2021 Race 9 - Austrian Grand Prix

[F1nKS]

You are required to leave enough track for a competitor who you know is right beside you .
It's that simple .

Horner even agreed it was a racing incident.

[F1nKS]

If Mercedes is not able to bounce back in England in 2 weeks, then I will agree with you that Mercedes is in trouble.

Bottas has already spoken on it and expects Mercedes to be at the top in 2 weeks.

"The difference is more than obvious at this circuit, but in two weeks everything will look different again."

[Tazio]

TEN drivers under investigation for late Austrian GP infringements

With double-waved yellows on the final lap for the crash, Pierre Gasly, Daniel Ricciardo, Antonio Giovinazzi, Nicholas Latifi, Charles Leclerc, Carlos Sainz, Sergio Perez and Nikita Mazepin are all under investigation for failing to respect the flags.

Plus Kimi, and George!


Dawgz!!
https://www.gpfans.com/en/f1-news/67...infringements/

[Bagwan]

Are you still hanging on to your conspiracy theory Baggie? Surely you see now that Mercedes is in trouble.

The Merc motor was quick for the Macs , and even had George looking in with a shout .
The Bulls were supposed to be fast here . Why mess with that idea when it plays into the plan ?
I didn't see the damage that caused Lewis to have a 'torrid" race . Did you ?

I did hear Lewis compliment Lando during that "torrid" race . Nice he had the time to up another competitor in the "torrid" of it all .

Lewis is altogether too relaxed about the whole situation for this to be the new reality .


It all may seem fetched a bit far to those not sitting here in the conspiracy corner , and I get that .
It's suspicion I've had from the very first race this year , and I'll be more than happy to find it to be untrue , but I'll keep pointing to the facts that run in the same direction .

To go along with the theory , with a track that suits them , it would seem to be the time for Lewis to win the next one , but not by much .
And , George will get his first point for Williams after being announced as driving for Merc next year .

[Bagwan]

Horner even agreed it was a racing incident.

He's not a steward .

[The Black Knight]

Norris, 5 sec penalty.. Have it one way or have it the other but don't change it depending on who it is to manipulate the race/championship. Where is the consistency? Surprised at Warwick..

I'm not. Warwick has always been a clown Steward. He was the Steward for Q3 Monaco 2014 for one of the most blatant acts of cheating we've ever witnessed in F1 and he gave Rosberg no penalty. He was, I'm pretty certain, a Steward for Baku 2017 as well and, instead of black flagging Vettel as should have been done, just gave him 10 second stop go.

There have been countless times I can remember Warwick bottling it. He has no business being in the Stewards room.

[airshifter]

A much more interesting race than the 1st overall, and plenty of action.

Lando did a killer job to keep Lewis behind him for that many laps. He used the car at the right places to defend, and managed to make it stick for 20 laps. DOTR for sure.

As for the penalties, I thought only the second one was legit. For Perez on Lando, Perez dove into a hole that was disappearing, and Leclerc did the same on Perez the second time. The first Leclerc bump by Perez I thought was penalty worthy, as the punt happened earlier and caused the off. And later in the race, the Russell vs Alonso battle showed how it works when both drivers use some common sense and yield when they are beaten.

And for Merc, that time stuck behind Lando was a race killer. Though it turned out that Lewis had some damage to his car and struggled from there on out, that was free time for Max to make a gap and only fight if he needed. I was actually shocked that Merc told Bottas to hold station while they thought it over, since it was obvious that Lando would be coming back fairly quickly. At least they figured it out and let Bottas go, even then it looked for a few laps like Lando might be able to catch up. Merc seem confident that they made up a lot of pace, and the pace deficit was caused by the damage.

Perez really choked this race IMHO. He forced a bad move, and paid a hefty price for it. I suspect that he would have struggled to get by the Mclaren, but he would have been one more car in the buffer between the race lead and the Mercs. He should have been 3rd at worst really, and ended up being lucky to recover to 6th.


Danny Ric finally made it all come together fairly well.

Ferrari bounced back better than I expected, and were smart to let Sainz blow by Leclerc at the end.

As for Russell, his defense on Alonso was just as good as Lando up front. Enough that he even got praise from Fernando on the matter. Shame he couldn't stay up in the top 10, but we all know how ruthless Alonso is once he smells blood.

Decent but quiet drive for Gasly. Yuki matches Sergio in penalties, and another case of a driver getting the same thing wrong twice.

Kimi and Seb.... well that looked sloppy Kimi! I'm not sure what happened there, but it did!

[Nitrodaze]

The Merc motor was quick for the Macs , and even had George looking in with a shout .
The Bulls were supposed to be fast here . Why mess with that idea when it plays into the plan ?
I didn't see the damage that caused Lewis to have a 'torrid" race . Did you ?
.

Yep, l did. He ran out wide over the ribbed sausage kerbs which wrecked the undertray and parts of under the rear. From that point, he was limping home.

I suppose we shall see how the second half of the season goes. From what we have seen so far, only the F1M plan is obvious. Mercedes is properly scappered!

[airshifter]

Minimum lap time won't cut it when two cars head out simultaneously

I think it still would. If one of them doesn't accelerate more and create a gap, then they both run the risk of running too closely together. Since we already seem to have an issue with outlaps of varied pace, just create a cut off point where "beyond turn x" all cars must remain in position while maintaining the speed delta. That would end last minute ditch attempts to get by traffic because a driver stayed in the pits too long.

And FYI, I don't really dislike your idea on the matter either. It would put more emphasis on Q2, which might be a good thing. It might also add some action... if someone uses up too much tire in Q2 to get the better slot in Q3, they would start the race on tires that took more abuse and possibly be more prone to lack pace in the first stint.

The Merc motor was quick for the Macs , and even had George looking in with a shout .
The Bulls were supposed to be fast here . Why mess with that idea when it plays into the plan ?
I didn't see the damage that caused Lewis to have a 'torrid" race . Did you ?

I did hear Lewis compliment Lando during that "torrid" race . Nice he had the time to up another competitor in the "torrid" of it all .

Lewis is altogether too relaxed about the whole situation for this to be the new reality .


It all may seem fetched a bit far to those not sitting here in the conspiracy corner , and I get that .
It's suspicion I've had from the very first race this year , and I'll be more than happy to find it to be untrue , but I'll keep pointing to the facts that run in the same direction .

To go along with the theory , with a track that suits them , it would seem to be the time for Lewis to win the next one , but not by much .
And , George will get his first point for Williams after being announced as driving for Merc next year .

TBH I think Lewis has just had more issues this year, and that is where the primary problem is. I don't know if it's just a bad start to the season for him, or if having such a huge car advantage has softened him some with time. Now that RB are finding more pace and can compete, those small things are adding up. Lately Lewis seems to just point at the team, and in all fairness I suspect that Merc have not spent as much time on this years car when compared to RB.

But at the same time, Merc claimed that the damage cost them dearly, and seems to be confident that their pace was on par with RB in this second race, and that only the damage and Lando caused the weekend to be such a mess.


I do try to take your views seriously, even if they come from the conspiracy corner. But now you're even including George in your predictions? That must be the crystal ball in the conspiracy corner!

[Bagwan]

"I do try to take your views seriously, even if they come from the conspiracy corner. But now you're even including George in your predictions? That must be the crystal ball in the conspiracy corner!"

George fits with the "plucky underdog" image for next year , after they make their "nobody could believe it" comeback later this season .
And , the German juggernaut , running two bulldogs , will truly be the darling team for the Brits .
It fits with the plan . It's a big plan . They are a big force .

Making it look difficult is probably more difficult than just winning easily , but when you are met with a "tired of it" response to your success , it seems worth the trouble .
That's the base for my suspicions .
The spate of uncharacteristic mistakes that just keep on coming from such a precision instrument as Merc points to a red fish at this point still for me .