gaining an advantage.

Somehow the stewards were blind to all of these things. Makes you wonder don't it?

[Nitrodaze]

This was a race of mediocrity. Q3 was a joke. Then Vettel spun all on his own and made a dodgy re-entry to the track and tagged Stroll whom in turn while complaining about Vettel does exactly the same action then sent Gastly off the track in avoiding action. We see cars punting other cars off the track. Is this is the new mode of doing battle on track henceforth. I see Hamilton had nothing to say about this. I have a feeling Hamilton would be very happy to adopt this new way of racing.

That said, what a great race for Renault. For the first time this season, Renault beats Redbull on merit on the power track of Monza. Abiteboul would have a wry smile and some pleasure from the result. The suggestion is the Renault engine might be faster than the Honda engine but the Renault chassis lets the engine down. Which l think might give Ricciado some comfort that there might be a light at the end of the tunnel afterall.

[Nitrodaze]

.....and the crowd goes wild!

Yea, it is looking like there is a changing of the guard going on within Ferrari with Leclerc having two wins to Vettel's zero. The important thing about this win, is that Leclerc has matched Verstapenn with two wins each and have helped Ferrari to match the Redbull team.

[Nitrodaze]

Black and white flag, a new softer message before points penalty is imposed by the stewards. Hearing the reasoning of the race director, he pointed out that Monza was a demonstration of how they intend to use the flag, which now introduces a threshold of contact as a precursor to points based penalty. If there is no contact, then the stewards shall be using the black and white flag to indicate to the offending driver that the next infraction of that same incident would result in a point or drive through penalty.

As with everything, nothing is perfect. The victim of the incident that cause the black and white flag to be issued would have suffered a loss of opportunity of some sort. The flag does not compensate them in anyway. Take Aikins win in F2, he weaved both ways to keep a faster King behind and got a black and white flag. King pays the penalty of losing tyre efficiency while fighting behind a slower weaving car ahead but the car ahead is not penalized and went on to win the race.

There is a very clear parallel of the F2 race to the F1 race. My question is "What if the attacking driver did not take avoiding action?" "What if the attacking driver let the defending one drive into him to make a point"

The weak point of the no contact threshold is it relies on the attacking driver to avoid contact but at the cost to the attacking driver. This new approach contradicts the "give a car's width" requirement for battling through the corners. This new rule say, the defending driver do not need to give a cars width, he is free to take up the racing line and shove the attacking car off the track in the process.

The gentlemanly convention of racing is being tossed aside for a more street mentality approach to racing. The dodgy racing attitudes of the junior formulas is filtering upwards into F1 and the Stewards and the FIA are letting it.

[airshifter]

I am happy for Ferrari and Leclerc for the win at Monza. They deserved it. But l found the Stewards leniency questionable. It looked more like someone got their hands greased. There were very clear infractions, firstly, forcing Hamilton of the track when they were clearly side by side. Secondly, weaving from side to side while the Mercedes was trying to overtake. Leclerc had the right to defend, but that sort of defending can be dangerous. Finally, cutting the chicane and gaining an advantage.

Somehow the stewards were blind to all of these things. Makes you wonder don't it?

Being shown the flag isn't blind, and Lewis barely went a tire off on a corner where many people not in a fight did the same. I personally like the re-introduction of the flag, as it lets drivers know that they are pushing the limits of the rules, and by all accounts that is what they should do rather than cause contact when fighting for positions.

As for moves defending, all the ones I thought were suspect I replayed, and Leclerc only made one move. As for gaining an advantage on the chicane, he went from over 4/10ths to nothing and clearly gained nothing in that mistake. Following the attack Lewis made, Leclerc only moved once, it's simply that he moved right to the racing line just as Lewis bolted left thinking about a dive inside. If Lewis felt it was not unsafe to move left, surely Leclerc moving right made it less dangerous if anything. Lewis moved more times than Leclerc did between those corners, he just didn't get a shot to get by him.


Renault did an amazing job here.

Racing point had a slow start to the race, but excepting Strolls move, made some progress back up.

[Bagwan]

While it's true that Chuck didn't leave a car width for Lulu , one might wonder how Lulu thought about making an outside move there .
That was never going to work ...just sayin'.

But , that said , it was pretty marginal , and did deserve a warning , so I'm glad they have that black/white option for these grey moments again .
And certainly , very nice to see Masi there to explain the decisions , right after the race . I hope this idea becomes a regular feature .

[Nitrodaze]

While it's true that Chuck didn't leave a car width for Lulu , one might wonder how Lulu thought about making an outside move there .
That was never going to work ...just sayin' .

I suppose, you mean the track was wide enough for only one car to go through it. Mind you, l am not criticizing Leclerc, he has been shown by Verstapenn at the Austrian GP, that this is the way to defend and the stewards condoned it, and Leclerc has used it to good effect in this race. Sainz has shown Albon and Leclerc has shown Hamilton, the knowledge spreads. Now they would go ahead and show other drivers the new way of defending. I am only interested in how this is going to turn out in the end.

[Nitrodaze]

Being shown the flag isn't blind, and Lewis barely went a tire off on a corner where many people not in a fight did the same. I personally like the re-introduction of the flag, as it lets drivers know that they are pushing the limits of the rules, and by all accounts that is what they should do rather than cause contact when fighting for positions.

As for moves defending, all the ones I thought were suspect I replayed, and Leclerc only made one move. As for gaining an advantage on the chicane, he went from over 4/10ths to nothing and clearly gained nothing in that mistake. Following the attack Lewis made, Leclerc only moved once, it's simply that he moved right to the racing line just as Lewis bolted left thinking about a dive inside. If Lewis felt it was not unsafe to move left, surely Leclerc moving right made it less dangerous if anything. Lewis moved more times than Leclerc did between those corners, he just didn't get a shot to get by him.


Renault did an amazing job here.

Racing point had a slow start to the race, but excepting Strolls move, made some progress back up.

I am not sure what you are trying to say here. but l surmise from it that you think this new level of aggressive defending is fine. You have to notice that Hamilton did not complain at all. Because what is good for the goose is good for the gander.

As far as cutting the chicane goes, he was not punished at all by the run off area for his mistake, such that he was able to maintain his lead from a battle which he was roughly 0.5 sec ahead. That said, he was able to rejoin the race safely. But run off areas are suppose to punish drivers who make mistake and enter those sort of areas for safety reasons.

The run off area in question was not effective, if a driver can drive at race speed through them and not lose significant amount of time driving through them. Errors are rewarded in this scenario.

[truefan72]

Yea, it is looking like there is a changing of the guard going on within Ferrari with Leclerc having two wins to Vettel's zero. The important thing about this win, is that Leclerc has matched Verstapenn with two wins each and have helped Ferrari to match the Redbull team.

Lol. I said last race it was a changing of the guard. This race confirms it for me. The real question is how Vettel will deal with the situation.