1358 replies to this topic

[MikeTekRacing]

Wasn't. He was penalized for it.

i can't imagine how that would work.

He thought he could do it - and just did it? even if right, I wouldn't think of taking the initiative to pass back someone

[AustinF1]

I thought about this, too, after seeing the lack of any apparent reasonable logic in the application of penalties in China. He's not wrong. Why risk it?

 

'Better not to race' in Sprints – Alonso  https://racer.com/20...sprints-alonso/

 

 

Fernando Alonso says the Sprint format is showing it is “better not to race” on a Saturday due to the impact on tire usage and the penalty points he received at the Chinese Grand Prix.

 

The stewards gave Alonso a retrospective 10-second time penalty and three penalty points for causing a collision with Carlos Sainz when fighting for a top three position in China’s Sprint, leaving him halfway to a race ban. The penalty points appeared particularly harsh despite the pair making contact, and with Alonso then forced into an unusual strategy on Sunday where he made an extra pit stop due to a lack of hard tires, he says sitting out the Sprint would have been a better option.

 

“I think getting more tires will be good because in FP1 it is a game of who can run less and who uses less sets of tires, so it is a shame for the fans,” Alonso said. “And then, the Sprint, if they want it for the show and for overtaking and you don’t let them race, it is better not to race.

 

“We didn’t have any more hard tires (on Sunday). We had one soft and one medium and 35 laps in front of us, which, in our calculations, it was not possible to make it to the end. Obviously, there were a lot of safety car laps to remove the Sauber and once the safety car came in – more safety car laps because they crashed.

 

“The best thing is not to do the Sprint, probably, on Saturday, to keep a set of tires for Sunday. There are few points on the table for us if you are not winning the race and you risk penalty points and things like that, so it is better maybe not to race.”

...

[AustinF1]

i can't imagine how that would work.

He thought he could do it - and just did it? even if right, I wouldn't think of taking the initiative to pass back someone

Only thing I can think of is that he didn't know the other car had been allowed by race control to pass him under the SC. That seems unlikely though. 

[ANF]

I'm really confused. When did this happen?

Lap 26 is when Ricciardo was hit by Stroll at Turn 14. Because of their accident (the cars had basically stopped well off the racing line) Hülkenberg was allowed to overtake Stroll and Ricciardo at T14.

The safety car came out again near the end of lap 27 for Tsunoda's stationary car.

Ricciardo then passed Hülkenberg on the straight before Turn 6 on lap 28.

Ricciardo's radio:

"Yeah, I got hit. Yeah, I got ****ing hit."
...
"The Haas also passed before the safety car line."
"Confirmed."
...
"Safety car. Safety car."
"Should I box? Let me know."
...
"What a ****ing asshole, man! — Yeah, let me pass Hülkenberg, yeah?"
"Stand by, I'll let you... keep you posted. Mode 14, charge off."
*Ricciardo passes Hülkenberg*
"Yeah, I'm passing him anyway. It's my position."
"Copy, Daniel."

Hülkenberg's radio:

"Ricciardo just overtook me."
"OK, understood. We'll report it."
...
"So obviously we reported it, Nico. Not sure what's going on there. In any case, Ricciardo will have to stop again ... because he's only used two mediums."

Edited by ANF, Yesterday, 18:16.

[MikeTekRacing]

Only thing I can think of is that he didn't know the other car had been allowed by race control to pass him under the SC. That seems unlikely though. 

even then...overtaking a car under safety car without checking with RC? 

[MikeTekRacing]

"Yeah, I'm passing him anyway. It's my position."
 

Not very smart of him...

[Deeq]

Not very smart of him...

And extremely reckless!
Worth a mandatory Black Flag.

[southernstars]

even then...overtaking a car under safety car without checking with RC? 

 

But didn't we just get a whole spiel about how RC doesn't get involved anymore, which is why Sargeant got an incredibly harsh penalty for something neither he nor Williams could see?

 

The logic makes sense from Daniel's POV. He's just been rammed, but Hulkenberg has overtaken him under the safety car, so he had the right - in his view - to take the position back, particularly given the position was lost through no fault of Daniel's. And considering the stewards had literally just swung the hammer at Sargeant presumably under a rules-are-rules-no-exceptions thing, it would be reasonable to expect that Hulkenberg's pass was not permitted, particularly given both Stroll and Daniel were still moving.

 

Should he have checked with RC first? Or stayed put and waited for Hulkenberg to get a penalty? Yes, he should have. There's no doubt in that.

 

Should he really have got a worse penalty than Stroll got for causing the entire mess to begin with? Absolutely not.

[pdac]

Teams read the tech regs with a fine tooth comb to identify exactly what they need to do and what they can get away with. Maybe they should do that with the sporting regs too.