GPWizard F1 Forum
F1 News & Discussions => General F1 Discussion => Topic started by: cosworth151 on August 29, 2021, 05:57:23 PM
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Haas pretty well summed it up with a tweet:
The longest shortest race in F1 🏁
Heroes:
The fans - Stayed through terrible conditions. Full marks for them! :yahoo:
The RBR mechanics - For getting Checo's car put back together an into the race.
Zeroes:
The Race Director, Stewards, FIA, F1, et al - Never really seemed to know what they were doing.
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Totally agree Cos. I was really gutted today, got a fantastic deal off of Virgin when I had a real go at them over their lack of customer service so I have had to watch the highlights on my wifes tv, he started to apologise but I cut him off and said thal all I get is apologies but no service, he ended up saying he couldn't help that and offered me the sky sports package for a £1 a month on my present package for 18 mths. settled down today to watch it all and all I saw was a few laps under the safety car. :'(
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Biggest zero are the race directors who ensured half points could be awarded by running a few laps behind a safety car. If there was no competitive racing, no points should be awarded in my view.
Well done the fans for keeping us armchair enthusiasts entertained!
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Officially the weirdest race ever.
- Fastest lap - Mazepin
- Second straight Williams double points finish (I understand historically this isn't a big deal, but put up your hands if you'd have bet your house on in at literally any point in the 2021 season)
- 19 cars started, 20 cars finished. When was the last time an F1 race GAINED a driver?
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I'll try not to say too much about this one. I'm expecting lawyers to contact me about this at some point. That's how bad the mess is.
Heroes
Sebastian Vettel - For looking out for Lando Norris when nobody else was, and calling for a red flag on his sighter lap of Q3.
Pierre Gasly - for pitting at the end of his Q3 sighter lap. Very brave of him.
Lewis Hamilton - for asking for a refund for the fans who had to put up with all this.
Zeroes
Everyone who contributed to the first paragraph (who I will not list here, but have started listing further down).
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All things considered the 2005 US Grand Prix didn't look that bad now
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We were comparing it to the 2005 USGP-Indy tire mess in the Chat Room yesterday.
I think a major part of the reason for staging the two lap race was the TV contract. F1 is having a hard time making the minimum number of races to fulfill the contract as it is. Like it or not, it was an "official" race and therefor counts toward the TV total.
I want to give a Hero to our LoN. He's in Singapore. It was almost 1:00 am there when they finally called the race, but LoN hung in there in the Chat Room until the end. A true F1 fan! :good:
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For me there's only Zeros:-
The drivers all moaning on the first safety car adventure laps of the GP that the track was undrivable. For me this is what led to the crazy scenario that followed. If they had persisted at that time behind the safety car I think we may well have got a few real racing laps after 5 or 6 times round as drivers would prefer proper race to difficulty going slowly behind safety car.
They could have even put a virtual safety car period on if only they had flexible rules to set a delta for the runners which could be increased little by little to see what might happen.
Michael Masi who got himself boxed into a corner by bringing the cars in after the 2 exploratory laps at start (not officially a start apparently) and the weather never played ball after that.
Biggest Zero is for Sir Lewis - what's all this crap about the Money talking and refunds for spectators. :swoon: Not your realm mate. >:(
Dip your hand in your own pocket to refund spectators Lewis, you make plenty - bet you'll still expect your pay & possibly place bonus for your weekends work though. :crazy:
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Lewis didn't break a bunch of regulations (some of which are there for safety reasons) in order to conduct actions that were arguably illegal, caused danger to everyone involved, and caused many spectators extra expenses that were unnecessary.
The FIA did.
The Safety Car already can go as fast or slow as it likes, unless instructed specifically by Race Control. Its driver is well aware that it needs to go as fast as feasible to keep the F1 cars' tyres in decent state. Since the Safety Car was having trouble staying on the road on the first attempt, going faster wasn't viable that time. On the second attempt, the water wasn't the issue, visibility was, and it was getting worse as time went on, so the Safety Car going faster wasn't going to answer any questions. In fact, visibility was poor enough that I'm not convinced the helicopter could have flown... ...in which case the traffic jams already occurring on Spa's connecting roads from people leaving the track meant that the 20-minute ambulance rule wasn't going to be possible. That in itself requires a red flag, and I'm surprised (at best) that Race Control decided not to follow the regulations.
It's the FIA who are at risk of facing lawyers over this (not Lewis, not the track, not even Liberty) - and it'll be lucky if it only has to refund the spectators.
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I think Hamilton expressed a view that many will agree with.
Between my rants about how ridiculous the whole sorry farce was, I said to my wife 'I bet they run a few laps behind the Safety Car so they can call this a race' - and low & behold...!
There was never going to be a better time to run the race than the original 3 o'clock slot. The radar was showing permanent rain for the rest of the day and light & temperatures were only going to get worse.
I felt that when they first went out they could have continued to run the cars behind the SC for another 4 or 5 laps which would have cleared enough water to make a rolling start possible (yes I know that is difficult to follow the safety car and that power units and tyres would have been cold but I believe it was possible). If the track was still deemed too wet to race after attempting this they should have abandoned the event immediately instead of keeping everyone hanging around.
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What a disaster. Was excited for a rainy Spa weekend, only to have this. If it’s too dangerous to race, then postpone it to Monday. Two parade laps just to hand Max a pocketful of points was just a farce.
Once again (setting aside the various reasons for making the race ‘official’), F1 has shot itself in the foot at a time when they should be ensuring the fans get their racing. Turning people on to other, actually competitive series only means there are less eyes on theirs and less eyes on their sponsor stickers, devaluing the entire sport.
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Just to make things worse, apparently the medical helicopter couldn't fly on the Sunday. With traffic jams outside the track even before the first attempt to run the race, this meant there was no effective medical cover. In other words, there really wasn't ever a slot on run Sunday's race within the regulations.
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I was there in 2004 when the Saturday was wiped out not due to rain but the low cloud in the valley's stopped the medical helicopters from flying.
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If the Heli can't fly, there is no way to race. As far as Nigel is concerned they should have raced. He makes 2 interesting points: Parc Ferme rules prevent teams from making proper adjustments for the conditions; drivers feel safe enough to take extra risks. They don't respect the track or the conditions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afMVNznvvJI (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afMVNznvvJI)
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I hadn't realised that the medical helicopter couldn't fly. If that was the case the cars should never have been let out on the track!!
Other than that ...... Nigel for FIA President! :D :good: