Two 10-second penalties were given to Max after the two incidents in T4 and T8 of the 10th lap of the Mexico GP last Sunday. Additionally, 2 penalty points are added to Max’ license which brings the total to 6 during 12 months. If I were to ask you, which of the two incidents would merit the 2 penalty points more, would you have guessed, it’s the T4 incident?
In their official document of the T4 incident, the stewards are of the impression, that Lando was in front of Max ‘at the entry, apex and towards the exit of the turn when he started being forced off the track’ and that Lando would have been able to stay on track to finish the maneuver. (Sidenote: Horner’s argument, that one would take the same lines and braking points during a fastest lap and when going wheel to wheel is laughable on its face.) The standard penalty for forcing another driver of the track has been applied. I can’t see any problems with the reasoning in this case.
Now for the T8 incident:
‘Following the incident in Turn 4, Verstappen attempted to pass Norris on the inside at Turn 8. Verstappen was ahead at the apex of Turn 8 and would have been entitled to racing room.’ It is only because he didn’t stay on track while doing all this shenanigans and then stayed in front, that he got a 10 second penalty without penalty points, which is the standard penalty for ‘Leaving the track and gaining a lasting advantage’. It is not for forcing off another driver, or for provoking a crash (which Lando barely avoided).
And there lies the problem with the current driving standards guidelines. The only one available somewhere is a version from the Imola GP of 2022 (so they might be slightly out-of-date). On the second point of overtaking on the outside, they read:
'In order for a car being overtaken to be required to give sufficient room to an overtaking car, the overtaking car needs to have a significant portion of the car alongside the car being overtaken and the overtaking manoeuvre must be done in a safe and controlled manner, while enabling the car to clearly remain within the limits of the track.
When considering what is a ‘significant portion’, for an overtaking on the outside of a corner, among the various factors that will be looked at by the stewards when exercising their discretion, the stewards will consider if the overtaking car is ahead of the other car from the apex of the corner.
The car being overtaken must be capable of making the corner while remaining within the limits of the track.’
There’s 3 problems with this.
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It just makes it a race to the apex, which is in itself ill-defined. A quick part-fix: They could clarify it ahead of each weekend, e.g. given the ideal line for a quali lap. If you overtake on the outside, you’ll have to get ahead by that apex and still remain on the track. If overtaking on the inside, make sure the ‘front tires are alongside the other car by no later than the apex’ and you are entitled to ‘sufficient room’. If not, you can be forced off track, or the door closed on you respectively. Doesn’t read too bad if not for the imprecise definition, the bias towards the inside car (front tires alongside the other car vs. ahead of the other car) and that it only works in one direction (if I overtake someone on the inside and got my tires alongside the sidepod of the one overtaken, I have to do it in a safe manner, but can crowd them off the track depending on the interpretation).
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the last part of the overtaken car having to be capable of making the corner has just been ignored until that T4 incident. For a recent example: The US GP. The ‘gaining an advantage’ is not well defined at all (‘This may include giving back the timing advantage up to drop back a position behind the relevant driver’) and should imho be explicitely extended by being able to hold a position by going off-track.
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Causing a collision is regulated in the International Sporting Code, App. L, Article 2.d). There is nothing about a provocation of a collision which was only avoided by the actions of another driver. So there is a way too large grey area which incentivizes the wronged party to actually make small contact in order for the other driver to get a penalty. And since we aren’t playing bumper cars, this should be more clearly regulated, especially since the not leaving ‘sufficient room’ part has also been criminally negleted over the years.
Now add to all of this the inconsistencies between different stewards, or of the same stewards during the same GP (e.g. TSU penalty vs. VER non-penalty during the US GP a week ago) and we have a completely chaotic situation, where actual racing comes short.
I would love to do an actual deep dive and clip out all relevant incidents back to 2020/21 when Lewis and Fernando brought fourth the same arguments, that seem to have become more clear for a broader audience now that Max is arguably more brazen with his interpretation of the rules and guidelines and others are starting to imitate it. Alas I lack the time. The Mexico and US GPs in 2024 should be more than enough to make the points clear. And it is a positive sign, that the driving standard guidelines will be changed come 2025 and that the drivers had a productive meeting last Friday in Mexico.
Imo Max has always been a dirty driver he’s just been in such fast kit he’s rarely had to deal with it until McLaren started to catch up.
I would be very surprised if Max hadn’t work shopped the rules with RB to understand exactly what he could and couldn’t do. I do not think hes alone in that, any good Sporting Director like Wheatley should be pushing to do this to avoid race losing penalties by setting boundaries for their drivers. Where I do think he differs is that hes the only one whose repeatedly gone for this grey area and that this grey boundary has been work shopped as an actual stratergy.
As we have seen when it was close with Lewis in 21 Max will do anything to keep his title rival behind him once he is ahead in the championship. This constant living in the grey area during title battles leads to a feeling of unfairness and I believe it is this desire to make things fair is why we see things like Sundays penalties as a desire to even things up. Fairness has nothing to do with actual racing rules, but here we are and now we need much more complicated rules defining and enforcing that will likely have loop holes like the last revision and the one before that.
I think its impossible to watch the alternate angles (https://youtu.be/zb7okJILTfQ?si=MPi6lTItfErIRJv0) or look at the telemetry to understand that first Lando used Maxs own spells against him, but also that Horner was also massively pissed that Lando pulled a Max to the point he made himself look foolish not realizing Landos top speed was higher due to DRS on the first time. Its also worth nothing that Lando was very much within control of the car on T4, stopping to the almost zero they did to actually get around the corner at the same time. This is the complete opposite for T8 where Max is very not not in control and uses the throttle to induce understeer pushing them both off the track.
Stolen from Planetf1:
IMO, that T8 move is just as bad or worse than Hamilton’s on Verstappen at Silverstone 21
I think that while the opening move is similar, parts of that are very different.
Firstly Lewis is never as far along side, this makes it clearer in terms of the rules as written today who is at fault, Max managed to get along side/slightly ahead depending where you measure it for that second incident with Lando.
Secondly Lando cooperates with Max and keeps his distance as he is pushed off avoiding a nasty crash. Max does not do this with Lewis and instead turns in, while Lewis does not turn in as much as possible but equally he does not deliberately under steer to the point hes half off the circuit to drive Max off the circuit.
Dive bomb attacks require the other guy to cooperate not make the situation worse and I think this is were the drivers discussion needs to be focused. Are we going to allow dive bombs as valid and then sort it out with swapping back if it goes wrong? Or are we going to ban them because there are more than a few circuits with nowhere near safe run off to escape to without ruining your race?
Good post, nothing else I have to add though.
How hard is it to fit some of these to Maxs’ car?
On a more serious note though, something does need to be done to firm the rules up but I’m not sure where the balance is between giving someone priority over the racing line vs allowing someone to be forced off the track.
Obviously there’s a difference between being forced off and putting yourself in a silly position where you run out of track.
Personally I think the penalties were justified and have been a long time coming.
Agreed, the balance isn’t easy to find, but it’s not a law of nature either. How it has (had?) been handled though, it robs us all of great racing. If you think back to the great duels this year, they weren’t because the drivers all aggressively raced to the apex, forcing off of and risking collisions with other drivers. And then there’s the old story of: imagine if there was grass or gravel out there, I assure you, that they both would have behaved very differently.
Obviously there’s a difference between being forced off and putting yourself in a silly position where you run out of track
There’s already the notion, that when locking up for example, then you aren’t fully in control of your car anymore and at least for collisions, that assigns you blame. So one could generalize that.
But by the same token, if you want to see great racing then let the drivers have a crack at going around the outside safe in the knowledge that they will be given adequate space.
A simple “don’t run people off the track” rule feels easier to enforce, with penalties for very late lunges and dangerous driving.
Haven’t we seen something similar between Max and Lewis 2020 and 2021?
Obviously causing a collision is regulated, but no driver wants to prove a point by allowing the collision to happen, because that would just mean they have less chances of scoring points. So it’s a bit of a weird area that is exacerbated by inconsistent ruling.
Yes we’ve seen a lot of this. That’s exactly the point. These problems aren’t new and the calls for change aren’t either. In fact, Alonso warned of exactly this behavior and the problems that come with it years ago.
To the point of allowing a collision to happen, I’m reminded of a somewhat different situation of 2019, but one which should have been a slam dunk penalty: Leclerc forcing off Hamilton in the braking zone of the second chicane in Monza. The implication of the stewards’ reasoning was that because there was no contact, there wasn’t a time penalty. And there was only no contact, because Lewis took to the grass to avoid the collision. So yes, this problem has also existed for a long time and yes, inconsistent ruling makes it only worse. The fact remains though, that under the current regs, you can get away with throwing your car in somewhere and counting on the other driver to avoid a collision.
