They seem very desperate to find any reason for disqualifying Vettel that 'isn't' about his little protest T-shirt at the start of the race. To quote the man himself, “I heard it’s because I left the shirt on for the national anthem, I’m happy…they can disqualify me. They can do whatever they want to me, I don’t care. I would do it again.” Ace race though, George Russel in tears was strangely heart warming.
https://www.planetf1.com/news/christian-horner-valtteri-bottas-spa-penalty/ Dear god is he ever going to shut up. Like any of his past or present driver's have never had an accident and taken others out before.
It is not a good look for Horner. But if the championship is decided by two accidents that take out Red Bulls caused by (or predominantly caused by) Mercedes cars, are we all going to throw up our hands and say "Oh well, that's just racing!". Prost and Senna was at least within the same team, but it will live forever. Schumacher will never get away from his two attempts to take out rivals to win the championship (though I'm not nearly as sure on the Hill incident as others seem to be). We've been starved of up-close racing between championship-competing drivers for quite a few years, but I preferred it when collisions between top teams that retired a driver led to strong penalties so the other one certainly couldn't score big points (Vettel on Jenson in 2010, say). I reckon the FIA and Liberty are, via their direction to the stewards, passing over the hard decisions now and hoping that it doesn't turn out to be important in the end.
Accidents happen, end of story. He cant keep going around trying to entice extra penalties just because he's not happy about it. Maybe a penalty change going on from this point is in order but you cant back date them. Bottas cocked up at the weekend but i highly doubt it was deliberate as Horner sort of alluded too in one report, it was definitely Bottas's fault but I feel he got unsighted a little as Norris zoomed past and then cut in.
I like the notion that it could ever have been on purpose. After all he punted a McLaren, barely missed his team mate and there is no way you could predict ricocheting into both Verstappen and Perez. Accidents happen, he wasn't calling for a tougher penalty when Ricciardo rear ended Verstappen!
Everyone who isn't Dutch or an RB employee will. The first crash was just as much Max being Max as Lewis being Lewis. The second was a first corner accident, wet track, a driver panicking after a bad start and getting too close to the car in front, not realising he's lost front grip until it's already too late. Lewis lost his grip on two (arguably three) titles because of small mistakes and part failures, so did Senna in 1989, it happens. As much as Horner is whining now I doubt either of these races will stick with Hamilton/Merc the way Adelaide and Jerez stuck to Schumacher. They were far more malicious.
In the interviews I saw, Horner said pretty clearly that bottas obviously didn't do it on purpose. He did say bottas made a stupid mistake and was at fault, but also said that it wouldn't have been on purpose. I think the thing he is more pissed off about is having to find $4m in the cost cap for repairs when you're already having to put lots of time and resource into next year's car because of the regulation change. Plus inevitable engine penalties. If you have a run of bad luck and someone points a mic at you of course you're going to have a moan. There's genuine frustration there but also some gamesmanship and sledging. All part of the circus of F1. I'm more upset and pissed off that he took out lando. Lando Vs Perez Vs bottas would have been an immense battle. One we were denied and Lando's points streak brought to a premature end.
Yeh it was more the way that one of the online tabloids worded it which is why I said it was aluded to in a report. Obviously these reporters like to elaborate.
I agree those were more malicious (one obviously very much so), but Hamilton missing his title chances wasn't because he was punted off by his direct rival team. This is an important distinction that I suspect will make it live much longer than these other moments of bad luck - and even more so as the team principals are leaning into their inner 12-year-old (one more than the other!). It's also why all these statements of "accidents happen" don't really cut it for me - accidents with unbalanced consequences like these only very rarely happen directly between title challengers, and they have become infamous regardless of whether you think they were 50/50 or not.
