imagine if he did get banned, someone like giovinazzi got a call-up and [unlikely i grant you] won... that would make 3 different drivers to win in a ferrari since vettel last did.
If he got banned I bet it would be Kimi to the Ferrari drive and a junior would drive the Sauber. Of course the press would take it as Kimi being offered a third stint at Ferrari, which nobody would be unhappy about (Vettel excepted).
well kimi is one of the 2 drivers who've won in a ferrari more recently than vettel... having a 3rd driver do it would just rub it in more...
You have to wonder just how much better off ferrari would have been this season if they'd not tried to maintain vettel's no.1 status.
Has anybody actually got 12 points and a race ban before. Be mildly amusing if the 1st person to get one was a 4 time world champion.
IIRC, No. Grosjean got a ban, but i think the points was brought in, in part, because of Grosjean's ban/antics and wasn't why he got the ban. Grosjean has also come closest to a ban under the points system iirc.
As for leclerc... maybe i'm just being cynical, but had he not been in a red car... and had it been anywhere other than at monza... he'd have been penalised for at least one of those incidents, if not both...
I think this whole season is shaping up to be a career breaker for Seb, sadly. Behind his team mate and Max in the WDC, only driver in a "top 3" team to not score a win yet, giving Grosjean a run for his money in terms of driving errors and penalty points... I don't think he's been fully in the right headspace since Schumacher had his accident tbh, and Alonso retiring before he embarrassed himself is probably playing on his mind too (in the sense that he might have left it too late).
Albon and Gasly say 'hi'... but otherwise, he's not been the same since he blew it in Germany last year, and as you say he runs the risk of becoming another Alonso by chasing after another WDC title that just ain't happening.
The Lewis Hamilton Fan Club, otherwise known as the Sky F1 commentary team, couldn't countenance the idea that a driver is entitled to defend against Hamilton. It was so entertaining seeing Brundle hoping to get something out of LH in the interview and LH just shutting it down. I'm no Hamilton fan, but c'mon, if he's ok with a robust defence, the rest of us really should have little to add...
How many times did Hamilton just slam the door shut on rosberg, pushing him out and off the track in their battles? Basically every race they got close in. I think people might see issue with it as he came from the inside/left over to the outside/right, but he started that we'll before the chicane. Hamilton was up the inside through curva grande, but leclerc got much better drive out the corner and pulled ahead of Hamilton, then moving over to cover him off. Interesting insight from the notebook, Ted saying that after Austria and the stewards ruling that you would only get a warning for your first iffy manoeuvre, leclerc knows he can do it once without punishment and used it to his advantage. But I really don't think he did anything wrong. In my opinion the stewards gave him the warning to cover their arses and not spoil the race by interfering, knowing that the Merc machine would kick off.
I think the black/whites were adequate for the move by Leclerc in that case. The "system" changed so to speak. The warning shot was: don't do that again. By the same token, I don't think Lewis would have seen black/whites in a move like that. That would have been a penalty. Lec was weaving pretty madly as well. Either way. I think that's a case of no harm no foul, honestly. The stewarding that made me more upset is the Seb/Stroll inconsistency. Considering the fact that rejoining the track safely is not so much a sportsmanship rule, and more of a safety thing, I am not happy with that. Seb gets 10s stop/go and penalty points. Stroll gets a drive through. Stroll didn't CONTACT another driver, but forced one off the track, through the gravel. Even Stroll thought he should have had penalty parity with Seb there. Further, Seb got an unsafe rejoin penalty in Canada (i think) as well, resulting in a 5second penalty... it's just annoying that the REASONS for the rules seemingly get somewhat shoved aside in favour of the consequence of breaking the rule...
I think when it comes to these "borderline" close racing moments, a lot of it is knowing who is driving the other car - Leclerc knows full well Lewis (barring that one year he was magnetised to Massa...) can race close and hard and not put both in the gravel/barrier... If it was Max, he might have used some different tactics. Likewise, he has seen enough of Bottas to know he was never going to make a ballsy lunge down the inside a-la Ricciardo. EDIT: See, I actually agree with the penalty differences between Seb and Lance. Seb made an error all by himself, was completely off the track before he attempted to rejoin, and made contact with another car in the process. Lance only found himself sideways because he was tapped by Seb, was already half on the track when he started his move and probably was still trying to figure out why and how he was where he was.
I agree on the Vettel/Stroll penalty both did the same thing, just one caused an accident while the other made a car run through a gravel trap. Hell even Stroll agreed they should have been the same penalty. Rare to see him actually talking sense.
Thing is, I don't fundamentally disagree with considering the outcome and cause of the incident when assigning a penalty. BUT the difference is quite substantial between the penalties... I think they should be closer.
Since Stroll was still partially on the track he was kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place, on one hand he couldn't rejoin in an unsafe manner, on the other hand he was obliged to FO as fast as possible.
