Monza H's & Z'

[Monty]

Sorry if I am treading on toes here, normally I tag my comments on the Heroes and Zeroes section when someone has posted it but I wanted to have my rant about the biggest Zero at the race - Verstappen! He had already 'got away' with cutting the corner to stop Bottas overtaking; then he weaved all over the track to stop Bottas getting into an overtaking position; then he forced Bottas off the track; then (despite knowing he had a penalty) he continued to stop Bottas overtaking which robbed us of any chance of Bottas catching Kimi and possibly giving the race some more exciting racing. To add insult to injury he brings the team into disrepute by denying responsibility over the radio and then saying he knows he is 'losing the race' with Vettel but 'doesn't care' and continues to hold up Bottas. It makes the 5second penalty a complete joke. He continued to ruin Bottas' race. They need to bring back drive-through penalties then idiots like Verstapen might think twice about cheating.

Heroes; Kimi & Lewis with a pat on the back for Grosjean (despite later getting excluded) and the Williams for getting into the points!
Zeroes; Verstappen & Vettel who both seem to think they are driving bumper cars.

[Scott]

Completely agree. 

I’ll add that Vettel flew into Monza expecting a Ferrari/Vettel dream weekend.  Kimi taking the pole from him made him boil inside and from that point on, there was going to be nothing stopping him from trying to take the lead on the first lap, and that pesky Hamilton got in his way.  Lewis drove the kerb through the corner, leaving Vettel with a ton of space.  Even if Lewis had emerged from the corner in front, if Vettel had gone through on the inside line and came out on the outside, he would have had more speed than Hamilton to re-take.  Big zero’s for me were also Vettel and Max as well.

[guest3164]

Heroes:

Hamilton- I am not a fan of his attitude but he is an outstanding racer.  Without the best car he could still stalk the Ferrari and make the right move at the right time.  Outstanding drive again.

Williams- Doubles points, party time at Chez Luke 

Racing Point Force India- Another double points finish, well deserved too.

Raikkonen- He may not have won, but he showed why he should still be in F1 and why he is up there in many people's eyes as one of the best drivers in F1. 

Zeroes:

Vettel- Clearly hasn't yet learnt that racing basic that you cannot win at the first corner, but you can lose.  His race craft is questionable.  Ferrari are backing the wrong prancing horse. 

Verstappen- He 'had' been racing better, even in that race, but then old 'Evil Max' came out and he did his usual thing.  Fool, cost himself two places potentially.  Got to learn how to place his car better. 

Haas/FIA- Why create this situation?  Both knew the car was illegal.  Haas should have tried harder to fix it, the FIA should have been quicker to tell Haas they did not have until Singapore to fix it.  A mess when a race result is finalised hours later. 

Ricciardo's Red Bull- Reliably unreliable. 

[Alianora La Canta]

Heroes:

Hamilton - nice first-lap pass.

Williams - two cars in the points!

Perez - good fightback in a car that doesn't get the red carpet rolled out for it like the Ferrari and Red Bull does with some cars.

Honourable mention: Riccardo - for not throwing his team under the bus following repeated car failures.

Zeroes:

Verstappen - Should have been parked. Not by the stewards for his poor driving (who essayed the penalty consistent with precedent), but by Red Bull for giving up afterwards. It's one thing to sulk and still race hard (Alonso and Magnussen both demonstrated that this weekend), quite another to deliberately jettison a position due to losing interest in the race during a sulk session.

The points lost through parking Max would probably be regained in improved attitude. You could argue that Red Bull taught Max to think like this and that after signing him during a phase of particularly poor driving, that they deserve each other. But everyone else has to put up with such behaviour. If one of the 20 drivers on the grid doesn't care about where they finish if they're told off about a relatively minor infraction (the sort drivers typically expect 2-3 times a year), that has implications not only on the other 19 drivers, but the hundreds of people at the Red Bull team and the millions of people who have to watch such laziness.

DRS - It was much too powerful and took much of the drama out of the race.

Vettel - For trying to take a corner that was no longer his, in a pattern that looks like losing him the title. Position in list mitigated by competent fightback, but lands in "zero" territory again by managing to mess up a giveaway. (Perez gave Vettel Turn 1, only to watch as Seb outbraked himself, forcing him to carry on the charade for another lap).

Dishonourable mention: Sauber - never recovered from the DRS trouble of Friday afternoon.

[rmassart]

Completely agree about the point about time penalties.  They should be removed in favour of drive through. It ruins the race for the fans as you're not sure who's where when they cross the line.

I'm  not sure why they were introduced. Maybe because a drive through would be too harsh, but if you're judged to have infringed the rules to deserve a penalty, then 5 seconds is never enough in my opinion. Its short enough to "drive around" and not be a penalty at all. Obviously not the case with verstappen this time, and i am actually quite happy he behaved as he did as losing only one place for deliberately almost driving someone off the road is not enough. At least this way the team lost two more points to make it clear what kind of driver they have employed (much as I dislike vettel gaining two points...).

[cosworth151]

Heroes:

Wizzo - For getting the Chat Room back on line! 

DannyRic - He made a great charge from the back and took yet another equipment failure with grace. A class act all around.

Kimi - Proved that he's still got it & deserves a competitive ride for next season.

Williams - For their double points haul.

Vettel - For a good run from the back (See Below)

Zeroes:
Vettel - For pulling the stunt that got him to the back in the first place.

Alonso - For dive bombing K-Mag in Q2.

The FIA and Renault - I don't even want to talk about it.

[Scott]

5 seconds is never enough in my opinion. Its short enough to "drive around" and not be a penalty at all. Obviously not the case with verstappen this time...

Me too.  On many tracks a 5sec penalty at the end of the race would be meaningless because the field has often spread out way beyond that kind of gap.

[Andy B]

Points of view.

Besides the class act of the race I thought Lewis was quite humble too especially stating that SV's comments were "in the heat of the moment".
DR going to Renault has to now give him concern as their engines are not doing what they should with him.
SV is never in the wrong and should take some responsibility for his actions and 2019 is going to be very interesting with a keen Leclerc in for Kimi.
Enough said about MV he still has some growing up to do.
Bottas doing a solid job and is obviously looking at his future employment.
Surely an "unsafe release" is just that and because Sauber have Ferrari engines should make no difference it should be a stewards call not wait for a complaint.
If drive through's are not re-instated then the offending drive should be instructed to move over.

[Dare]

MV isn't a rookie so I think he's going to be another Vettel.
Just when you think he's matured he pulls some bonehead crap.

I'm still hoping Kimi is in a Ferrari next year...he's earned it

[lkjohnson1950]

Post race inspection by the team concluded the clutch and not the Renault engine was the cause of Danny's retirement.

[John S]

Post race inspection by the team concluded the clutch and not the Renault engine was the cause of Danny's retirement.

Shows why it's best for drivers to just accept a mechanical DNF in silence rather than mouth off before they have proper info.
Wonder how many bleeps would have been on the official radio transmission pre-fixing the word engine or Renault  if it'd been Max and not Danny.     

[lkjohnson1950]

Max continues to fail to learn from his mistakes.

https://www.racefans.net/2018/09/04/verstappen-still-believes-bottas-clash-penalty-was-wrong/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+f1fanatic+%28RaceFans+-+Independent+Motorsport+Coverage%29

[Jericoke]

Max continues to fail to learn from his mistakes.

https://www.racefans.net/2018/09/04/verstappen-still-believes-bottas-clash-penalty-was-wrong/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+f1fanatic+%28RaceFans+-+Independent+Motorsport+Coverage%29

He may yet be immature, but he's learning one of the key aspects of the sport:

“It depends on the steward,” he [Max] said. “Some will give a penalty, others won’t..."

[Scott]

Even Horner said post race that if Max had given Bottas another inch or two...