Quote Originally Posted by Nitrodaze View Post
If you watched the F3 and F2 races, you may have noticed that there were loads of side by side battles through that same corner with no incident. Why Verstapenn is unable to do the same baffles me. Verstapenn has a poor record when it comes to hard wheel to wheel battles. They all tend to end in a crash. Hence, he is still a loose cannon in these situations. It is an aspect of his racecraft that he still needs to improve. His unnecessary crash with Ocon last year in similar circumstance would be an example.

The stewards chose the lesser of two evils really, there was no acceptable decision to be made whichever way they could have chosen to go. Hence, the decision not to penalize Verstapenn was good for racing and what was needed for F1 at this time. But it is not without consequences. While l agree that the decision was the right one under the circumstances, it does not mean that l condone the actions of Verstapenn. Nor do l agree that he got away without a reprimand and a warning for an action that was at least 75% his fault. Hard fighting on Lecerc's part is portrayed by some as taking a risk, which amount to a share of some of the fault for the crash. They forget that he was not given the requisite cars width to prevent a collision. The more an argument for Verstapenn is attempted, the more clear it becomes that he carries a lion's share of the fault.

The decision now indicates that it is OK to bump an attacking car off the track as long as the culprit has the racing line at the time of the incident. It redefines the threshold of culpability in favor of the car with the slightest nose ahead and on the racing line. Unfortunately, this would kill hard racing at corners. Drivers are now inherently advised to back off if they are side by side but slightly behind in a fight going into a corner. How this makes for good racing is yet to be understood, but it clearly means that the car with the slenderest of nose ahead approaching the corner is blameless for whatever happens to the other car due to whatever action they may take in the corner. This includes shunting the other car off the track.

It might turn out to be an exciting element to future racing, especially for those that are missing seeing incidents in F1. We shall see more cars being knocked off track at corners in the future, until a fatality forces the stewards to revisit their decision.
As I said I didn’t see it as an incident. I thought it was a good overtake .


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