2018 Aston Martin Red Bull Racing - Tag Heuer (Renault)

[bill shoe]

Don't think they're laying down the law, at least not in a way that people in their own team understand. If you read the article, there appears to be confusion in their own timing stand over what the law is.

Haha wow, did you even read the article?

Verstappen was then told to overtake Ricciardo, having left the garage behind his teammate for the final attempts, but refused, saying: “No, it’s discipline.”

This is completely consistent with my assertion that there was confusion in the timing stand about what the RB "law" was, thus clear evidence that RB has not laid down the law.

I think being an RB fan would be exhausting. You always have to remember to hate one of your own drivers!

[univex]

I think Ric main point was that they were going for three runs and it would have been easy to do a 2:1 split in Q3 and have Ver take one for the team. That meant that RB would likely have been 5 & 6 on the grid.
Ver 'seems to be maturing a bit..' give me a break, a mature driver would have simply said sure and got on with the job trusting that his two attempts would have been more than enough to still be in front. A mature driver would have been thinking of a future championship where he may need help from a team mate one day.

[adrianjordan]

I think Ric main point was that they were going for three runs and it would have been easy to do a 2:1 split in Q3 and have Ver take one for the team. That meant that RB would likely have been 5 & 6 on the grid.
Ver 'seems to be maturing a bit..' give me a break, a mature driver would have simply said sure and got on with the job trusting that his two attempts would have been more than enough to still be in front. A mature driver would have been thinking of a future championship where he may need help from a team mate one day.

Just to play Devil's Advocate, what if "a mature" driver was thinking that he's favoured within the team and if he plays these games then his teammate, who is currently looking for a new contract, might jump ship and he could get a more subservient teammate instead.... 🤪

[Big Tea]

I think Ric main point was that they were going for three runs and it would have been easy to do a 2:1 split in Q3 and have Ver take one for the team. That meant that RB would likely have been 5 & 6 on the grid.
Ver 'seems to be maturing a bit..' give me a break, a mature driver would have simply said sure and got on with the job trusting that his two attempts would have been more than enough to still be in front. A mature driver would have been thinking of a future championship where he may need help from a team mate one day.

They have been doing it this way for 7 years apparently. Why not say the same last week when he has the tow, or any other week. I may be wrong (usually am) but I do not recall Max having a strop when it was his turn to lead.

Edit.

the full radio traffic is here btw
http://www.skysports.com/watch/video/sp ... qualifying

[Ground Effect]

I think Ric main point was that they were going for three runs and it would have been easy to do a 2:1 split in Q3 and have Ver take one for the team. That meant that RB would likely have been 5 & 6 on the grid.
Ver 'seems to be maturing a bit..' give me a break, a mature driver would have simply said sure and got on with the job trusting that his two attempts would have been more than enough to still be in front. A mature driver would have been thinking of a future championship where he may need help from a team mate one day.

They have been doing it this way for 7 years apparently. Why not say the same last week when he has the tow, or any other week. I may be wrong (usually am) but I do not recall Max having a strop when it was his turn to lead.

Edit.

the full radio traffic is here btw
http://www.skysports.com/watch/video/sp ... qualifying

They usually have only 2 runs, this time they had 3, so I guess he felt it was outside and beyond the usual arrangement?

[Big Tea]

I think Ric main point was that they were going for three runs and it would have been easy to do a 2:1 split in Q3 and have Ver take one for the team. That meant that RB would likely have been 5 & 6 on the grid.
Ver 'seems to be maturing a bit..' give me a break, a mature driver would have simply said sure and got on with the job trusting that his two attempts would have been more than enough to still be in front. A mature driver would have been thinking of a future championship where he may need help from a team mate one day.

They have been doing it this way for 7 years apparently. Why not say the same last week when he has the tow, or any other week. I may be wrong (usually am) but I do not recall Max having a strop when it was his turn to lead.

Edit.

the full radio traffic is here btw
http://www.skysports.com/watch/video/sp ... qualifying

They usually have only 2 runs, this time they had 3, so I guess he felt it was outside and beyond the usual arrangement?

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/13712 ... ecame-spat
Horner said there was never any suggestion that the usual team plan would be changed.

"They know the situation. There is nothing to explain," he told Sky Sports F1.

"We have a very simple policy here that has operated for the last seven years that we alternate from weekend to weekend who drives out of the garage first.

"That is the only way to keep it as scrupulously fair from circuit to circuit.


I know it is never as simple as black/white right/wrong, but if it is an establisher procedure, then why now?

[drunkf1fan]

Don't think they're laying down the law, at least not in a way that people in their own team understand. If you read the article, there appears to be confusion in their own timing stand over what the law is.

Haha wow, did you even read the article?

Verstappen was then told to overtake Ricciardo, having left the garage behind his teammate for the final attempts, but refused, saying: “No, it’s discipline.”

This is completely consistent with my assertion that there was confusion in the timing stand about what the RB "law" was, thus clear evidence that RB has not laid down the law.

I think being an RB fan would be exhausting. You always have to remember to hate one of your own drivers!

There wasn't any confusion at all, the full radio has been released, Ricciardo tried to force Max to pass on all three runs, he decided screw convention he wanted the advantage. He did it in the same turn each time, he went out first from the garage each time, he didn't speak about this before qualifying, before Q3 or before going out he went out then purposefully slowed on each run. He actively hurt the warm up of his own and Max's on each run in Q3 and then whined about being treated unfairly. When was the last time drivers outside of Ferrari/Mclaren sacrificing a lap for the no.2 by only being ahead till the straight, a tow within 1.5 seconds and passing by the end of the straight has any fan, pundit, team boss or driver talked about a 'tow' from a car 4-5 seconds ahead of them... never.

This was a pure power play from a driver who has lost all his options but staying with RBR and immediately throws a strop/tries to force himself to get preferential treatment by acting out on track and then to the media after qualifying.

In q3 the final run is the most important 99% of the time so 1 run or 22 runs, if it's your week to get the 'last over the line, most track evolution' advantage which is what everyone has always described this ordering as, then it's your week to get to go last and the number of runs is utterly irrelevant. For a nearly meaningless advantage the fairness comes in swapping between races and Ricciardo desperately tried to alter that across all runs in Q3 for a nonsensical not really existing tow to a car 5+ seconds behind him. This wasn't about a tow, it wasn't about who was first, it was about trying to force the team to treat him preferentially.

The radio to Max, with context, is simply the engineer who already confirmed Ricciardo was being stupid and harming his laps was simply telling Max that it's probably best to ignore Ricciardo and optimise his warm up, he wasn't telling Max to give up the position for fairness, it wasn't a team instruction. If the team decided it was fair for Ricciardo to get one run ahead of Max he would simply have been sent out second for the final run, then didn't, they told Ricciardo to get on with it each time, there was no instruction for Max to give the position to Ricciardo, just advice from his own engineer to not play Ricciardo's game and forget about him.

[Edax]

There wasn't any confusion at all, the full radio has been released....

<snip>
The radio to Max, with context, is simply the engineer who already confirmed Ricciardo was being stupid and harming his laps was simply telling Max that it's probably best to ignore Ricciardo and optimise his warm up, he wasn't telling Max to give up the position for fairness, it wasn't a team instruction. If the team decided it was fair for Ricciardo to get one run ahead of Max he would simply have been sent out second for the final run, then didn't, they told Ricciardo to get on with it each time, there was no instruction for Max to give the position to Ricciardo, just advice from his own engineer to not play Ricciardo's game and forget about him.

I would be interested in reading the transcripts ( link not authorised) , but this is indeed the story the team told. And it makes sense, If they wanted Ves in front they would have sent him out first, not switch on track.

This for me is very much like the famous Alonso/Hamilton incident. In the end just as stupid. By cooling off their tires he was compromising both their runs. And if VES would not have passed GRO in his last Q run he probably would not have been able to pass RAI in the first lap of the race.

Somehow this whole contract thing doesn’t seem to do him a lot of good.

[Schuttelberg]

Not the first time I've seen Ricciardo behave like a child!

[drunkf1fan]

I read on the skysports website today a response from Ricciardo, it's very.... well, he doesn't just straight up apologise he makes lots of excuses. Sky I think at the time didn't have the full story on the radio message and asked him if Verstappen refused a team order which Ricciardo kind of suggested he did but then said he 'understood'. But with context it's clear the team offered no order, it was just his engineer realising Ricciardo was compromising his driver and recommending he pass him and focus on his lap.

Ricciardo also stuck to the story that it was fair he got the last run, despite that almost always being the crucial one, but at the time it wasn't known Ricciardo slowed on all three runs, as he did it all three times the idea that he gave Max two so deserved the third is rubbish. I hoped he'd just come straight out and apologise but instead he seemed to push towards the idea it was a misunderstanding, that it wasn't quite fair, that he assumed everyone would be on the same page so had no need to discuss it (though had a plan to slow down all three runs in the same corner and it not working twice.... but didn't ask the team about the third run). I'm disappointed with his actions yesterday but I'm more disappointed in how he tried to explain it away. Shades of Webber vs Vettel about it. Webber had some valid reasons for feeling aggrieved from Vettel and the team favouring him (after a certain point), I really don't think Ricciardo does at all at this point.

[TwanV]

agreed. Posting here since I assume the race-thread has been locked, but what a race! Perhaps Bottas could have won it, but Hamilton was beaten on tire-graining, well done RB!

[Sieper]

Verstappen has also been very mature about it, today he informed the press there was no need to go on about this (it was simply a misunderstanding ) which I believe drunkF1fan has very clearly/detailed and spot on described as not really being the case. I did find it good of Verstappen to in the moments it happened, not let himself be had by the games (even though I can understand Lambiase proposing to him to simply get on than if Ricc wants to put them both in this position).

Also, the issue was not alone the tires getting cold, it almost cost them run3 alltogehter as there was very little time left to go out for that one now.

[hemichromis]

I think Ric main point was that they were going for three runs and it would have been easy to do a 2:1 split in Q3 and have Ver take one for the team. That meant that RB would likely have been 5 & 6 on the grid.
Ver 'seems to be maturing a bit..' give me a break, a mature driver would have simply said sure and got on with the job trusting that his two attempts would have been more than enough to still be in front. A mature driver would have been thinking of a future championship where he may need help from a team mate one day.

They have been doing it this way for 7 years apparently. Why not say the same last week when he has the tow, or any other week. I may be wrong (usually am) but I do not recall Max having a strop when it was his turn to lead.

Edit.

the full radio traffic is here btw
http://www.skysports.com/watch/video/sp ... qualifying

That's not the full radio traffic.

Earlier Ricciardo's engineer had told him that he would have a go next time. According to Horner what he mean't was that Ricciardo would get the tow from Magnussen. It seems like he got the wrong end of the stick.

Good to see how he was able to be happy for Verstappen and the team on Sunday.

[Big Tea]

I think Ric main point was that they were going for three runs and it would have been easy to do a 2:1 split in Q3 and have Ver take one for the team. That meant that RB would likely have been 5 & 6 on the grid.
Ver 'seems to be maturing a bit..' give me a break, a mature driver would have simply said sure and got on with the job trusting that his two attempts would have been more than enough to still be in front. A mature driver would have been thinking of a future championship where he may need help from a team mate one day.

They have been doing it this way for 7 years apparently. Why not say the same last week when he has the tow, or any other week. I may be wrong (usually am) but I do not recall Max having a strop when it was his turn to lead.

Edit.

the full radio traffic is here btw
http://www.skysports.com/watch/video/sp ... qualifying

That's not the full radio traffic.

Earlier Ricciardo's engineer had told him that he would have a go next time. According to Horner what he mean't was that Ricciardo would get the tow from Magnussen. It seems like he got the wrong end of the stick.

Good to see how he was able to be happy for Verstappen and the team on Sunday.

interesting. Do you have a link to it please? is someone guiding our perception here?

[Webber2011]

I really don't know how to take what's gone on ?

First up I'll admit that I'm a massive Ricciardo fan, but I've always tried to be impartial.
Max is a massive talent and I reckon it's great that Daniel is being challenged the way he is.
It shows the true mark of a man to be under such pressure from the new upstart, and mostly over their time together Dan has let his talking be on track.
They also seem to have a somewhat genuine friendship.

I don't have a clue as to what went on there in Quali, and I'm pretty sure that no one else here does either, but something must have gone on behind the scenes.

I just can't picture Ricciardo all of a sudden getting the shits with who goes first, and sabotaging RBR and Max for no good reason.
It makes no sense.

Is it some sort of contractual power play ?
That would surprise me, because doing something so out of character on the world stage so publically seems really dumb.

Is there now some favouritism sneaking in that we don't know about, and Dan felt the need to make it public ?
If so, he really messed up, because he's the one looking like a clown right now.

I know some of you are not fans of Daniel.
That's all cool, but to me this just seems so way out of character that I find it hard to imagine there's not a whole lot more going on than we will ever know.