Verstappen, Hamilton, Ron Meadows discussed on The Autosport Podcast
Automatic TRANSCRIPT
Was he left no room basically on the left hand side, so Lewis couldn't have gone up the inside to Lewis had to go to the outside. And Verstappen, yeah, he just seemed pretty much centered and basically missed the corner. And he meant that both him and Hamilton went off across the runoff area and then rejoined the track at turn two, but ultimately that was Verstappen, leaving the track and gaining a lasting advantage, which is what the stewards would ultimately paying him for. And yeah, there was the back and forth on the radio about giving back the position to Hamilton, which then led to the incident that we're going to come on to another in a little bit. And it was a very aggressive movers. Again, we've come to kind of expect. But it was a bit like total wolf after the race had the instant so they were a bit like Brazil reloaded. And it was very similar. Yeah, when they were going into turn four and Hamilton was the outside and Verstappen basically kept on going and didn't make the corner. Yeah, it's a very, very similar situation. So that was ultimately what landed SAP in the penalty because he did gain a lasting advantage Ginny didn't give the position back in the end because of what happened with the incident that would follow. Yes, Hayden, do you want to take us through the incident that follows? I can try. In my understanding of it, we have a bit of a not bartering, but the talk of giving the place back between if I read bull. Another deal is that. Potentially, deal or no deal. That's what staff is being told, which again is it a bit more of a traditional one in terms of to avoid a penalty. Please hand the position back. That's been seen before. Here we go, which obviously came in at the start of the season Bahrain. When he gave the position back very friendly, as this was all going on around the lap, obviously the communication channels from FAA to Mercedes to tell them that that was going to happen. There's obviously a few link of chains that it needs to go through Ron Meadows and then to peak runnington Hamilton's race engineer and then to hammers himself. And by the sounds of it, the communication lines weren't quick enough, which you can't really blame Mercedes or anyone in that situation, but it didn't quite get there in terms of knowing exactly what was going to be happening and perhaps when. And then there's obviously clearly miscommunication that's put them together there. And we get to a bit of a sticky situation. Rather than it seemed very panicked on the phone in the aftermath after Lewis Hamilton, shunted into the back of Max Verstappen. But Luke, what did you, what did you make? Because a lot of people on Twitter that are kind of in the max wasn't at fault camp for this scenario in particular, said, well, max left room, he slowed down. Why on earth didn't Hamilton go around him? I mean, why wouldn't Hamilton go around in regardless of whether he knew if that max was giving the position back to him or not? Because I mean, a gap opened up. Why didn't Hamilton go for the gap? He said in this year's briefing afterwards, when he met with them, that he wasn't aware he hadn't been informed that the saddle would be giving the place back. So yeah, and Verstappen kind of, it was a pinch point on the track in all fairness. It wasn't the widest point of the circuit, which would have been a little bit further down straight. It was, yeah, it was a very narrow point for stop and did move around a little bit as well. The down she is still the way from 8th gets third gear. So it's quite a long way. And it was already part of this sort of cat and mouse game to try and get DRS to ensure that basically if he gave Hamilton the position back, he did it in a way so that Hamilton would be ahead of him as they hit the DRS detection point. Verstappen would then have DRS and that would allow him to basically re overtake in theory. Hamilton when they go back onto the main straight. So it was that's what it was really down to. It was this cat and mouse game of Verstappen was told strategically was the way that the series used by Red Bull in how he gave back that place to Hamilton. But ultimately, yeah, that meant it sort of happened at a very, very narrow point on the circuit. And led to that collision that, yeah, Hamilton, his front wing was left damage. Red Bull claimed afterwards that Verstappen picked up, I think helmet Marco told one of our colleagues that there were cuts on his tires that mean he couldn't push towards the end as they would have liked because of that. So it was yeah, I get what people are saying like, okay, well if there's just go for it. But it wasn't exactly the widest point, let's face it. It was a bit of a pinch point on that straight because max wants to get it done early enough so he could get DRS when they went back onto it. And they're in sort of lies, I guess that the guilt in terms of telling Verstappen to do it strategically now if this was a penalty scenario strategy doesn't come into it. You serve the penalty irrespective of your strategy. Again, letting them sort themselves out, although good in theory creates these very unusual situations of like you say, trying to basically get DRS on each other, doing it at a point at the track that is narrow, so therefore you can't get a good run. All these different factors that add into it, but for you but I would say that the FIA and race control need to be stronger on and say, no, this has to happen in this way. You can't just sort of make it up as you go along. And this is where it's a lot of different factors that end up making these situations, but that's how this has happened, ultimately, post race. They've happened or just happened to be at fault and giving him the post race ten second time penalty, which in retrospect obviously doesn't change anything. He still finishes second in the race. The seriousness of what happened was fairly clear. So again, I think that was the probably the right call. I don't know if any of you agree on that post race penalty. He was definitely a fault though, yeah, and the data shows that the Stuart said that there was a 2.4 G deceleration by Verstappen on the brakes and as I mentioned, you see him downshift all the way from 8 to third gear. And yeah, I get yeah, he was trying to be strategic, fine, but it could have been done a lock cleaner and a much different and safer part of the circuit. So yeah, I thought the penalty I think it was right that he got a penalty. I think the steroids basically deemed it. I think they just went by the rulebook and said, okay, we normally dish out for causing a collision and kind of stuck to that. I think maybe with the wider context of, yeah, the fact that he didn't actually lose any places or anything. It's kind of a bit of an immaterial penalty, isn't it? But they ultimately stick to the rule book and they can't sort of look at it as well. It's not going to cost him in place. So does it need to be wound up or wound down in terms of how much of penalties given? I thought it was quite cheeky what Verstappen was trying to do and Ricardo after the race like we said, did you see it? And he was like, I saw a bit of it, but I don't really get what happened. And we explained it and he was like, yeah, that's a little bit cheeky. To try and do that to try and get DRS back. But I mean, how do you make a really good point? There's nothing in the rule book saying you can't do that. He's got to give back the place, but yeah, think of Louis Samson and Felipe Massa, spar in 2008, Hamilton gave the place back. He thought, so that was fine. And then he went to, sorry, with Kimi raik and then went to re overtake him at two corners later, basically. So yeah, there's a bit of a gray area there, I think. Urban, I think it was absolutely a penalty for Verstappen. I think it was, yeah, he could have done that in a much cleaner way. But I do understand that they were trying to be strategic in terms of when they gave that place back. Are we going to call it strategic or are we going to call it game playing? Because I found there was a lot of game playing going on..