2016 Belgian Grand Prix - Fri 26 – Sun 28 Aug 2016

[NathanOlder]

Hi, anyone yet to see any onboard from the start onboard Lewis or Fernando. love to see how they picked their way through all the mess

[NathanOlder]

Rejoice people, Pastor Maldonado is back! It's a bit strange to see him in a Red Bull, however

only difference is that Maldonado earned his win in Spain. lol

hmmm.... not sure, think Lewis being sent to the back gave him the win that day

[mrluke]

So basically the argument is that max prevented kimi from taking avoiding action when vettel drove across his line.

I'm sorry but the car causing the other to take avoiding action has to be at fault.

[sosic2121]

Rejoice people, Pastor Maldonado is back! It's a bit strange to see him in a Red Bull, however

only difference is that Maldonado earned his win in Spain. lol

hmmm.... not sure, think Lewis being sent to the back gave him the win that day

While you are right about Lewis, he still overtook Fernando Alonso for win in his home race!
How he managed to do that, I have no idea

[santos]

Inicially i though that Max was in the path of becoming a great driver. He is fast and feisty, but is becoming too much agressive. The way he made the first corner doesn't seem very right and the way he defended from Kimi was totally wrong. In soo many years watching F1, i never seen someone doing that.

[basti313]

...he did NOT divebomb into the corner

Verstappen knows what he did; he just thinks it's acceptable...

“The start wasn’t great,” Verstappen told reporters after the race. “I dived up in the inside and locked a wheel so I was easily making the corner but they just kept squeezing me.”

It's textbook divebombing if a driver's velocity at corner entry is such that he cannot maintain complete control of his car.

Arriving at the corner ≠ making the corner.

EDIT:

http://i.imgur.com/vlI7sUh.jpg
Romain Grosjean arrives at La Source ahead of Fernando Alonso

Ben, I hate to make this a matter of symantics, but I there is a difference between diving into a hole (as in taking a certain open line to overtake in a corner) and divebombing into a hole (the same as above, but braking too late without a chance to make it stick into the corner).

As Verstappen said himself, he did lock up, and turned into the corner. He was able to, as you can notice from these frames:
http://u.cubeupload.com/turbof1/27bSche ... 160828.png
http://u.cubeupload.com/turbof1/cc4Sche ... 160828.png
http://u.cubeupload.com/turbof1/707Sche ... 160828.png
http://u.cubeupload.com/turbof1/3baSche ... 160828.png
http://u.cubeupload.com/turbof1/962Sche ... 160828.png

I also refuse to draw any comparison between this, and Grosjean's 'action' in 2012. Aside the same corner, these 2 incidents have nothing in common.

I do not really get, what you mean....what I can see on the pictures:
Looking at the black marks on the track it looks like the car is going straight, while his steering looks like being on full lock. This means heavy understeer.
Furthermore if you look at the hands of Vet and Rai and their trajectories, I see no chance to take the corner as the Redbull at this moment had more or less the same speed as the Ferraris. If anything, he could have regained control before the apex and somehow make the corner....but this is very slow and crossing all the usual lines the other cars take through the corner. So even if you take away the Ferraris, he would have ended up sideways right in front of the cars coming fast from behind.

[Big Mangalhit]

Good point Basti, going into that corner that fast and already on the curb way before the apex you will need to do one of two things. Either you go wide, and a bit sideways on the corner while you slowly turn, or you park it on the apex to corner because the radius will be very very small with that entry. And as you said even if Vettel and Kimi had left enough space for a car to go through he would've run wide and still touched them or brake enough to clear the corner and probably get hit by the rest of the field coming very fast and chaotically. I really think he should've wielded the position being that a notorious hectic corner in the start.

[GoranF1]

Vettel is to be blamed for turn 1 incident.Had hhe moved to his left where there was space both Kimi and Verstapen would go trough and Vettel would still kept that second place where he was in that moment.....but its Seb we are talking about here.

[Wynters]

I note that Verstappen blames both Kimi and Vettel for the first corner incident. I believe (thanks to Sky's intrepid camera man during the red flag) that Horner explained to him that Kimi was hit by Vettel and that's what led to his own collision but, Max had obviously made up his mind that it was Kimi's fault and just added Vettel to the list "They spoiled my race", etc etc.

The danger with letting someone so young drive is not that they aren't able to turn a steering wheel but that they aren't able to make good decisions as often as their peers. Verstappen is still a child and I don't mean that as an insult, he's just not old enough to be considered an adult. Tantrums, lake of empathy, feelings of immortality, it's always someone else's fault, etc, all classic examples of childish behaviour and it's tough to blame him when he simply doesn't have the physiological means or experience to control it all. Sadly, I don't see any liklihood of his driving style changing for another couple of years unless he causes a big accident.

Given the lack of grip, hidden drainage, etc once you are off the track then his sentiment of "I'd rather drive them off the track than let them pass me" is, however, rather worrying. Given that he doesn't get to decide where they try to overtake that sounds awfully like "I'd rather put them in the wall than let them pass me". I'm sure he doesn't mean it like that, he's just not thought through the likely outcomes.

When Senna or Schumacher were involved in hard racing...

Grosjean displaying the skills and hard racing of Senna or Schumacher?*

definitely with way more aggressive attitude and a bit of leniency in judging racing skills, rather than Grandma approach to racing that it is today and people crying about safety.

How many people do you want to see dead each year? Would most of the field dying make it more exciting for you? Or would only one or two be enough? Is it only drivers or would you prefer to see cars flipping at high speeds and bouncing into marshals as well?

Perhaps, and this is just a thought, people watch F1 partly to see great driving. If I wanted to see people swerving around/dive bombing/bouncing off other cars to make the corner then I'd watch some Playstation clips on youtube.

*Thanks to Bhall for posting the image earlier and the chuckle at his tag line.

[mv71]

The danger with letting someone so young drive is not that they aren't able to turn a steering wheel but that they aren't able to make good decisions as often as their peers. Verstappen is still a child and I don't mean that as an insult, he's just not old enough to be considered an adult. Tantrums, lake of empathy, feelings of immortality, it's always someone else's fault, etc, all classic examples of childish behaviour and it's tough to blame him when he simply doesn't have the physiological means or experience to control it all. Sadly, I don't see any liklihood of his driving style changing for another couple of years unless he causes a big accident.

This.

[GPR-A duplicate2]

How many people do you want to see dead each year? Would most of the field dying make it more exciting for you? Or would only one or two be enough? Is it only drivers or would you prefer to see cars flipping at high speeds and bouncing into marshals as well?

I have a better suggestion. Stop racing altogether. That would save all of them for you. OR Better have Robots drive, just like "REAL STEEL". No one will die. That would be more fun.

Some people simply make mountain hill of a mole.

To Bhall and you... a better picture of Kimi showcasing the skills of HARD RACING "AS YOU UNDERSTAND".

[wickedz50]

How many people do you want to see dead each year? Would most of the field dying make it more exciting for you? Or would only one or two be enough? Is it only drivers or would you prefer to see cars flipping at high speeds and bouncing into marshals as well?

I have a better suggestion. Stop racing altogether. That would save all of them for you. OR Better have Robots drive, just like "REAL STEEL". No one will die. That would be more fun.

Some people simply make mountain hill of a mole.

To Bhall and you... a better picture of Kimi showcasing the skills of HARD RACING "AS YOU UNDERSTAND"
https://www.formula1.com/content/fom-we ... medium.jpg

Wondering your comments if Rosberg was the man instead of Max and he gave the interview on German TV that he will push Lewis out rather than let him overtake.....

[sosic2121]

while first corner was 100% racing incident, verstapen should have known that he has less than 50% chance to keep his front wing, and yet he made his move.
That's not skill, that's being reckless and having no respect for the team. Well, if he earned his place, he would respect it a lot more.
Almost every race he makes some stupid move, and yet only thing we hear about are his "skills".
If you want to see rookie with skills and potential to become truly great, take a look at Vandoorn during his FIRST race. Such shame his daddy isn't able to get him a seat.

[Kiril Varbanov]

In order to capture your definitive thoughts for MV's driving, I've created simple poll: http://www.f1technical.net/poll/index.php?dispid=324
It is also available on the main site.

[Steven]

Wow what a race!

But no stewards available it seemed. It's a total disgrace what Verstappen does on track. First Hungary, now Belgian GP. He will get someone seriously injured with that kind of dirty driving.
Not once but multiple incidents, not only with kimi, it's really boiling over, RBR should talk some sense into this KID.
Hope this will open many people' eyes about the "max hype"...

Alonso, amazing drive! =D>

Ricciardo, funny as ever on the podium with Webber

I too found it amazing that not even an investigation was triggered, in none of the incidents. The stewards must have been enjoying a great 2-hour nap.

Apart from Verstappen's clashes with Raikkonen, VES also ran off a Force India at Les Combes, much similar to what he did with Raikkonen. The below image shows quite perfectly why Raikkonen said Verstappen's only intention was to drive him off the racing track.



Banning the guy outright is not needed, but his actions from Spa could have at least earned him a penalty point on his license.

Also, a big thanks for the reasonable tone in this race thread. I was expecting havoc