F1 2021

[Crazed_Insanity]

After looking at that pass from the outside by Max some more, did he really gained an unfair advantage?

Max was clearly already ahead thru out the entire turn 4!

They really need to build tracks in ways that if you got out of bounds, gravel or grass or whatever would slow you down or damage your car... so we don’t need to rely on race control to tell people to give back position... designing a track like that is essentially inviting racers to go there. I think Hamilton himself utilized that runoff plenty of times? As long as it’s not for position then it’s okay?

That was really the lamest part of an otherwise awesome race.

[Rare White Ape]

After looking at that pass from the outside by Max some more, did he really gained an unfair advantage?

Max was clearly already ahead thru out the entire turn 4!

If he was clearly ahead then why did he run wide?

Let's analyse that for a minute. There are two main reasons that I see why Verstappen needed to go wide. They are:

1. He was travelling too fast and needed to run across the white line, otherwise he'd have had to slow down to tighten his trajectory and let Hamilton pull alongside on corner exit

2. Hamilton's defense and car positioning caused Verstappen to have to adjust his trajectory for the fastest way through the corner, given that he was off the racing line

I see a mix of the two. On corner entry Hamilton moved his car to the right and defended down the inside line on the grippy part of the circuit, and on corner exit, Hamilton allowed Verstappen to have enough room to stay on the track given that Verstappen was effectively ahead at this point and had right of way. If Hamilton was ahead he likely would have driven Verstappen off the circuit because they are allowed to do that in F1 in certain circumstances which are not relevant right now.

Additionally, seeing as how Hamilton left enough room for Verstappen until it was clear that they were not going to collide, it was fully incumbent on Verstappen to be able to pass Hamilton and navigate the corner without running wide. You need to do both in order to make a successful and fair pass.

So Billi, analyse this pass again, but take in all the information you have available to you from the moment Verstappen hit the DRS button to the moment he returned to the track. Can you tell me if the pass was a fair pass?

[JoeW]

The real problem which Mercedes initially was pissed about, and were nearly penalized for, is the ambiguous/non existent rules on running wide at turn 4. Hamilton did it all race long to his advantage. So it wasn’t a problem until Max started catching him and then they changed the rules.

Mercedes was initially pissed until they realized later it would save their ass.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Max was half car length ahead going into turn 4 and he remained ahead exiting turn4.

Only thing unfair would be Max had the advantage of greater exiting speed, but you decided to defend the inside line so naturally Max had to go outside...

Now, I understand rules are rules, Max should not have gone outside of track limit.

If Max was really going in too hot and we have a wall on the outside, Max likely would’ve crashed into the wall and possibly have Hamilton crash into him as well.

Anyway, this incident is becoming controversial but I think the best way to fix this is to not build a track that tempts driver to go outside the track limit. Better to have gravel or high curbs or something that’d make drivers think twice before going there on purpose...

To have race control make the call to give back position is just not very satisfying. Likewise, to not give back the position also doesn’t feel right either. Unless Max won by a huge >5s margin, it would’ve felt like Max stole the race...

So best fix for this problem is not to design a track like that!

[JoeW]

Or either enforce track limits or don’t. When his team got on the radio and told him to start taking turn 4 cleanly, Hamilton was pissed. He had been abusing that all race long. Max had not.

[FaultyMario]

Some drivers were, Max was one of them. There is no evidence that the message "Hamilton has been using the exit of T4" was also relayed to Perez. Nor was Bottas instructed either way.

The confusion lies with race control and not the drivers, IMHO. However, drivers had been instructed about qualifying and passing using only the track inside the white lines.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Or either enforce track limits or don’t. When his team got on the radio and told him to start taking turn 4 cleanly, Hamilton was pissed. He had been abusing that all race long. Max had not.

Problem is enforcing the rule will end up making the race less entertaining.

Let the track itself enforce the rule naturally... you venture outside of the limits, your car will then be slowed or damaged, just compromised somehow. If you got lucky and still able to complete the pass, great. If you end up damaging your car, well, that’s the price you pay! No need to involve race control, unless it caused a yellow flag...

This is not basketball or tennis or auto cross, don’t just draw a white line on asphalt and tell drivers that they can’t cross that line...

[Rare White Ape]

We've been there done that. Motorsport is a hundred years old and it only changed a decade ago.

High kerbs launch cars into the air, which is dangerous for a low open wheeler. Grass and gravel can cause cars to become stuck, requiring a tow and a yellow flag or SC. The interface between different surfaces is never perfectly level and it can damage cars and introduce debris. And you have to consider the needs of motorcycle racers, who use the same tracks as F1.

All of these things make racing less safe and less interesting. Plus a smooth runoff allows a driver a second chance if they screw up. The choice was made to adopt low profile kerbs and paved runoff areas.

The trade-off is pretty simple: follow the track limits. Assuming they are all well informed and appropriately skilled, then track limits will not become an issue. There is no controversy here.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Maybe we can involve technology somehow, such as if a car goes out of bound, power will be reduced or something.

Relying on another human to make the call in real time is not always reliable, maybe they should just utilize the 5s penalty post race because race control should have ample time to see things from various angles...

Of course this particular incident was pretty clear cut that Max went out of bound. However, considering how hard it’s to pass and I don’t really think Max gained too much unfair advantages by that pass because he only went out of bound after the pass...

Anyway, to me, this was the only annoyance of an otherwise awesome race. I think I’d be annoyed even if Max won the race by a small margin. That’s why I’d propose that we don’t build tracks like that!

[FaultyMario]

For a long time I've thought that the way DRS has been in implemented is flawed. It makes no strategic difference if all can activate at the same place, every time.

I think that It'd be more interesting to set an allocation of clicks per driver per race. It could be detemined depending on the number of straights of 400-meter in length or more per lap. For example, at Sakhir, there are 3 such sections of track, so how about each driver gets 110 clicks per race that they could use regardless if they're within 1" of the car ahead of not. That way DRS becomes a tactical option.

Now, imagine race controls finds that track limits are being abused at certain parts of the track, an electronic positioning system could be deployed at such a place as to automatically detect when a car completely went outside the track limits, a penalty on DRS could be activated, the infringing driver could get 5 clicks deleted or have DRS disabled for the next 2 laps. I guarantee you that Hamilton wouldn't have gone off 29 times if such a system was in place.