F1 2021 Season

Leg-End

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Don’t touch another car, simple as that.

Merc’s infringement seems like a slam dunk penalty, the title race will be over barring major incident now.
 

sun_tzu

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rpitroda said:
I hope they have a reason for it. Because it would be such a great shame for something like this to put to bed the championship.

Obviously, you can’t not punish Mercedes for that. If they’ve broken the rules then they’ve broken the rules. It would be such a shame though.
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Yeah if the wing was illegal there has to be a punishment

Equally if max inspected somebody's car that's also a rule infringement and should also incur the appropriate punishment

Best case scenario I'd love to see them both charging through the field from the pit lane... chuck in some rain part way through the gp and a drying track towards the end
 

Dudu

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Surely Max will get no more than a fine/warning here?

Lewis' one is looking like a slam dunk DSQ.
 

sun_tzu

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They should televise the stewards enquiries

I for one would enjoy watching toto say that all they know is the car was inspected and legal before the qualifying session but after seeing max tamper with the wing on 2 cars in park ferme it is now apparently out of tolerance

Whilst horner suggests sending a red bull round with a drs that matches Hamiltons to show its worth 0.5 seconds a lap
 

pauldyson1uk

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Why would Mercedes send Lewis out with an illegal wing ? They clearly know it would be checked.
Max touching/ checking the wing is equally as daft, he knew he would be seen.
If Toto can prove it was legal before the start, what next ?
I don't for one second think Max changed anything.
If the race is decided by this, it will be a farce.
 

TheMagicFoolBus

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pauldyson1uk said:
Why would Mercedes send Lewis out with an illegal wing ? They clearly know it would be checked.
Max touching/ checking the wing is equally as daft, he knew he would be seen.
If Toto can prove it was legal before the start, what next ?
I don't for one second think Max changed anything.
If the race is decided by this, it will be a farce.
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Looks pretty definitive. Maybe Merc thought they could get one over and/or didn't check properly themselves? Mechanical failure seems unlikely since it was working as intended and was fully closed as per the initial findings.

There's no way Max could have changed anything; those wings are build to withstand 800 kilos of downforce. Agreed that it was daft but in all probability as well he was checking the extent to which the rear wing was bending - as that was what Red Bull had flagged up. Still stupid but given that Seb has gotten away with touching cars for years it'd be a bit ridiculous for the FIA to come down hard on him.
 

sun_tzu

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TheMagicFoolBus said:

Looks pretty definitive. Maybe Merc thought they could get one over and/or didn't check properly themselves? Mechanical failure seems unlikely since it was working as intended and was fully closed as per the initial findings.

There's no way Max could have changed anything; those wings are build to withstand 800 kilos of downforce. Agreed that it was daft but in all probability as well he was checking the extent to which the rear wing was bending - as that was what Red Bull had flagged up. Still stupid but given that Seb has gotten away with touching cars for years it'd be a bit ridiculous for the FIA to come down hard on him.
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Is there any footage of the drs opening during quali
Given the amount of high quality cameras and the fact that you can easily compare any movement against a known measurement on a part of the wing I would have thought they could establish if the issue was there prior to max touching it...

That said it won't change the fact that max touched two cars when he shouldn't have and im sure red bull wouldn't be happy if Hamilton had done the same on their car
 

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sun_tzu said:
Is there any footage of the drs opening during quali
Given the amount of high quality cameras and the fact that you can easily compare any movement against a known measurement on a part of the wing I would have thought they could establish if the issue was there prior to max touching it...

That said it won't change the fact that max touched two cars when he shouldn't have and im sure red bull wouldn't be happy if Hamilton had done the same on their car
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Two parts to that, on the Mercedes element they would have tested the DRS gap prior to the session and should have some record of that happening. They took Bottas' car into scrutinising as well post session so they'll be comparing the two wings on the cars. Note that Red Bull were raising this with the stewards prior to the session as well, so they had some suspicion from FP1. So the stewards will be looking at whether this was either intentional (ie. done prior to the session) or unintentional and occurred during the session. Either way, I'm expecting a DQ for Hamilton and a pit lane start for the sprint race.

I think the Max element is just a storm in a tea cup and being used by Mercedes to clip Max's wings, as they're preparing for a DQ for Hamilton by the stewards. He wouldn't have made any difference to the car
 

SilentWitness

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For all that Max has been exceptional this year, Mercedes really have been poor as a team. The signs were there previously that they could drop a clanger but they didn’t have stiff competition that could take advantage of it.
 

sun_tzu

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F-Red said:
Two parts to that, on the Mercedes element they would have tested the DRS gap prior to the session and should have some record of that happening. They took Bottas' car into scrutinising as well post session so they'll be comparing the two wings on the cars. Note that Red Bull were raising this with the stewards prior to the session as well, so they had some suspicion from FP1. So the stewards will be looking at whether this was either intentional (ie. done prior to the session) or unintentional and occurred during the session. Either way, I'm expecting a DQ for Hamilton and a pit lane start for the sprint race.

I think the Max element is just a storm in a tea cup and being used by Mercedes to clip Max's wings, as they're preparing for a DQ for Hamilton by the stewards. He wouldn't have made any difference to the car
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Yes but as far as the rules go it states nobody other than an fia approved person to inspect a car...no caveat about making a difference

In theory 3 engineers are allowed to go into park ferme to properly shut down the car.... if its only about making a difference then 3 merc engineers could measure every part of a red bull or vice versa... hence nobody is allowed to inspect so storm in a teacup... yeah possibly but not an entirely fabricated one and tbh max was stupid to do what he did if there was already a complaint raised
 

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sun_tzu said:
Yes but as far as the rules go it states nobody other than an fia approved person to inspect a car...no caveat about making a difference

In theory 3 engineers are allowed to go into park ferme to properly shut down the car.... if its only about making a difference then 3 merc engineers could measure every part of a red bull or vice versa... hence nobody is allowed to inspect so storm in a teacup... yeah possibly but not an entirely fabricated one and tbh max was stupid to do what he did if there was already a complaint raised
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Absolutely, it's one rule that no one would have given time to until yesterday. Bit of tit for tat, which is expected when you have Jonathan Wheatley and Ron Meadows going through the sporting and technical regs.
 

sun_tzu

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Fluctuation0161

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SilentWitness said:
For all that Max has been exceptional this year, Mercedes really have been poor as a team. The signs were there previously that they could drop a clanger but they didn’t have stiff competition that could take advantage of it.
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Totally agree. Poor strategy choices. Poor reliability of the engine. Now this. They have made many mistakes.
 

TheMagicFoolBus

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sun_tzu said:
Is there any footage of the drs opening during quali
Given the amount of high quality cameras and the fact that you can easily compare any movement against a known measurement on a part of the wing I would have thought they could establish if the issue was there prior to max touching it...

That said it won't change the fact that max touched two cars when he shouldn't have and im sure red bull wouldn't be happy if Hamilton had done the same on their car
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If there's some sort of button on the wing that Max could have tampered with that impacted the DRS opening then that's surely an issue in and of itself?

I doubt that even high quality cameras would provide enough resolution to determine the margins definitively.

It's still a stupid thing to do by Max but given that others have done similar with no penalty previous it'd be incredibly harsh to penalise him beyond a fine. If Mercedes are trying to argue he impacted their car to the extent that it failed to meet regulations that's laughable.

EDIT: and apparently that's exactly what they're trying to argue:
https://racingnews365.com/marko-mercedes-claiming-verstappen-damaged-hamiltons-wing

Smacks of desperation, really.
 

pauldyson1uk

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If Mercedes are saying that Max damaged the wing, I hope they have some rock solid evidence, if not they are just making themselves look really really stuipd.

There is no way Max would have damaged anything
 
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F-Red

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OK, so it'll still rumble on. Mercedes have been told to use a different rear wing for FP2 and decision will be made later.
 

F-Red

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pauldyson1uk said:
We dont know how much extra the DRS opened, it will be in mm or less, would this have been enough for Lewis to be 4/10th faster than Max ?
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Doesn't matter to be fair, if it's 1mm more than the technical directive then it's breaking the technical regulations for the DRS rear wing.
 
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