The Official 2017 Azerbaijan Grand Prix Thread **Spoilers**

[Vaud]

janesmith1950 said:

FIA have announced they're looking into the incident. This is what happened with Schumacher in 1997...

Imagine the fall out if Vettel has all his points this year removed.

Ferrari will threaten to walk.

1-3 race ban, suspended for x races, at a guess. Punishment but no immediate outcome.

[Vaud]

768 said:

They were racing and Schumacher didn't deliberately drive into him.

To be fair, I'm not sure I've seen anything quite like it on the track either. Schumacher trying to find Coulthard in the pits was about as close an incident as I've seen to it.

Schumacher into Villeneuve in 1997? That was a racing speed as well.
Piquet/Renault fixing a race with a deliberate crash?
Senna on Prost?
Irvine's dangerous driving in (1994?)
Early Romain Grosjean - banned for kamikaze moves
Maldonado in 2011 (and his prior non f1 incident at Monaco)
Scheckter was black flagged in his first F1 race for dangerous driving (ok, this was the 70s)

I'm surprised by the hyperbole on this thread, some people are either new watchers of F1 or have short memories, there have been many worse incidents than this...

Edited by Vaud on Wednesday 28th June 18:37

[Vaud]

768 said:

You're missing the point.

This isn't worse, it's just not quite like anything else I've seen. It was at 30mph, not in the heat of racing, behind a safety car, after a shunt.

Not worse, not a threat to life, just a remarkably petulant move of a type I can't remember seeing.

Ah, okay, that is clearer, I understand your point.

[Vaud]

HustleRussell said:

I didn't realise that the phrase "I've never seen anything like it" was so easily misunderstood.

Well it's a broad statement open to a wide range of responses

[Vaud]

Doink said:

he did it in a fit of rage and premeditated

I doubt it was premeditated, but fit of rage/annoyance would seem accurate.

[Vaud]

Gaz. said:

HustleRussell said:

I didn't realise that the phrase "I've never seen anything like it" was so easily misunderstood.

You mean deliberately misunderstood surely?

Gaz, you are back! I've genuinely missed your contributions to F1 threads.

In this case, through either speed typing/reading or tiredness, or both I can assure you that I did not deliberately misconstrue or misunderstand.

[Vaud]

RB Will said:

That's 27 years ago lol

I started watching from a young age

[Vaud]

kambites said:

I think the FIA are in a difficult position now. On the one hand, he's already been warned about his behaviour once and by all accounts told that if he does something similar again he'll have the book thrown at him so letting him off would set a bad precedent; on the other, issuing a penalty "in cold blood" a week after the race will leave neutral fans who just want to see a close title fight annoyed with them for "interfering with the championship". Of course the state of the championship shouldn't have any bearing on it, but in practice it's bound to.

I suspect the FIA are wishing the race stewards had excluded him during the race. I suppose they could give him a big fine for "bringing the sport into disrepute" or something but not actually penalise him from a championship point of view.

Could go for a heavy penalty (e.g. 3 race ban) but suspend it - to send the right message...