F1

Killing F1 softly

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  • #337866
    Jungly
    Participant

    The last 15 minutes of the Mexican GP provided some of the most exciting laps of the 2016 season. 3 drivers, on different strategies, slowly converged to fight for the final step of the podium. It appeared a Ricciardo, Vettel, Verstappen order was likely but events on track and post-race dictated another ending. F1 finds itself in a sad state of affairs where an overly reactive and convoluted rule book is stealing the show and stripping the sport of character. Case in point, Vettel’s post-race penalty. Yes, according to the (new) letter of the law, the penalty was valid; Vettel reacted to Ricciardo’s lunge while in the braking zone. However, the penalty ignores the essence behind the rule and I believe this is where the sport is failing its audience.

    Ironically it was Verstappen’s defence of Raikkonen in Hungary where this all began. It was a great demonstration of aggressive, defensive driving, however, his defence against the same driver along the Kemmel straight at Spa was anything but; too much, too late and too dangerous. The witch-hunt began and Mr. Whiting had the appropriate word with Mr. Verstappen. It had the desired effect and Verstappen’s subsequent defence on Hamilton in Japan was another great piece of defensive driving. However, the whingers and law makers disagreed and new, more stringent rules were forced in.

    The Ricciardo/Vettel battle in Mexico, their cars twitching in sync, was top-drawer antics and a great demonstration of on the limit driving by both drivers. Up until recently Vettel’s defence would have been heralded as just about the perfect “squeeze”. Retired F1 drivers comprehensively complimented the skills of both drivers yet, once again, an inconsistent and overly protective rulebook robbed the fans’ driver of the day of his well fought 3rd place. Slowly but surely the rule makers are smothering the sport to death.

    #338001
    Syed Khan
    Participant

    This issue has been getting worse in F1 over the last few years and really annoys me. Interestingly the BBC website has an article today about a revision to this rule and commented that at a meeting of Charlie Whiting and the race stewards on Wednesday in Melbourne it was agreed that Vettel would probably NOT have been penalised for his defence against Ricciardo in Mexico last year.

    I totally agree with that and hopefully common sense will now prevail.

    Great topic of discussion in this new era of faster, wider cars with fatter tyres… we will almost certainly see more damaged front wings and punctures in 2017

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