Kvyat lashes out at “stupid circus” stewarding

F1 Fanatic Round-up

Posted on

| Written by

In the round-up: Daniil Kvyat rages at the standard of Formula One stewarding after an error in handing down his penalty during the Canadian Grand Prix.

Social media

Notable posts from Twitter, Instagram and more:

Comment of the day

Was Alonso sending a message by joining in yesterday’s IndyCar coverage?

Fernando Alonso clearly keeping his options open, great PR to call in during the race, “Why not”?
@Budchekov

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to Zimkazimka and Deb Trom!

If you want a birthday shout-out tell us when yours is via the contact form or adding to the list here.

Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

Got a potential story, tip or enquiry? Find out more about RaceFans and contact us here.

53 comments on “Kvyat lashes out at “stupid circus” stewarding”

  1. Rick Lopez (@viscountviktor)
    12th June 2017, 0:10

    Another “concept change” for Renault.

    Don’t have any faith it will make a blind bit of difference.

    1. Well it worked for Ferrari ! (and it’s technology you can buy)

  2. A bit gimmicky ?? Arghh ! @keithcollantine, No, no, no, what’s next, the wall of fire ? God help us.

    1. What would be wrong with a wall of fire? Track-side effects would be great at ramping up the entertainment factor. Cricket has kind of reinvented the sport with pyrotechnics and cheerleaders (although that’s kind of going backwards in the objectification sense) at the stadium for the fans in the twenty over game.

      As long as it doesn’t affect the race they should add as many external elements that generate excitement as they can. I’d much rather the entertainment and draw to the track be built that way than try to make the race itself something it isn’t for example with DRS.

      1. And besides the objectification sense, the recent IPL the girls were not at all coordinated!

        The entertainment should be off track IMHO.

        1. The gimmicky entertainment. The race should be the highlight.

    2. FreddyVictor
      12th June 2017, 9:10

      F-E tries to ‘spice things up’
      I dozed off half-way thru the race ….
      The only plus was the track was wider than the usual footpath they usually use

  3. John Rymie (@)
    12th June 2017, 0:51

    Strolls result should buy some relief from the onslaught of criticism. Of anyone on the grid deserves criticis it’s Palmer in my eyes.

    Yes Stroll did miles upon miles of testing, but Palmer had a whole season in F1 and has shown very little improvement (he’s a good guy by all accounts, but after this many races it’s time to move on. Let’s also remember that he drives for a factory team. Williams is a customer team (with pedigree to be sure) but does not have the resources Renault does.

    I truly hope Kubica can come back and replace Palmer. It would give Renault some more credibility with 2 extremely talented drivers and bring RK back to the sport, a win-win for everyone.

    1. true. palmer like stroll is in f1 mainly because of his father.
      unlike stroll, his dad hasn’t paid off the entire paddock to be nice to him.
      kubica waits in the wings.

    2. Roth Man (@rdotquestionmark)
      12th June 2017, 8:33

      I wasn’t impressed with Stroll. That car should have been challenging for the podium. Every time they went onboard he was sawing at the wheel like an amateur and he seemed to lock up or run wide at the hairpin nearly every lap. He only got the points through retirements and luck, on pace alone he would have been lucky to be in top 15.

      1. I don’t think the car is there. Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull occupy the top 3 with a huge difference and Force India is clearly faster. Williams is probably at Renault’s level at best.

        1. Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
          13th June 2017, 10:09

          @afonic

          I assume you will admit that Massa had a truly outstanding qualifying then if you think Williams is at Renault’s level at best. I think it was very nearly as good as the Red Bulls this weekend. Massa’s weak point is usually qualifying and he still put in a good performance beating both Force Indias. I actually think that if Massa hadn’t been taken out by Sainz, he will very likely have been on the podium. The Williams managed to jump the Red Bulls last year by strategy with Bottas so I don’t see why they couldn’t have done the same on Ricciardo. Williams after all still seem to have the quickest pit stops most of the time. The thing with the Williams car is that it is really strong on certain tracks and dreadful on others (or in the wet). Normally, it is clearly weaker than Red Bull but I think there was very little difference here.

          I think Stroll did a very reasonable job in the race itself. His pace was strong and he had the 6th fastest lap of the race. His lack of experience did show when he was a little too careful with some of his overtakes but I think he made the sensible to wait for an easy place to do them. Anyway, I think it has to be said that one or 2 of his overtakes were actually very impressive.

          1. @thegianthogweed I don’t think you can jump to conclusions by just Canada. Williams is extremely efficient at high speed circuits as we’ve seen in the past. I’d say Force India – Williams – Renault – Toro Rosso are about at the same level at quali, however in race pace, Force India are probably ahead. Also, in my opinion Force India have by far the best driver pair in that group. But again, to say that Stroll should win podiums in this car is a huge misunderstanding of how strong Williams is. Only in a high attrition race they can hope to fight for podiums

          2. Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
            13th June 2017, 19:43

            @afonic
            I maybe should have made it more clear that I only meant here. Other races then yes, they maybe are at at about the level of the other teams you mentioned. But I have no doubt at all that Massa will have been fighting for the podium in this race down to Ferrari’s bad luck. But I don’t think he will get another chance unless other drivers suffer or under perform again.

      2. he’s so out of his league. the whole thing is against the dna of f1.
        with oh he just needs time, etc. and points for him is like a win.
        it’s a joke. and that photo of him crowd-surfing. were all those fans promised $100 bills?

    3. In a way, I’ve found Magnussen and Vandoorne more disappointing.

      I don’t think Palmer and Stroll were particularly highly fancied (too much, too soon for Lance, in my opinion), but Magnussen and Vandoorne were seen as potential future stars.

      Magnussen has consistently disappointed, and Vandoorne hasn’t troubled Alonso at all.

      Sure, we can listen to ‘but the car isn’t up to much’, but your closest rival is your team mate, and he hasn’t challenged him anywhere near enough for me.

      McLaren seems to be the team young, talented drivers come to to underwhelm (see Magnussen, Perez), which is a shame.

      1. Roth Man (@rdotquestionmark)
        12th June 2017, 10:07

        Vandoorne has been my biggest disappointment. I expected Stroll and Palmer to be rubbish so they’ve only confirmed my expectations, whereas Vandoorne I really felt would impress, he’s been nowhere near Alonso and done some silly things along the way. Still, I don’t think anybody will take this season too seriously from him due to the Honda farce. I don’t think it’s helped by the fact we are seeing the best Alonso ever, these new physical cars that he can throw around suit him down to the ground, nice to see his old driving style back like the Renault days.

      2. @ecwdanselby, in the case of Palmer, I wouldn’t be surprised if it is being compounded by Renault not giving him a great deal of support either.

        They didn’t particularly want to renew his contract for 2017 in the first place – furthermore, this is a team that historically has tended to have a quite considerable disparity in the level of support that they give their second driver and their lead driver. With Hulkenberg being the driver that they have said they want to build the team around for the long term, I wouldn’t be surprised if they went into this season planning to ditch Palmer and taken the attitude that, if they are going to ditch him, there is little point bothering to commit that much to improving his performance anyway.

        I’d agree that, when you consider the high expectations of both of those drivers, Magnussen and Vandoorne have been the ones who have disappointed the most. Magnussen might be in his third season in F1, but he has driven extremely poorly in some races and seems to be struggling to show definite signs of improvement in his race craft (showing a propensity to weave around on track a bit too much) – Renault did say that they thought that he lacked the right mindset to compete in F1, and at times he does seem to be proving them right.

        With Vandoorne, in his defence he is up against an extremely competitive team mate in a team that is clearly struggling, and he has lost a lot of running in some races (or, in the case of Bahrain, not even being able to start due to mechanical problems). That said, Zak Brown did note before this weekend that Vandoorne is perhaps making the mistake of trying to drive his car like it was a junior series car (https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/mclaren-vandoorne-held-back-by-junior-career-driving-style-914868/?s=1) – a criticism that is sometimes levelled at Stroll too.

  4. congrats to stroll. against all odds.

    i will buy my wife a michael kors item

  5. Honda oh Honda..there is nothing left to say.

    It is hardly a surprise though, they haven’t updated the engine yet, so it was safe to expect failure until that happens. This is not to say that the updated engine will do any better.

    1. Well. You really need to see Hasegawa’s press conference on Thursday to understand the atmosphere within Honda. Hasegawa is getting bullied by the press because of his incompetence. The worst part of it is, he doesn’t even have a plan of action or a clue about what he’s going to do about turning the situation around. He’s just taking all the punches without any answers on the future.

      The worst part about their engine upgrade is that they still don’t know if it’s an improvement either on reliability or performance. They still haven’t tested it enough to even know whether it will work.

      I cannot even imagine how bad Sauber are going to be in 2018. I’m sure Wehrlein would be looking at a way out as soon as possible.

    2. It is funny, because McL wanted to be a manufacturer backed team, but when they are asked questions, both sides just answer, yeah you have to ask Honda/McL.

      I don’t know who’s fault is that, but that sort of “team spirit” won’t help one bit.

      And of course when thinga go alright, it’s the fantastic chassis and the amazing drive from Alonso, another theoretical pole was it? Sight

      1. @johnmilk

        I think they used the ‘we are a team’ statement pretty well for over 2 years. Honda has just proved to be an astounding failure… and it’s about time that McLaren point the finger directly at who is to blame. Heck, I would be ashamed of McLaren if they continued to feed that same PR drivel of ‘we are working as a team’ to move forwards nonsense. McLaren are in their current situation because of a hopeless Honda…. So better to cut the BS and get on with life I’d say.

        Mclaren has moved on to Mercedes anyways, so there’s no team requiring team spirit anymore.

        1. @todfod my point is, they never worked as one. Forget about the PR stuff.

          Had they mamaged to work properly together since the start the history could have been different, but they didn’t. Maybe that is Honda’s fault, because it wasn’t in line with their culture, maybe a bit McLaren’s because they failed so see such a bad outcome.

          Of course I’m talking with hindsight and that is always easy

          1. You’re right. We don’t know for sure whether they worked as a cohesive team to begin with. A lot of that had to do with Honda still being based on Sakura.. working with their own road car culture and absolutely independent of outside help.

      2. It is a fact that you need to be an engine manufacturer in f1 to win. The teams that are winning? Ferrari and mercedes. Unless all four of those cars dnf there is no chance for anyone else to win. Mclaren’s choice to go with honda was right (at the time) if you want to win. Only option mclaren would have otherwise is to run 2nd hand mercedes engines and compete with williams and red bull to be the best of the rest. But to win? Only if mercs dnf in 2014-2016 or if both merc and ferrari dnf in 2017.

        Going with honda was the right choise at the time. It was a good solid plan. Honda has been in f1 before and they were competent race winners back then. And honda in theory should have had enough time to make at least a competent attempt because they were staying out in 2014 to focus on 2015. But the thing is honda is simply doing such a bad job that it has been nothing less than a complete disaster. It literally could not be any worse. The cars barely finish a race, the performance is totally laughable and the engines are even fuel thirsty. And mclaren can’t do anything to fix it. Absolutely nothing. It is all honda and it is all failure.

        In hindsight going with honda was a huge mistake. One of the biggest in all of f1 history. I think it is really that big. But at the time it was a really good thing to do. There were lots of people in f1fanatic expecting honda to come in and completely wipe the floor with the rest. It was a good plan. It is a failure but it was a good plan.

    3. Roth Man (@rdotquestionmark)
      12th June 2017, 10:10

      I know we’ve all said everything there is to say about Honda but I just can’t comprehend that after 3 seasons they can’t even make an engine that will last a race distance! Even in Melbourne 2014 when the engine format was brand new and we expected everyone to blow up, no one had this kind of unreliability.

  6. I like leniency, I like clear cut regulations, we all want to see exciting racing.
    Today was exciting from the podium below, but there was something wrong, it’s almost FOM was trying to pretend everyone bar Kvyat raced fairly today. Kvyat made a mistake got a penalty but then the stewards realised they made a mistake of their own so they decided to penalise Daniil for their mistake, facepalm.

    IMO there was a significant lack of standards today. Magnussen particularly on his Stroll, Hulk battle was weaving all over the track. We saw quite a lot of Stroll and his onboards and often he and Hulk had to brake on the middle of the straight to avoid Magnussen.
    Hulk was brave today, in at least 2 occasions he faced a wall on the inside of the back straight after the hairpin, he got driven hard, exciting but a bit too much.

    I have to admit I didn’t really analyse the Grosjean/Sainz/Massa incident but it definitely belongs to that first lap stewardship debate. Romain and Sainz, after poor qualifying sessions forget they are mid pack and go too hard on the start, Alonso called them out on spot, via radio, he’s aggressive but he’s clean.
    Finally Max and his starts, Max takes full advantage of the starts, including of his status, in my opinion it was not his fault, not today not on the other occasions, I don’t think he’s guilty of any of his first lap tangles, he’s responsible though, I have to stress that, he always takes on the outside, but he takes the outside of a car that’s already going on the outside therefore he puts himself in that position, not only that he effectively forces contact because the driver on the middle only has 2 choices, hit the driver on the inside or the driver on the outside. I think Max shouldn’t be penalised for this incident, I think he should be reprimanded for not managing to get out of the first turn without causing an earthquake across the field, every single decent start he gets, he makes somebody lose carbon, he’s skilful not to crash that often in these circumstances but there’s always damage for an opponent, himself and either way, the race.

    1. You jave to see it before commenting then. Alonso was complaining because he had to take an evasive maneuver to avoid Sainz, he couldn’t be complaining about Grosjean because he was behind him.

      Basically Sainz pushed Grosjean into the grass, and because one time wasn’t enough he went at it again but this time crashed into him, the result was the crash ahead with Massa

  7. ‘chor’ means thief btw

  8. I was thinking with Sainz crash he had today and maybe not seeing the car or just thinking he is past them I dont know why F1 has not come up with a better system for the mirrors on the cars. I know they are size regulated but we all know over the years some designs mean they are useless. It surprises me F1 never switched to a system like Corvette runs on their GT cars. Its a full video system that tells you on the fly the closing rate of the car behind you with different colors and warning, which side they are passing on and a few other things. This would be great for F1 if they used it in a HUD on the drivers visor or on the wheel. I dont know if its possible but i dont see why not and i think it would also cut down on alot of the crashes where drivers do not know they are even there. Do you think this would be possible or help? I do.

    1. I think that would be an excellent idea.

    2. @racerdude7730 – Seems a worthy idea considering F1 is keen on technology and all.

      One would think though that Sainz knew Grosjean was there after he bumped him before chopping across him.

    3. All it needs really is a proximity sensor and a light bar, but, when your challenging an overtake, you also need to be aware the car being overtaken just doesn’t vanish

    4. They are especually worthless when drivera don’t even bother to look at them, which was the case with Sainz

    5. @racerdude7730 About full video systems it could be nice although I don’t think Massa would have avoided the crash anyways.
      As for HUD in visors it has already been tested (http://www.crash.net/f1/news/43121/1/bmw-develops-headup-display-for-ralfs-helmet.html) but somehow never went further in development.

  9. All the time you have to leave space, Carlos

  10. Find it funny how Renault are suddenly going back on their word. I remember during pre season testing that they mentioned Spain or Canada would be a major upgrade to their PU, and by the halfway point in the season they will be running a heavily modified PU that could rival Ferrari and Mercedes. Now, they claim that they are only getting small upgrades all year, with a major new overhaul in 2018.

    If I was Red Bull, I would definitely be fuming right now. Their hopes for a strong finish to the year seem extremely bleak without a solid Renault upgrade.

    1. At least they are saying early on that the PU concept is flawed, we’ll try again next season.

    2. Michael (@freelittlebirds)
      12th June 2017, 17:26

      @todfod that’s unfortunate for Hulkenberg… A good PU would allow him to pull some massive points for Renault.

    3. Yep.

      This has been brewing along fro a while now. I recall them actually talking about the “new concept” end of last year/early this year but now it’s all “Red Bull said we’d bring a major upgrade not us”

      The Renault PU is nearly as bad this year as it was in 2015 in terms of competitiveness and as always they seem in no particular hurry to correct it.

      Unfortunately for any customer team, they’ll just have to suck it up because they have all the time in the world to develop it in line with their works team’s development plans. They don’t expect that to be at the pointy end for a few years so no need to push on PU development.

      Pity they couldn’t be a bit more honest but then it’s to be expected.

      And the best part (for Cyril) is that while Honda remain, they can continue to get away with their PU without drawing much attention to how poor it is, knowing that if RBR or Toro Rosso aren’t happy, their only option is Honda. He must be having a great laugh.

  11. Lots of love for Stroll, but really he was easily the slowest of the Mercedes engine powered cars over the weekend, and I still see him sawing at the wheel like a madman from the on-boards.

    That Williams should have been up with the force indias at Montreal, as it would have been in Massa’s hands had he not had an impromptu meeting with Sainz.

    1. Seeing how close both Force India was from Riccardo I think Massa could had challenged Red Bull for the podium.

    2. @john-h If you look at the interactive lap-time graph posted by Keith, you’ll see that Stroll’s pace in the 2nd half of the race was right up there with the Force Indias, and his fastest lap was faster than both (6th fastest overall). His weekend started off badly but he was quite strong in the end.

      I think rather than comparing his performance with other drivers in similarly paced cars, it’s better to compare it with his previous performances. It was a great improvement, if you ask me. He can only go up from here…we’ll see if he has the talent to do so or not.

      1. Very fair point @neutronstar. Thanks for the analysis, to be honest I hadn’t thought to look at the lap time data. You’re quite right that this should be seen as an improvement, but its still not justified him being at the top level yet which perhaps some were suggesting. I guess I overreacted a little though :)

      2. @john-h @neutronstar

        I was actually speaking to some people from Williams in the week & asked them about Lance. The response I got from both was that Lance’s biggest problem this year has been the tyres, Getting them into the very small operating window & keeping them in it (Which is also resulting in higher tyre wear).

        They say that once he gets the tyres working his long run race pace has all season been very strong, However his races have been hampered by starting further down due to struggling to get the tyres working over 1 lap in qualifying.
        They feel that once he figures the tyres out he will be able to qualify higher which will obviously give him more opportunities in the race.

        Incidentally I’ve heard that Stoffel Vandoorne has been struggling with the same problem. This year’s tyres are not easy to get working & having experience with the way Pirelli’s tyres & there operating windows are is a big advantage this year so the rookies are been hurt by it.

        1. @gt-racer Thanks for the insight!

  12. STR is enjoying the most experienced driver line-up of their history, yet I don’t remember seeing so many mistakes and penalties from their drivers.

  13. Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
    12th June 2017, 10:37

    @johnmilk
    It is only Sainz who is making the big mistakes this year. Kvyat’s only mistake was to not know that he couldn’t go back up the field to start the race after not starting correctly. But he said he would do this to his team, and the team said “copy, copy”. So Kvyat didn’t think he was doing anything wrong. IMO it is Sainz who has been far worse this year. Kvyat really didn’t deserve any penalty points for what he did here. Where as Sainz has now made himself retire twice as well as taking out 2 other drivers and also collected 4 penalty points in just 4 races. He’s been up and down. but when he doesn’t perform, he has really made a total mess of it. While it is true Kvyat hasn’t exactly had an outstanding race this season, unlike his team mate, he hasn’t had a bad one. Kvyat is now starting to overall look better IMO even though it isn’t him who has been bringing the points. But then he has had 3 retirements as well as tyre problems in Australia.

    I know you’ve said I often rate Kvyat and Ericsson too highly, but this is a weekend where they both look to have done FAR better than their team mates. I still am not so sure why Wehrlein has now had 3 races resulting in finishing well behind his team mate. I guess I shouldn’t count Monaco as Ericsson made a mistake but I’ll count it from when they were both last in the race which was near the end. Whenever Ericsson beats him, it seems to be by a huge margin. Nearly 40 seconds behind Ericsson here in Canada. Considering it is the shortest track, this must have been an incredibly poor race from Wehrlein even if he did start from the pit lane and had a strategy that may not have worked as will. He also made a right mess of qualifying. That is now 2 qualifying sessions when he’s either crashed or spun and possibly prevented his team mate improving. Even when Ericsson was on a much worse strategy in Spain, he only finished around 20 seconds behind Wehrlein. While Ericsson has been worse overall in qualifying, I really do think that Ericsson is better than Wehrlein overall on race pace alone. Whenever Ericsson has been behind, the gap often hasn’t been than large in the end. I agree Ericsosn made a mistake in Monaco last race, but before when both Saubers were running, he was 30 seconds ahead of Wehrlein. And then Russia was another race when Wherlien was 30 seconds behind Ericsson in the end. We can have different views, but I’m still not convinced that Wehrlein is a better driver than Ericsson. Mercedes certainly made the right choice not to go for him over Bottas in my view. He may improve but he isn’t ready yet. If he is ready, then I’d say Ericsson is too. Neither of which are true.

    1. I agree on Sainz. I think his driving is really quite reckless and it’s only a matter of time before he does some serious damage either to himself or another driver. He seems to get away with it in publicity/media terms though as he occasionally looks quite fast and has a decent result.

      This is another example of where drivers get unfairly branded with a negative reputation. Kvyat has a poor one in the media so everyone picks up on his slightest error. Sainz get’s away with it because he has a better one which is not really justified. I think he’s pretty mediocre.

    2. Btw Kvyat got the penalty because he overtook Alonso after the SC line. You have to get into your grid order before the first SC line

      1. I don’t quite get why he incurred the penalty points, but if Kvyat had learnt the rules properly (or TR had their wits about them and informed him) then this would never have happened. Alonso was obvious aware of the rule as it was him complaining on the radio that brought to light the infringement – well at least to the viewers, maybe the stewards had cottoned on, but you could have doubts given their subsequent performance!

  14. Thinking about the McLaren/Honda likely pending divorce and wondering where this might leave Sauber in regards to Honda being their engine supplier for 2018. Hard to imagine Honda sticking around F1 just to supply the Sauber team.

    The way things are going with the Honda engine Sauber would probably be better off with previous year Ferrari engines performance-wise anyway. But, financially it could be another story.

    If Honda were to stay in F1 for 2018 it would seem that they would need a second team besides Sauber to theoretically give them a reason to stay. Can’t think of another team that would have any interest given the situation as it stands now.

Comments are closed.