Did Grosjean "Brake Test" Verstappen?

[Wayne DR]

So Verstappen has come out and said that Grosjean braked 10-15m earlier than the previous lap. No mention of the phrase "brake test".

Alan Permane tweets a response using the phrase "brake test", and claiming Grosjean braked 5m later than the previous lap, and they have the data to prove it.
https://twitter.com/AlanPermane/status/ ... 7203928065 I find this intriguing as Mercedes have no idea where Hamilton's car is and pit him causing him to lose 1st place. Yet Lotus can provide data to PROVE that Grosjean braked 5m later than the previous lap... Maybe Mercedes need training from Lotus in how to operate their data logging and GPS equipment. (Also bear in mind that 5m-15m at the speeds they were travelling is 0.1s to 0.2s, well below normal human reaction times.)

I call "BULLSHIT" to Alan's Tweet for the following two reasons:

1) Honda/Renault resurgence is coming and Lotus know it
Grosjean has done a great job for Lotus at the start of this season. McLaren, Red Bull and Toro Rosso's power unit dramas have allowed him to amass a reasonable haul of points. (I note that Maldonado has ZERO points to his name, but that is the topic of a whole OTHER thread...) However, Renault and Honda now look like getting their act together.

Both drivers must be acutely aware that the team needs to finish higher up the Constructors Championship this year to get out of their money woes. Their early season point scoring opportunity is rapidly coming to an end. Toro Rosso are probably Lotus' greatest rival in the Constructor's race!

2) Grosjean has not set the world on fire
Even with this season's points haul, at 29 years of age, Grosjean is in his 4th full season of F1 and could be considered as a bystander in F1 rather than a lead driver (purely making up the numbers). Raikkonen finished 3rd in 2012, and 5th in 2013, while Grosjean finished 8th and 7th in the respective years with the same hardware. Maldonado brings in the cash, so his future with the team will be secure as long as this continues. Lotus needs a lead driver to assist in car development, and more importantly WIN races. Unfortunately, I don't think this is Romain...

Don't get me wrong, he is an awesome 2nd driver, just not a lead driver, and Jolyon Palmer's performances in his FP1 sessions must be both sobering and frightening...


Grosjean's move to keep Verstappen behind him at the hairpin was fantastic, and I applaud him for this move. BUT (mainly for the two reasons covered above) Grosjean, and possibly the team, felt they had to keep Max behind him at ALL costs and score that last point. So did he do it? Only he knows...


I have found in F1, when rumours surface, the faster the team managers responds, the more accurate it normally is, and Permane was pretty quick out of the blocks!

There is an old saying, "Age and guile will always beat youth and exuberance". Not only has Romain got away with this but he has managed to get Max a 5 place Grid penalty in Canada, so well done!

What does everyone else think?
Does Max deserve his Grid Penalty?
Did Grosjean "brake test" him?

Personally, I think the FIA got it wrong yet again...

[Vettel Maggot]

If you have ever raced a car or go kart in real life you will understand that picking your regular braking marker whilst you are on the gearbox of another car and being slightly off your regular racing line is actually quite difficult. I think that is what caught Max out. As you said, at Formula 1 speed reacting late or early to your brake marker by 0.1 or 0.3 seconds can be the difference. Can you blame him though? It is Monaco, he is a rookie and it was his only real opportunity to pass Roman.

And what do you expect Lotus to do? Not stand by Roman?

[skoop]

didn't max verstappen us the phrase "brake test" on instagramm? i think that's where the whole thing came from

[knabbel]

First, as a huge Verstappen fan I can't say if it was a brake test or not, at least not as long I've not seen the telemetry. Maybe the FIA should in these case always publish just the brake and throttle graphs of envolved cars. It can be just the data of only that corner in the last 3 laps orso. Than everybody can see if someone is braking normal.

On the info of Hamilton: Somewhere during the race I saw a message on the timing screen that the telemetry data stream from Hamiltons car had failed.

[Andres125sx]

Are you really insinuating Grosjean caused Verstappen accident intentionally?

That theory is, IMO obviously, absurd because of the following:

1- Doing that would be extremely dangerous at any track, but on Monaco it would be even more. No profesional would do such a stupid thing on a track where there´s no exits so he will crash with you like it or not. Or if he doesn´t crash and dodge you, then he´s pass you because you hitted the brakes too early. If you want to finish someone´s race there are thousands better ways to do it

2- You just have to look at Verstappen onboard camera to realice it was HIS fault. Grosjean did the classic move, waiting to the last moment before moving to the inner part (to avoid marbles) and prevent the other driver from taking the good side. But Verstappen seems like he was focused on going to that part and didn´t react, he went to the inner part even after watching Grosjean moved there first. Rookie mistake. He could have taken the outer of the track, there was space there, but he didn´t react to Grosjean´s move and crashed with him. You could argue those decisions are taken in tenths so he didn´t have the time, but that´s exactly the decision a driver need to do before overtaking, he should have been focused exactly on that. If he was, his reaction time is quite poor, if not, he was too ingenuous thinking Grosjean wouldn´t move to the right. Well, he´s 17 after all...

3- Apart from dangerous, it would be plain stupid to provoke such accident if you´re trying to rest points to your competitor, because causing that sort of crash will probably finish with both cars out of the points, and that would harm Lotus more than STR since he was first so he had more points. Again there are thousands better ways to finish somone´s race, specially in Monaco.

4- I guess those telemetry data have been sent to FIA, since they investigate all crashes, so it´s not a matter of someone from the team saying telemetry prove them right, but FIA need to see that data too, so if they say it it must be true or FIA would be jumping on them

[cma]

Perhaps Grosjean was on a lift and coast for some reason so didn't brake any earlier but would have slowed down earlier?

[turbof1]

Perhaps Grosjean was on a lift and coast for some reason so didn't brake any earlier but would have slowed down earlier?

That also denied by Alan Parmane. Still, we don't know what Grosjean did the previous lap.

[ian_s]

watching https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGSkxQe-4rw it looks to me like RG was actually moving to the left, and MV still hit him. the speed MV was going i think there was going to be an accident there regardless of RGs actions.

the penalty was deserved, and hopefully MV learns from this, as any rookie should, and indeed any driver at all should

[ChrisF1]

I'm surprised more people haven't pointed to MV's other overtaking moves, which as Brundle pointed out "He's turned a missed breaking point into an overtake"

He regularly comes close to hitting the driver in front but instead jinks out and sticks it up the inside. On Tilke tracks this is fine as there are 10 car widths to move into, but Monaco and it's single file lines made MV's standard move an impossibility.

[mrluke]

I thought it was well known that drivers lifted on purpose to mess with the following driver, its become standard practice to lift/loiter on the apex to prevent the "cut back" overtake.

Grosjean chose to be involved in an accident.

[markp]

No he did not. Stewards hsve access to all information and found Verstappen guilty. They can check lines into corners, throttle, braking etc if brake testing there was know where to hide. People seem to think watching on tv their opinions are more informed than the stewards. They could try and argue 150mph is faster than 160mph if they wanted. This is not subjective the stewards have various facts and made a clear decision.

[Writinglife]

I think Verstappen made a mistake, however, i had to laugh at Grosjean's comment that Verstappen was stupid. Does he forget how many accidents he caused or was involved in in his rookie years?

[turbof1]

I think Verstappen made a mistake, however, i had to laugh at Grosjean's comment that Verstappen was stupid. Does he forget how many accidents he caused or was involved in in his rookie years?

Well, I can understand that. It was said in the heat of the moment. Who wouldn't curse. No need to drag his past into this; he was very serene afterwards.

I also disregard that Romain Grosjean would intentionally "brake test" Verstappen. Parlane said the data did not show this. I think there can only be 2 things:
-Either Grosjean struggled a long time already with the brakes and was braking that early for several laps there.
-Or Verstappen braked too late.

Perhaps Verstappen did not calculate in that he had less downforce slowing the car down due him slipstreaming Grosjean. It's one of two places at the Monaco circuit where aerodynamic braking really plays a big role due the straights and the otherwise high downforce packages they run. Most other corners are much less dependant on this due the slower speeds of the car.

[Gaz.]

Further to that, perhaps he was caught out with DRS too.

Other than that, are we really shocked that a 17 year old lad fresh from F3 had a significant accident in Monaco? It was only his 53rd race in a car after all.

[Daliracing]

A video that shows the lap before and the lap he crashed: