basti313 wrote: ↑08 Nov 2021, 17:31
Vaexa wrote: ↑08 Nov 2021, 15:49
andrewf1 wrote: ↑08 Nov 2021, 15:44
Pretty sure Bottas wasn't worried about the slot which may or may not appear between himself and Hamilton for Verstappen to slide in through. That's ridiculous. Maybe it would have been enough of a slot, maybe not.
If Verstappen ended up switching on the dirty inside, he would have had to brake earlier and worry about running across Perez.
What exactly are you arguing? That there was no way Merc could have handlded the run to T1 any better?
The point is Bottas didn't defend the outside line. If he had, Max would have had to slow down.
Instead, we got this gargantuan gap.
https://i.ibb.co/sjLX7V0/SI202111070640 ... 8d9a45.jpg
In hindsight, they could've. With what they probably planned (ie a Ferrari style boxing in), not really, and by the time Bottas took notice of this Verstappen was already swinging out to come alongside and he would've copped a penalty for blocking him off.
Even if Verstappen had braked earlier, he would've been on the inside line going into turn 1, which again with one eye towards CotA was likely not Merc's desired scenario. The braking performance gap between RB and Merc at the start was so huge that Verstappen likely would've ended up winning those corners anyway even on the inside line.
Absolutely. The guys blaming Bottas miss three things:
- He did not know how quick Hams start was and could not see him in the mirror.
- Ver did not brake later just because of the line. He was later on the brake, because Merc had issues into turn 1 all weekend and Ham has a bad history with T1 here. Both Mercs were early on the brake.
- You do not give up the inside line for T1. Never ever. Protect the outside line...what bullshit is this. With Ver on the inside at least one or both Mercs would have ended on the grass. Ver would have squeezed Ham for sure.
Exactly nailing the problem Bottas was confronted with.... He was occupied with giving Hamilton a slip stream, but Hamilton was too fast... So he missed him in the mirrors. He then looked to the left to find Verstappen, but he was already there. So all he could do was stay on his line and brake early to give Hamilton the inside line. Bad enough Verstappen sailed by with late braking on the racing line. He didn't expect Verstappen to make the corner, because his reference point is the Mercedes: bad in the corners. Ricciardo got caught off guard with the early braking of Bottas and hit the tail of Bottas. Exactly the reason why the officials didn't further investigate the incident. And remember that Bottas has to process all this information in 4-5 seconds: Impossible.
The main problem: Mercedes should have let Bottas race and let him go straight away to the racing line instead of let him try to be tactical. We all have seen on Q3 what happened when Tsunoda tried to get out of the way. The dirt dust he created screwed Perez and the incident escalated to Verstappen his run.