An Alpha Tauri looked faster than Redbull, quite ironic they pushed for the engine mode ban an first race under it they have a shocker. Also Horner claiming Wolff favours Hamilton, because course Horner doesn't favour Verstappen at all does he...
So that bright orange section of the armco the marshal is standing behind isn't the orange marking as specified in point 23.1 in the event notes? Either way the pit status indicators should have been on the inside of the corner and or at the entry to pit lane.
Was discussed on c4 highlights driver does not look where those lights are either way. Both button and DC said so. Was poor communication from FIA to Merc. The rules been the way it’s written 10 second stop and go was only possible punishment
I think it's a shame that the safety car pit dive renders the hard work of the weekend a bit of a lottery; whoever's the right side of fate reaps the rewards through luck. At least with rain or mechanicals you feel that the team has some ability to control it. I guess it has been forever thus but perhaps with margins tighter, pit stops fewer, and F1.5 closer, the effects in terms of positions gained/lost seem exacerbated lately.
I would call it all part of the 'luck' of motorsport racing. Sometimes you pit before the safety car and get punished, this time people who pitted before benefited the most (as pitlane was closed). Overall it was an exciting race and a likable (and justified) winner so what's not to like in my opinion. I'm sure Hamilton will be back on the top step next week.
You go where you look / look where you want to go, always has been the case, and on a right hand corner you won't be looking towards the outside.
You create you're own luck. Stroll was a massive gamble not pitting under the safety car hoping track position and the tow of faster cars would allow a gap to open ahead of rivals to pit or another saftey car to pit later. A red flag for Stroll was double edged, like a second safety car he had track position and fresh tires without the need to pit however so did everyone else. Add in the restart on cold tyres which will can put you on the back foot
Agreed. On circuits with pit-entry at a high speed part of the track, there should be pit lane entry control lights on a gantry above the pit entry lane so the drivers have a fighting chance of seeing the status before making an error.
On most tracks there are pitlane lights at the end of the pitlane, including one directly above or next to the entrance itself. But Italians gonna Italian.
Lights anywhere around the pit entry lane would be too late at Monza, the driver who slowed down would have to make a dangerous move back in the racing line at lower speed to avoid entering pits. Would it be nice to have an extra one there ? Sure. But saying he didn't seen them is a flat out lie. He said: "If you're going through a right [hand corner] you're not looking left, you're looking over to the right and gauging the gap between you and the white line." I guess my definition of right is different than Hamilton's, first light he simply couldn't miss in any case: Second one is not as clear as the first one, but it is still in the view of the driver if he is looking for the right side: And talking about "italians", Austria has exactly the same setup: Same with Belgium - the pit lane closed sign is on left side, before the final chicane:
It was in his view. If he concentrated elsewhere, or ignored it, doesn't change the fact, that the mistake was his and not of the race track. As shown above, the layout of pit lane closed lights being on left side before/in a right side turn is not unique to Monza, it was also documented in event notes (which is a very short document), provided before the racing even starts (on Thursday). The lights were at same spot last year too, and i bet they were there for much longer, and if we cound see the older event notes, we would see the same pictures.
while i understand the penalty, when i first saw the onboard footage i actually thought the flashing lights were the Safety car warning lights, i wonder if Lewis made that mistake aswell as he had heard there was a safety car out on track and in the heat of the moment didn't read the signs
He isn't looking there, that's on the left of the track, his attention will be about half way up the advertising hording where it intersects with the track, mentally he will be looking through the hording, all at 100mph+, oh and if you move the camera angle down to his sight line I bet the upper portion of the flip flop lines up and blocks it too. I'm not disagreeing with the ruling or penalty, even though I reckon the car could have been moved into the pit lane under a VSC or just by closing the pit lane, but the system of closing the pit lane and how this is notified to the teams & drivers needs to be looked at
It does seem a bit of an oversigght that they get a hard to ignore 'SAFETY CAR DEPLOYED' message both on the timing screen and iirc a message from not-Whiting directly. But 'oh btw the pits are closed' is buried on page 4 of the timing screen where teams could [and did] miss it. You'd think the pits being closed to cars would be a bfd.
Mick Schumacher to get run time during Free Practice at Mugello Does it count towards super licence points and if so does the rumour he could be in either a Haas or Alfa come 2021/2022 have a bit more substance