[mnram]

Originally Posted by aim120

Stewards said this about the incident
"The Stewards heard from the driver of Car 63 (George Russell), the driver of Car 77 (Valtteri Bottas) and the team representatives and reviewed multiple angles of video evidence and telemetry. “Car 63 approached car 77 to pass after the front straight a few laps after the restart when DRS had recently been enabled. Car 77 maintained his line throughout the incident along the right hand side of the dry line, leaving at least a full car’s width to the right at all times.
“Car 63 approached with a significant speed advantage. He moved to pass on the right. As the cars approached the kink of turn 1, the gap between them and the right hand side of the track decreased. At no time did either car manoeuvre erratically.
“The track appeared to be not especially wet through turn 1 but at the point of closest approach to the right hand side of the track, the right hand side tyres of Car 63 hit an especially damp patch and the car snap yawed, bearing in mind that the car had low downforce in the rear with the DRS open.
“The Stewards conclude that the accident was a racing incident considering the conditions and take no further action."

Good call by the stewards. It is a pure racing incident in my opinion and the immediate reactions were in the heat of the moment. Both of them are competing for the Merc 2022 seat, so a little drama is justified.

Perez, Gasly, and Tsunoda were out of luck yesterday and they deserve better. Got to appreciate the number of positions they had gained after all their mishaps.

HAM again proves why he is the 7-time world champion and an awesome drive by Max, Norris and Sainz.

Not sure what is happening with Vettel. Sad to see that he is struggling to get in the points while his teammate Stroll is doing pretty well.

[jpcoolguy]

Fantastic race at Imola and both the races so far in the season have been thrilling and has no shortage of dramas. Excellent drive by Lando and when I thought Lewis will be breezing past him, he kept Lewis at bay for quite longer than expected in those soft tyres. The Ferraris were quite good till the red flag and for some reasons they couldn't do better after the race restart.

Good recovery drive by the 7 time champ and converted the luck came his way into a podium position. Still I don't know why people failed to accept that as a luck - he made a mistake and was down by a lap and if it was not for the red flag, he could not have made it back to the podium. I agree he had an excellent drive post the race restart, however to be ready to even restart the race in time after what happened is indeed called luck. And I agree that luck favours the brave and he surely is a brave one out there.

Almost all the new inductees have fared badly compared to their team mates - Ricciardo, Alonso, Vettel, Sainz (though he finished 5th but still behind his team mate) and Perez, may be still trying get hang of their new cars. It was hard to see Gasly dropping like stone with his full wets at the start of the race, however he recovered brilliantly to finish 8th and now promoted to 7th due to a 5 second penalty for Stroll (https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/a...ymzP140VJ.html).

The Alfa Romeos were in the mix-up for points, but unfortunately both lose out finally - Giovinazzi having had to pit for a brake issue and Kimi being awarded a 30 second penalty for a rolling start refringement (https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/a...5MeE3pBtw.html) which dropped him to 13th position. However, this has promoted Alonso to his first point after his comeback.

[ecenandu]

Originally Posted by aim120

Max was lucky he didn't loose the position by spining at the restart, didn't knew that you can get a penalty for going off the track under safety car like how perez got, I assumed that you cannot overtake under a safety car, so when perez went off the track others cannot overtake him, clearly I was wrong.

Yeah, you can overtake another car under safety car, if the car going too slow (because of some issues) for you to follow safely behind or gone off track.

[clementw]

That was a memorable race. Its a miracle that the drivers could keep their cars on track and see in the midst of that spray at the start. The get away by Max with a clear track ahead was so invaluable and the lack of visibility could have also caused many mistakes by the drivers till the track dried up.

The ugly incident between the two Mercedes drivers was probably in the heat of the moment and hopefully it gets resolved. It did not seem intentional by Bottas and looked like a twitch by Russel.

The storming lap by Lewis shows how good he is and the way he raced past the other Mercedes powered cars makes you wonder how much of the result is the car and the driver. Stroll and Norris were simply brushed aside. Also the works team must be hiding some aces up their sleeves.

So happy to see McLaren on the podium. Lando drove well till that point he let Lewis pass.

So close to points for Williams. Pity.

The two veterans Alonso & Vettel seem to be struggling with their cars, hope we see something good soon from them. They deserve better. Did Kimi keep his points? Was happy to see him in the top 10.

Max drove a clean race with so many fastest laps but the fastest still went to Lewis.

Haas must be pulling their hair out with "How do you solve a problem like Nikita?"

It was an exciting race. Hoping to see more this year.

[bosem123]

I felt disappointed with what Perez did. He was driving perfectly well, minding his own business, until a mistake robbed him of the 4th, or possibly better position. He's one of the best drivers in wet conditions on tracks and it was a pity to not see him among the points, despite an excellent Qualifying session

[mchandra13]

While it was an action packed race, more than that, I was happy to see Max winning and posing a serious challenge to Hamilton this season, so far. Otherwise it has become so monotonous and boring to see Hamilton win championship year after year. The last 7 championships since 2014 have been won by Mercedes and 6 of them went for Hamilton. The 4 before went to Redbull and Vettel. Since 2010, we only had 2 champions with Nico Rosberg an exception. The last time a Ferrari won was, way back in 2007, by Kimi. In his hey days Schumacher and Ferrari had this dominance for a few years but even in those years there were serious challengers like Hakkinen, Kimi and Alonso. This kind of dominance is not good for the sport overall.

[Red Liner]

Originally Posted by mchandra13

While it was an action packed race, more than that, I was happy to see Max winning and posing a serious challenge to Hamilton this season, so far. Otherwise it has become so monotonous and boring to see Hamilton win championship year after year. The last 7 championships since 2014 have been won by Mercedes and 6 of them went for Hamilton. The 4 before went to Redbull and Vettel. Since 2010, we only had 2 champions with Nico Rosberg an exception. The last time a Ferrari won was, way back in 2007, by Kimi. In his hey days Schumacher and Ferrari had this dominance for a few years but even in those years there were serious challengers like Hakkinen, Kimi and Alonso. This kind of dominance is not good for the sport overall.

I agree. Even with the Ferrari dominance, they were always kept in check by Mclaren and Renault. Just look at the Schumacher Alonso Duel which Alonso watched again at Imola and was interviewed on the F1 YouTube channel. It was phenomenal and sent goosebumps all over me. Just watching that 10 minute duel was more interesting and fun than the actual race itself last evening.

And the v12, my god how glorious they sounded. The people in charge have absolutely skewered the F1 franchise since the hybrid era.

Even the past 7 years only two were worth watching. The one where Nico and Lewis clashed big time. And the one where Seb faltered after losing his car in Germany. He never recovered since.

[StarrySky]

I felt after the Bahrain GP last year that Russell came across as a bit cocky in his interviews. But he had just done a brilliant job jumping into the Mercedes, so that was OK.

But yesterday I think he was behaving as if he had given his Mercedes to Bottas to race in and Bottas had somehow managed to crash it. I think he feels a bit entitled and needs to keep his feet on the ground.

He was doing a good job racing Bottas in a Mercedes with a Williams. But I suspect the later events took the Mercedes seat a bit further away from him. Not the crash, but the subsequent attitude. I think if Hamilton continues in 2022, then Mercedes may not want to risk dealing with "entitled George" in the second seat. But if the car is not head and shoulders above the rest and Bottas underperforms, then they risk losing out on WCC. A real catch-22 for Mercedes.

[aim120]

Its clear Russell screwed up on this one. Toto says Russell blaming Bottas 100% is BS. While Lewis was diplomatic in his answer about black marker, Russell didn't make it easy for Lewis either.

never such a situation in life where one is 100% to blame and the other zero”. “The whole situation is absolutely not amusing for us, to be honest,” he said.
“It’s quite a big shunt. Our car is almost a write-off in a cost-cap environment, that is certainly not what we needed, and probably it’s going to limit upgrades that we’re able to do.
“Simply the fact that we ended there by losing it in the wet, because there was no contact, losing it on the wet, and making both cars crash out is not what I expect to see.
“The whole situation should have never happened, Valtteri had a bad first 30 laps, and shouldn’t have been there. But George should have never launched into this manoeuvre, considering that the track was drying up.
“It meant taking risks, and the other car is a Mercedes in front of him. In any driver’s development, for a young driver, you must never lose this global perspective.
“Now I don’t want him to try to prove anything to us, because one thing I can say since knowing Valtteri for five years, he’s not trying to prove anything.
“So yeah, lots to learn for him I guess

[mayankk]

Originally Posted by jpcoolguy

Still I don't know why people failed to accept that as a luck - he made a mistake and was down by a lap and if it was not for the red flag, he could not have made it back to the podium. I agree he had an excellent drive post the race restart, however to be ready to even restart the race in time after what happened .

True luck would have been a 2.1 second pitstop, which would have placed him ahead, or wheel to wheel with Max, no? There's bad luck then.

[jpcoolguy]

Originally Posted by mayankk

There's bad luck then.

Vettel says, hold my beer

[Red Liner]

Originally Posted by jpcoolguy

Vettel says, hold my beer

Bottas says no, hold mine.

[jpcoolguy]

Originally Posted by Red Liner

Bottas says no, hold mine.

You could say that, but as I see it, he was luckier that he was not beaten by a Williams. Now, the blame is on Russell or a racing incident and also this has now indeed made it little tougher for Russell for that Mercedes seat he is holding. One way to look at the brighter side, I say

[corvus corax]

Russell has apologised to Bottas. Says his emotions got the better of him. https://www.planetf1.com/news/george...ottas-apology/

[mayankk]

Originally Posted by corvus corax

Russell has apologised to Bottas. Says his emotions got the better of him. https://www.planetf1.com/news/george...ottas-apology/

Sounds like a snarling Wolff.