The Official Japanese GP 2019 **Spoilers**

[angrymoby]

The Surveyor said:

No they didn't in that instance, but it happens all the time, often resulting in a marshal having to run out on track and recover bits of carbon. These front wing elements often come loose after minor accidents but are usually shaken off in slow corners when the car hits the rumble strips. It used to be the barge-boards which were equally vulnerable, yet no time penalties are imposed. There are also plenty of other instances where a driver has put other drivers at risk by not slowing or stopping with a damaged car, all without a penalty.

Only earlier this year Max carried on into Eu Rouge at full steam despite knowing his steering was broken following an impact with Kimi, yes it put him in the wall and out of the race but it could have caused a repeat of the fatal accident which happened the day earlier.... no fine or penalty to Max for driving a car in an unsafe condition there.

Again Seb drove his Ferrari at full speed at Bahrain despite knowing the vibration from the badly flat-spotted tyres put the whole car at risk, and when the front wing was eventually shaken off risking the cars around him..... no fine or penalty points there either.

Yet, CLC drives with a small piece of loose carbon and gets a 10 second penalty, doesn't feel fair entirely to me.

Leclerc had no idea the state of the damage, Ferrari had little more than what they were seeing on a monitor ...for all either of them knew, the whole front wing could've been on the verge of collapse

But the penalty was for deceiving/ ignoring Race Control ...not the amount of damage/ non damage

& that's a pretty serious offence in all forms of motorsport ...& they're lucky he didn't get black flagged regardless

[LaurasOtherHalf]

LaurasOtherHalf said:

Hungrymc said:

LaurasOtherHalf said:

HAM was on the radio saying his mediums were shot-people seem to think he should have stayed out for the one stopper when he himself was complaining it wouldn't work-I think that's right isn't it? I know the graphic showed his mediums in good condition but he said they were shot so perhaps their optimum speed was lost?

I doubt they think they can't risk HAM & BOT racing each other, they've proved many times they can.

It was the first stint when Ham was saying the tyres were dead. Lap 21 on the radio. He also complained that they’d left him out too long In the first stint and cost too much time.

Your optimum speed point is maybe fair. But could they really have overlooked the importance of track position again? He had 18 seconds over Seb when he came in.

That’s not how I remember it, I recall HAM saying his tyres were done at the end of the second stint as well even though the graphic showing they were still in the 70% region of wear-that’s why I particularly remember it.

https://www.facebook.com/MercedesAMGF1/videos/392130545062139/

Just to put this one to bed, Shov explaining why they pitted HAM on the second stop when the on screen graphic showed the 70% left icon. Also confirms HAM called in to say the tyres were dropping off.

Obviously that's not to say if he'd been told to nurse them from the off he might have stood a chance of the undercut but there you go...

[anonymous-user]

angrymoby said:

Leclerc had no idea the state of the damage, Ferrari had little more than what they were seeing on a monitor ...for all either of them knew, the whole front wing could've been on the verge of collapse

But the penalty was for deceiving/ ignoring Race Control ...not the amount of damage/ non damage

& that's a pretty serious offence in all forms of motorsport ...& they're lucky he didn't get black flagged regardless

They have hundreds of sensors feeding live load data to the pits. They know how affected the front wing load is in milliseconds.

[TheDeuce]

jsf said:

angrymoby said:

Leclerc had no idea the state of the damage, Ferrari had little more than what they were seeing on a monitor ...for all either of them knew, the whole front wing could've been on the verge of collapse

But the penalty was for deceiving/ ignoring Race Control ...not the amount of damage/ non damage

& that's a pretty serious offence in all forms of motorsport ...& they're lucky he didn't get black flagged regardless

They have hundreds of sensors feeding live load data to the pits. They know how affected the front wing load is in milliseconds.

Yes. And in any case, they did tell him to pit and his first reaction was to argue that order. Obviously his team want him to win every bit as much as he does, so if they're telling him to pit, there is a very high chance he really needs to pit. It doesn't really matter if he understands what the concern is, in safety terms knowing there is a significant enough concern to pit a car and effectively remove it from contention should be enough of a warning sign.

However, I don't judge him for it. All great drivers have had made boyish errors of judgement in their early F1 years - it's normal and forgivable, given how much they have on their minds at the time and especially given how young they are these days. I recall myself at his age and I'm not proud!

He'll reflect and learn from it I have no doubt. He will have seen the footage after the race and it won't be lost on him that he could have done more to avoid risking a serious incident for Lewis. We all have to fk up in our youth to gain the respect we have as adults for danger and the possible implications of our decisions.

[angrymoby]

jsf said:

They have hundreds of sensors feeding live load data to the pits. They know how affected the front wing load is in milliseconds.

they have sensors about load, not structural integrity

[TheDeuce]

angrymoby said:

they have sensors about load, not structural integrity

Which they use to asses if there has been damage, as damage effects load.. If a wing suddenly drops load on only one side after there has been contact then they know all they need to know.

[angrymoby]

TheDeuce said:

Which they use to asses if there has been damage, as damage effects load.. If a wing suddenly drops load on only one side after there has been contact then they know all they need to know.

someone should have a had a word with Ricciardo as he went through Eau Rouge last year then ...as he said he had no clue his rear wing was damaged, let alone gone

Unless ofc he doesn't listen ...because he didn't seem to know his Renault's rear wing was about catastrophically fail in testing either

[TheDeuce]

angrymoby said:

someone should have a had a word with Ricciardo as he went through Eau Rouge last year then ...as he said he had no clue his rear wing was damaged, let alone gone

Unless ofc he doesn't listen ...because he didn't seem to know his Renault's rear wing was about catastrophically fail in testing either

Well... yes they should have said something, the sensors would certainly have picked it up. They can't not, everything would be off typical compared to his car inputs.

[vaud]

Given the Renault investigation will go beyond the Japanese race reporting, I have started a thread here:

https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

[The Surveyor]

LaurasOtherHalf said:

…..

Obviously that's not to say if he'd been told to nurse them from the off he might have stood a chance of the undercut but there you go...

Or indeed why they didn't put a set of hard tyres on Hamilton for the second stint if they were trying to run the race on a single stop

[Andy S15]

The penalty smacks of another of the FIA's seeming desire to penalise based on the outcome. SV in Bahrain and MV in Spa were both pretty stty incidents, but neither of them had an outcome that affected anything other than themselves. The fact that debris hit another car and actually caused damage to that car somewhat forces their hand to penalise.

[The Surveyor]

angrymoby said:

The Surveyor said:

No they didn't in that instance, but it happens all the time, often resulting in a marshal having to run out on track and recover bits of carbon. These front wing elements often come loose after minor accidents but are usually shaken off in slow corners when the car hits the rumble strips. It used to be the barge-boards which were equally vulnerable, yet no time penalties are imposed. There are also plenty of other instances where a driver has put other drivers at risk by not slowing or stopping with a damaged car, all without a penalty.

Only earlier this year Max carried on into Eu Rouge at full steam despite knowing his steering was broken following an impact with Kimi, yes it put him in the wall and out of the race but it could have caused a repeat of the fatal accident which happened the day earlier.... no fine or penalty to Max for driving a car in an unsafe condition there.

Again Seb drove his Ferrari at full speed at Bahrain despite knowing the vibration from the badly flat-spotted tyres put the whole car at risk, and when the front wing was eventually shaken off risking the cars around him..... no fine or penalty points there either.

Yet, CLC drives with a small piece of loose carbon and gets a 10 second penalty, doesn't feel fair entirely to me.

Leclerc had no idea the state of the damage, Ferrari had little more than what they were seeing on a monitor ...for all either of them knew, the whole front wing could've been on the verge of collapse

But the penalty was for deceiving/ ignoring Race Control ...not the amount of damage/ non damage

& that's a pretty serious offence in all forms of motorsport ...& they're lucky he didn't get black flagged regardless

I don't disagree, but I would say that Race control also got it wrong on the day. Ferrari made the statement to Race Control after the impact that they were bringing in CLC at the end of Lap 2, presumably because of the visible loose section of wing. Once those loose sections of wing came off part way around Lap 2 and CLC had reported back to the pit that the handling was fine, the need to pit and remove the loose sections of wing had passed. There was no longer any need for CLC to pit at the end of Lap 2 as Ferrari had earlier advised Race Control, the immediate risk had passed and it would be sensible to let CLC carry on to see what the impact on his speed was and judge whether it was necessary to bring him in for an early pit-stop where new tyres and a new wing could be fitted.

Remember, had CLC pitted at the end of Lap 2 as Ferrari initially advised Race Control, the carbon would still have hit Hamilton and Norris.

If Race control had a safety concern they should have insisted he stopped at the end of Lap 1 or at the very least Lap 2 (not Lap 3). Race Control were happy to be guided by Ferrari about when CLC was intending to stop so if CLC / Ferrari did anything wrong it was that they didn't guide Race Control during Lap 2 (and after the loose carbon had come away) that they intended to carry on.

I don't think there was any intention to deceive / ignore Race Control, it was just that the situation evolved faster than the communications.

[Petrus1983]

Renault have lost the 9 points they scored having been excluded from the results.