oh dear - Romain

[NowyszRacing6]

It seems like both drivers' fault to me. Webber slowed down a little bit unexpectedly, and romain wasn't being careful enough. How come everyone wants to hate romain so much? I know he's crashed a lot this season, but I think this was a fairly small mistake this time

[beelsebob]

It seems like both drivers' fault to me. Webber slowed down a little bit unexpectedly, and romain wasn't being careful enough. How come everyone wants to hate romain so much? I know he's crashed a lot this season, but I think this was a fairly small mistake this time

Webber can choose to slow as much as he wants to make the turn... Romain plain ran straight into him. No one particularly wants to hate on romain, he's just been at fault a lot. Note we say Alonso was at fault when he does the same as Romain did in other races (or at least most of us do).

[RB7ate9]

It seems like both drivers' fault to me. Webber slowed down a little bit unexpectedly, and romain wasn't being careful enough. How come everyone wants to hate romain so much? I know he's crashed a lot this season, but I think this was a fairly small mistake this time

Many times at the start, when he's in the front, and he takes out another driver. He's a consistent problem, that's the issue.

[LionKing]

I don't think this has anything to do with the lack of testing...

There are other novice guys like Perez, Hulkenberg, DiResta with similar level of F1 experience and they do not cause stupid incidences as Romain does. The problem is particularly with Romain. If I am not mistaken this became the 8th such incident in 14 races for him.

[Raptor22]

The real causal is the lack of testing.
If he was given more testing time He would be more comfortable.

Competancy in 95% repetitive action and 5% pure skill. This testing restriction is not playing into building good competant drivers. Its ruining more careers than creating them.

I don't agree here. There are so many examples of drivers who had the same amount of testing time: Perez, Di Resta, Hulk, even maldonado, and who did it better then Grosjean. Furthermore, teams have simulators. There's not really an excuse to keep repeating the same mistake.
The irony is that when the FIA steps in and gives Grosjean a harsh penalty, Maldonado is the one to understand the lesson. Just look at him: he drove superb the last couple of races.

We're all different, learn in different ways and at different ways. Beat the child and what do you accomplish? Fear

Fear leads to anger
Anger leads to hate
Hate leads to...........the dark side.

Master Yoda

[illario]

In Monaco i almost broke my leg when i hit a chair in front of me after he touched Schumacher, it was a BAD START. Spa will remain CRAZY for me because he went from left to right straight in Hamilton. Australia, touching with Maldonaldo was a BAD LUCK and 'ROOKIE DRIVING' from both of them. In Malaysia its Schumacher's fault as much as Grosjean's.
What happens when a rookie starts his first season with two outs in first laps? Bad season-start that's it. Not an impressive one for sure. Although, i never saw anything like Schumacher - Barichelo in Hungaroring. Nor did i ever see anything like Maldonaldo hitting others intentionally, Hamilton last year in Spa and someone else i cant remember in Monaco(this year) in free practice(repeat: I cant remember). I'm thinking: if he can get his had out from the barrel(something like Massa is trying to do for so long) he'll be fine, i bet 10 euros. So, from 14 races he's had 4 out's in the first lap. I dont think anyone should be penalized for this. So far(from F1fanatic) he has completed 590 laps(least of all) in comparison to Raikkonen 895(most of all). Points: Grojean 82 - 157 Raikkonen. Intentionally im not talking about Quali.
My point: He is not as bad as he is looking at the moment.

[munudeges]

I'm afraid he was like this in his first stint in Formula 1, he was like that in GP2 and he is like that now. When racing around other cars he simply can't judge and adjust his speed into corners accordingly. Webber was not at fault at all. What was happening was the normal bunching up you get at the start of a race as drivers jockey for position, defend their position and take lines into corners that are much slower than normal.

Grosjean simply can't judge that and he never will. Starts and racing around other cars is instinctive and it's about thinking ahead before something happens. You can't train that into a driver or force it with penalties. Ditto with Maldonado. They will have periods where everyone thinks they've learned and then another incident will occur. Di Resta, Perez and other drivers have had no such problems.

I see Grosjean's fake smile has gone as well.

[turbof1]

The real causal is the lack of testing.
If he was given more testing time He would be more comfortable.

Competancy in 95% repetitive action and 5% pure skill. This testing restriction is not playing into building good competant drivers. Its ruining more careers than creating them.

I don't agree here. There are so many examples of drivers who had the same amount of testing time: Perez, Di Resta, Hulk, even maldonado, and who did it better then Grosjean. Furthermore, teams have simulators. There's not really an excuse to keep repeating the same mistake.
The irony is that when the FIA steps in and gives Grosjean a harsh penalty, Maldonado is the one to understand the lesson. Just look at him: he drove superb the last couple of races.

We're all different, learn in different ways and at different ways. Beat the child and what do you accomplish? Fear

Fear leads to anger
Anger leads to hate
Hate leads to...........the dark side.

Master Yoda

Well, fear got Maldonado to change his ways. But hey I get your point: send in dark vader to saber off Grosjean his hands :p.

[example]

What do you think about other drivers reaction to his situation? Imo some of the comments are harsh.

[Shrieker]

Seg, I think you're a bit too harsh there. If that has been the case, he would never have made it to F1.

[turbof1]

I also don't get the testing argument anyhow: his problem isn't anything about driving around a circuit. If he survives the start, Grosjean is a fantastic driver. His problem is spacial awareness when there are multiple cars to keep attention to, a problem for the biggest part only present at the start. Testing does NOT include starts with multiple cars around him. Give him a 10,000km test; it will absolutely do nothing about his problem. He is better off doing reflex exercices and, if possible, simulator training. Testing makes a rookie learn how to drive better, faster and being more conservative with the tyres. It'll also let him learn how to make feedback about the set-up. I think everybody here agrees Grosjean isn't in shortage of any of that.

[WhiteBlue]

There's really something to be said when drivers can test their cars. Every other sport that requires equipment to participate, the players are free to practice as much as they want with the equipment they use in competition. I don't see why F1 should be any different truthfully.

It was decided in order to avoid test teams. They simply cost too much. Some teams had test teams that were costing as much as the race team. When the crisis hit in 2008 and teams went bust eliminating the test teams was the easiest way to cut back the cost. Mind you they could easily do more dedicated test sessions for young drivers during the season if they really wanted. Back on topic I don't think that testing would fix Grosjean's starting problem.

[fiohaa]

i dont understand this whole reflex and spacial awareness argument.
if its the case that hes really lacking in these areas.........how on earth has he got to F1?
he must have all those things on some base level, otherwise if it was a fundamental problem in his brain, he would not have made it to these higher levels of formula..........

i think he actually knows perfectly well what hes doing, he might seem happy and smiley on the outside but i seriously think he knows exactly what hes doing, and trying to intimidate drivers by driving wild and unpredictable at the start - this way other drivers learn to stay well clear. maybe its all part of a grand plan.

it must be on purpose, i cannot make sense of any other argument.
i mean the japan incident was just mental............ok so he was focusing on the sauber to his left....but SURELY he could see webber in his peripheral to his right side? and in fact its really weird if he literally had his head pointing to the left, looking at the sauber....going into a right turn corner where you'd naturally be focusing to the right - if anything, its Webber you'd think his vision would have been focused on, and the Sauber would have been in his peripheral.

i can kind of understand all the other incidents hes had up to now (go to sky f1 website and watch the video for a refresher course, where they have compiled all of them)

http://www1.skysports.com/formula1/video/12870/8149336

a lot of them are circumstance:

melbourne - a bit 50/50, pastor did completely run him wide, as well as romain refusing to give up (but he had every right not to as he was side by side around the apex)
malaysia - totally his fault, but it was in the wet, understandable, ruins schumi's day so i was furious...
spain - hits perez somehow, camera angle isnt clear - inconclusive
monaco - ......people fail to forget that Alonso is the one that shoves Romain to the left here.........i mean. it isn't particularly romains fault. ruins schumis day again......i wasn happy again.
silverstone - does the same thing to di resta as he did to perez.......he has space to make room for the car on the inside but just doesnt move. So actually im going to put spain and silverstone on romain.
belgium - no argument here
japan - totally absurd.

so thats what......7 races. 5 of which are arguably his fault.

so actually.........its not circumstance is it. His judgement is totally messed up LOL. Ive just destroyed my own argument with fact.

[fiohaa]

I also don't get the testing argument anyhow: his problem isn't anything about driving around a circuit. If he survives the start, Grosjean is a fantastic driver. His problem is spacial awareness when there are multiple cars to keep attention to, a problem for the biggest part only present at the start. Testing does NOT include starts with multiple cars around him. Give him a 10,000km test; it will absolutely do nothing about his problem. He is better off doing reflex exercices and, if possible, simulator training. Testing makes a rookie learn how to drive better, faster and being more conservative with the tyres. It'll also let him learn how to make feedback about the set-up. I think everybody here agrees Grosjean isn't in shortage of any of that.

i second this - if anyone has spent time on games like iracing or rfactor, playing in leagues - its really serious stuff - just google 'formula simracing world championship' in youtube to get an idea of what its like. I race in world trophy myself.

the level of competition is intense - maybe half a second in laptime covers the top 10 at each race, and your judgement at the start has to be absolutely spot on.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdADcApBdfQ

this is something that can definitely be used to practise with as a learning tool, doing online racers. Maybe he should make an anonymous account and start playing.

[Nando]

The word you are looking for is racecraft.

It´s one thing being quick but if you don´t have racecraft you won´t get far in F1.
As Fiohaa mentioned above, if you played in leagues etc you will see this quite often.

Some guys are stupid quick but can´t run side by side even if their life depended on it.

Racecraft is even more important in multiclass racing. This is where a lot of the "opportunistic overtakes" happen.
Usually the guy in front gets caught up, the guy with more racecraft finds another way around and overtakes both the lower class car and the guy in front of him.