Agreed. MotoGP is increasingly going down the aero route and it's suffering big time.
And yet MotoGP has been an absolute merry-go-round of World Champions for the last five years.
Alonso punted down to 4th with a 10 second post race penalty.
FIA are such corrupt cunts.
They probably did but he clearly couldn't give a shit today.
Car issues aside, has he finished ahead of Russell all that much since the latter replaced Bottas?
I think it's been pretty even with them. Lewis had that run of 2nd placed finishes last season but Russell had his number for the first half of the season. Russell's had those years of driving around in a Williams and I don't think that's within Hamilton's skillset.
You're forgetting the driving into Massa years at the end of his McLaren days.
Hamilton seems a very moody driver. He seemed to almost trip over his own lip at the start of last year after getting robbed of the 8th title. Once Mercedes fixed the race pace of the car he seemed to go from a smidge down on Russell to a smidge ahead.
I suspect the lip is out again because he's realising right now that the 8th title he wants, he is very unlikely to be getting unless something miraculous happens.
Russell certainly seems more adept at driving the shitboxes.
Didn’t he want to jack in a race last season too when he ended up near the back early on? I think he ended up on the podium, or close to it, when the team told him to pick his toys back up.
Both Merc and Aston Martin seemed convinced it would be 5 seconds if any, which makes the FIA decision seem even more suspect.
@niko
Alpine got 10 for the same infraction in the first race.
I think 5 seconds is the smallest time penalty they can apply so they tried to stay within that just in case.
But, as they pointed out on comms, in the last race Ocon did exactly the same thing [was it, or was it Gasly?] and got a 10 second penalty for failing to properly fulfill the initial 5 second penalty, so they probably should have known.
Edit, see this has been covered.
They clearly weren't aware of the famed consistency of the FIA stewards.
Speaking of which. Alonso is back in P3 again.
Russell will be regretting his tweet where he was pretending to be sympathetic
What a tweet it was too.
Should be a decent championship if you ignore the front two. Merc, Ferrari and one of the Astons. Think Russell might win the championship if Hamilton's motivation/pace is down.
Overturned on the argument of "you didn't punish all the other times this happened" - a great summation of how useless the FIA are.
You'd think it would be pretty easy to decide if you are or are not allowed to touch a car whilst it is serving a penalty.
Not that I really get the lining up wrong penalty in the first place if you aren't any further forward and still have a majority of the car in the box.
It's because there's two sensors in the track, one detects the nose of the car and one the rear wing. If the sensor doesn't pick you up, you auto-fail detection. Even though with Alonso he was only shifted to the left, it was still enough.
I think the appeal comes down to the wording of the rule(which will now undoubtedly change). I'm sure it says something like "you must not work on the car before the 5 second penalty is served." Aston Martin argued that the jack touching the car does not constitute working on it as it was never actually used before the timer was up.
Ah ok, and I guess that sort of feeds into the 'reaction times' thing which would determine a jump start, but then, they had reaction times for Alonso yesterday so how does that work? The simple solution is obviously just to park the car in the box as required.
And what did Alpine do to get their 10 second penalty in race 1 - were they fiddling with the front wing too early or were they just 'touching the car' as well. All seems a bit of an anally retentive shitshow, which seems to be the mantra of the FIA under their current leadership.
With Hamilton now not winning, I for one think the whole sport is rigged, boring and corrupt.
#HamLove
Reaction times is because they can time how quickly it is between the light fully going out and the release of the clutch using the cars telemetry. You'll have a lot of times where drivers line up pointing the car left or right depending on track, but so long as the sensors report back as fine then you're grand.
Alpine probably actually jacked the car up before the 5 seconds were up. Either that or the Aston Martin rules team is much better.
Essentially there had been an 'agreement' in previous team meetings that touching the car constituted working on it, however this for one isn't a rule and for two, Aston Martin provided video evidence of other times teams have done it with the front jack with no punishment. The argument was that the front jack helps you get the car into the right place as it pulls in, but Aston argued what's the difference in front and back as it both amounts to the same thing.
I would've figured the jack prevents the car from leaving before given the all clear. At a certain point it's force of habit.
Now we need justice for Nigel Mansells wife.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/65074698
Fine return to form for Barricheco, Verstappen looked barely awake on his way to pole. They were also doing multiple runs on softs which bodes badly for the race, I look forward to our regulation single pit stop and fastest lap by whoever is accidentally quickest.
In other news someone who clearly wants their channel banned has gone crazy in the last few days and uploaded a bunch of mid-00's races in full if that's your sort of thing. I've been watching the ones won by British drivers because those are obviously the best before they all get inevitably taken down; Hungary 06 is worth it for Alonso charging through the field and Ant Davidsons mega dunk on Martin Brundle for choosing to miss the best Hungarian GP for over a decade; also USA 07 where everyone is sure Fernando Alonso has accepted his defeat with good grace and that Ron, Martin et al have a firm lid on their inter-team relationships.
https://www.youtube.com/@F1Replays/videos
Yeah, the Perez title charge didn't last long. Someone must have accidentally pushed the crash button in the garage.
Cheers Disco. Getting them downloaded while I still can.
Do it right, George, and take Verstappen out pls
Looks like the sport is back alive again.
60 odd laps of fuel and tyre management probably disagrees. The revival of the Alonso-Hamilton rivarly could be an interesting subplot for the season though. That and lolling at Ferrari.
Is Sky not bothering with anything more than commentary on this more of the carbon footprint bollocks?
Max doing a Checo there.
That’s a pisser for Russell, he was steaming off into the distance there.
Edit - and that’s an even bigger one.
.
Last edited by Giggles; 02-04-2023 at 05:19 AM.
Red flag for gravel? That’s a new one.
Red flag tyre changes need to be removed. Been a farce since that Monaco race a few years ago.
Max has that P2 grid spot now, nothing stopping him.
It's bullshit allowing tyre change during red flag.
What was going on at the back there? Two cars off track on a formation lap.
Hamilton might get a penalty too.
Race over.
The Red Bull DRS is insane. Checo regularly overtaking cars which also have the wing open.
Once it kicks into 8th gear with DRS. The engine noise goes up another level. Its crazy. You can hear it.
Im seriosuly struggling to tell the difference between the Alfa, Haas, and Alphatauri.
Hopefully we get chaos at the restart here.
I mean, I’d rather this than finish under a safety car, but how the fuck is this a red flag?
Croft is some fucking scumbag