So in practice session, they don't go fast and the slow cars should not be on the racing line? I guess they should have fined Mazepin then, after all he was speeding in practice and nearly destroyed Hamilton's car.
No, but mistakes aren't punished with the same harshness as they would be during quali/race conditions where holding up another competitor has had lasting consequences for them. A reprimand is a normal penalty for impeding other drivers during practice (and qualifying), if you look through the decisions from this season it's actually very rare for them to issue a fine to the team. In this case the fine is to punish the team. e.g. Giovanazzi holding up Gasly in Hungary practice, or Ricciardo holding up Stroll in Russian quali, Gasly on Sainz during Saudi quali. Mistakes happen.
I think the point is that the stewards effectively discount whether something is dangerous to other drivers these days. As you say - you can do anything in practice and you will get no penalty. Even in a race, I'm not sure there'd be much difference in penalty between causing a dinky collision or causing a massive collision. Ignoring dangerous driving is probably not desirable!
Two entirely different problems - practice has always been this way, and imho it doesn't need to change. Penalties in quali/race sessions are very inconsistent at the moment, although I would say that the punishment for a collision shouldn't necessarily be proportional to how much damage is caused - it should be based on how negligent the driver was who caused it.
You also have to look at why thses rules and guidelines were brought out and their enforcement is the way they are. -Schumachers antics in Monaco -Verstappens weaving defences -Schumacher almost putting barachello in the Hungry pit wall -Webber flipping after hitting the rear of the caterham/lotus -Karting lines taken at circuits due to run offs and removal of gravel Those are a few key one I can think of atm. The problem is the response is in the context of those individual events rather than the context of the rules as a whole resulting in the hodgepodge of "if buts and ands" as well as the weird measured used to define things. Rotaring marshal teams cant help either with consistency. They need to rip up the rule book and take a good look at the rules and come up with something that works across the board. This isn't something that impacts F1 but lower catagories as well and the generations that watch F1 and think its acceptable despite javing non of the talent to know when to pull out.
Quali and race should be zero tolerance. In practice there should be a little common sense used as you don't want to get to the end of qualifying and have to break out a spreadsheet to calculate the actual final positions as everyone on the grid has a dozen penalties, but dangerous driving is becoming a little too common occurrence. The Mazepin incident, maybe he should have been warned sooner, but he should also know to not be crawling through the racing line on a high speed chicane. Forcing gasley off was probably to more deliberate and egregious of the 2, even if it wasn't the closest to a serious crash.
On the Mazepin incident, it's normal behaviour to return to the pits that way, they all rely on timely warnings of approaching cars from the pit-wall and where they'll be caught, particularly with tyres they think they might use again (and don't want to run off-line unnecessarily). With Gasly it's the classic problem of mixed signals - they were both reacting to each other, moving left and right, and making the whole show worse. I don't quite follow how either could be deliberate, that just doesn't make sense.
Lewis Hamilton vs Max Verstappen finale confirmed on free TV after Sky agreement (msn.com) Quite possibly one of the worse wrote articles. Does that mean it's on channel 4 or Sky aren't charging for it?
It'll either be on C4 or Sky Showcase, most likely both if it happens, but my program guide hasn't updated to show it on either yet.
Sounds like C4 will be showing Sky's race coverage [but also using Sky's commentary] Tweet— Twitter API (@user) date
Do you mean you don't like David I TALK IN ALL CAPS ALL THE TIME Croft's commentary style? [Martin Brundle is also there... sometimes... when Croft shuts up long enough...]
It's a shame isn't it, I'm sure I can remember a time when Crofty was a decent commentator... Brundle is still right at the top of his A-game, I don't know where they'll go once he retires - he's driven the largest number of F1 cars of anyone, 20 years in the commentary box, he's just brilliant.
As much as I love Brundle, he's such a huge personality and just 'part of F1', I think the time is approaching where he might need to step away, at least as the in race analyst commentator. When rosberg has filled in for him a few times, the added insight a recent driver with experience in these modern cars is fascinating. I'm not sure rosberg is the one for the job, I'd prefer button, but I don't think he has any intention of coming back to F1 full time yet. Edit: although I'm not sure that driving a McLaren Honda that was a gp2 car in disguise qualifies as a modern F1 car
Ive always enjoyed Chandoks segments for that reason. Again not a recent driver but he brought a nice blend of technical and driver mentality while able to clearly communicate his thoughts. You always have Coultard for the red bull driver perspective
