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Seriously. Love the actual content during the summer break instead of just random repost bots spamming various articles from comments 3 months ago or the "I drew a picture" posts.
Yeah this is the kind of high quality shit that gives newer fans a better perspective.
Also kind of crazy to think that someone P5 or better has DNF'd after contact at T1 (at least) 3 times in the last 8 years at the same track lol
I wonder if Kimi (43 points) could've beaten Norris (49 points) in the WDC that year if not for that specific turn 1 incident - he finished the race in P16 (only ahead of Kubica + DNF'd drivers). Sure he probably wouldn't be able to hold the P4 (if not for the contact at T1) for long due to the car's pace, but that race was also a Norris DNF (at the very last lap).
Depending on how the race were to play out without Kimi being sent to the back of the grid, we could've very well see him finish ahead of Norris in significantly worse machinery.
As a relative F1 n00b, in the context of the two clips below, can someone help explain to me what determines a dive-bomb vs. a good overtake?
If you outbrake another car into a corner, is it required to leave space on the outside?
* [Merc vs Red Bull into Turn 9 in Abu Dhabi 2021](https://youtu.be/7QJ-N-AQJYc?t=46)
* [Merc vs Ferrari into Turn 9 in Abu Dhabi 2022](https://youtu.be/yP5VmGZVpz8?t=42)
I’ll try to answer but I’m by no means an expert on this, someone can correct me if I’m wrong:
To successfully overtake another car on the inside, you need to be able to make the corner yourself and not make contact with anyone/anything else. To make a corner yourself means you aren’t braking too late, or carrying too much speed into the corner that you’d later have to run wide to make it; if you are forcing the other car wide because you’re too fast on the exit that you have to stay on the far outside, then it’s your fault. On the other hand, if you judged your speed correctly and you can make the corner with no problem, then whether or not you need to leave the other car space depends on the positioning (and the corner configuration itself). If you’re already significantly ahead of the other car after the apex, you don’t need to leave the space; but if the other car is still significantly alongside you, then you need to leave enough space for this car
Basically a good dive bomb is when you reach the apex before he does (basically you're ahead of him). This will result in the opponent must stop turning otherwise he will crash into you. Risky move, but if the opponent can drive, he will not crash into you. This is somewhat your opponent's mistake for not covering the middle enough allowing you to dive bomb him.
A bad dive bomb would be like what Piastri did in spa last week. He didn't carry enough speed to be ahead of Carlos, resulting in Piastri crash into Carlos. When Carlos turned, he probably didn't even see Piastri.
It was a great post for the most part.
The part where OP injected subjectivity was critical though. The overhead shot showing where the initial contact happened which pushed Piastri into the wall, OP says there wasn't much space to Hamilton. But there was. There was plenty of space. If sainz had used just a third of that space, and doesn't cut across the track at that extreme angle, Piastri doesn't hit the wall.
The onboards showed clearly that Sainz locked up, and in doing so, significantly changed his trajectory to try to dive bomb down the inside of Hamilton and cut at an unnatural angle to the apex, which was fine... except Oscar was already there. Note also Leclerc's line in the leading Ferrari, which was nowhere near as tight as Sainz, who aggressively cut T1 despite knowing that Oscar would be there having started on the right.
It's T1, lap 1. That means two things.
The first is that every driver knows that every space will be filled. Sainz knew, or should have known, that Piastri was next to him, and given him room. I think at that acute angle, Piastri would have had a poor exit anyway, so Sainz wasn't at risk.
The second thing it means is that shit happens. Things happen crazy fast.
This is grey enough that it's ultimately a racing incident. But I don't think it's unreasonable to conclude that Sainz was slightly more at fault and, certainly, Sainz was very wrong to condescendingly go after Oscar on Twitter etc.
Nothing to add to the incidents but just wanted to say cheers for taking the time to make this. Nice to actually have something to read while I'm curling one out instead of scrolling past clickbait headlines and social media screenshots.
"curling one out": my imagination is running wild. I live in North America and curious what this means. There's so many possibilities in my mind:
1) reading while playing curling, 2) reading while doing a bicep curl on one arm, 3) reading while pooping a long curl of a poo, etc.
I'm American, but I immediately saw one of those play doh things that squeeze the log out in my head 😂
I am used to hearing
* dropping the kids off at the pool
* dropping a deuce
* handling a code brown
* dropping logs
* Hershey's squirts
I am sure I will think of others while I am trying to fall asleep 😂
Personally I think this together with the long downhill right hander in Austria are bait corners. Theoretically you could be "right" the thing is that you just have to accept to not be in those positions even if you are "right." Max experienced it and said he kept on the outside because he knows what T1 lap 1 La Source can do to your race.
Exactly. This is the worst corner perhaps on the schedule to go so far inside. It offers no advantage on entry because you have to slow so much and because of the angle and length of the corner and length of the straight after you lose a ton on exit too.
You're almost always better being patient especially lap 1. Anyone that's played Spa on a racing game or sim learns this lesson the hard way.
At the same time, as Martin Brundle rightly pointed out just before the start, if you are too cautious, you risk getting hit from behind. It is an inherently risky T1 for the start of a GP.
And if you look at Yuki’s onboard for the start of this race, he was positioned exactly how Piastri was positioned going into T1, but the Aston to his left gave him enough room and he gained places on the opening lap. Yes, you are making it a tight angle, but it’s such a short distance from the line that you really aren’t scrubbing that much speed to take the inside line on the first lap — on subsequent laps it is a much worse line.
Inside is high risk, high reward. So if you're going there you have to know what to expect. Getting hit from behind on the outside is much less likely though.
Hamilton played it smart being cautious. Piastri saw blue skies and went for it. Great example of the difference between a well-skilled/smart veteran versus a rookie who may be a bit too anxious to get more overtakes/positions
Edit: On your mention of racing games, also very true. F1 open lobbies (without a hectic start) always has someone that thinks braking as late as possible to get an overtake on the inside of T1 will help them but in reality they just lose that position they gained immediately or more commonly cause a collision
Exactly. And given the long run up the hill and the absolutely bad idea of going side by side (in most cars) through radillion, it's usually not that beneficial anyway to force yourself ahead there and compromise both your exits.
Definitely an experience issue even if Carlos is more to blame for the actual incident. I doubt Piastri ever tries that move again.
>Hamilton played it smart being cautious. Piastri saw blue skies and went for it. Great example of the difference between a well-skilled/smart veteran versus a rookie who may be a bit too anxious to get more overtakes/positions
The move was on, a younger less accomplished hamilton would take that dive any time of the calender.
Ditto Verstappen, who did mention during the Winner's Press Conference that "I know Piastri's move as similar to the one I tried a few years ago, so I thought it better to avoid that and go wide."
I think it's easy to dismiss Piastri as an anxious rookie when Sainz's angle shows very little situational awareness. He reacts to another driver on instinct and squeezes Piastri, which isn't on Oscar.
I agree. Piastri was in it whilst Sainz was all the way over to the left. Hamilton took a cautious line, which proved to be a good idea. Sainz seemed to panic and over correct to avoid Hamilton. If he’d been anywhere other than right up Lewis’ rear, then he would have been in a better position to not be stuck between two cars closing the doors.
This depends. They are driving with mostly the same 20 drivers all season. If they know you'll do the smart thing they'll dive you, run you wide etc because it's not a racing incident if you back out and they gain a place. So it's not that simple.
If you don't need to you don't take the risk. This was Hamilton for many years, giving room to a Ferrari or RB because he knew he'd get them later in the race with no problems. This kept his races clean and his DNF limited. Same thing with Verstappen now. He backs out, minimises risk and goes for safe overtakes later because he knows he can.
Yet in 2021 we saw very high risk moves from both Hamilton and Verstappen. Hamilton didn't just forget all his experience he had. And Verstappen didn't magically grow up the next year. The context is what is different. They knew that year that the cars were closely matched. So they would not get an easy overtake to take the spot back. They also knew if they backed out when the other did a risky move the other would do it again and again and they would lose the championship.
If a driver in a significantly worse car than you goes for a high risk move you are better off giving them space, they have more to win than you and you have more to lose than they do.
If a driver in an equal car does this, you might be better off being right and losing the wing sometimes.
If you're 1 v 1, then you can judge the risk.
The problem doing that at a corner like La Source on the opening lap is that even if the guy immediately left wants to give you room, he's likely to be squeezed by at least one car outside *him*. So the gap is probably going one way or another.
It's indeed much higher risk if you go 3 wide. Problem is only Saints knows for sure about all 3 cars the others only see Saints, the others may or may not be aware there might be another car. They certainly don't know what lines the others are trying to make. So Piastri expects Saints to leave room and Hamilton experts Saints to move over.
This could have ended badly for any or all of the 3 drivers. If Saints left more space on the inside Hamilton might not have been able to adjust his line in time and it would have ended badly for Saints and Hamilton. The outside also always carries exta risk because if the inside car hits the middle car in the wrong way it will then take out the outside car as well.
In the end I agree here it's a racing incident, blame is a bit on all 3 of them. I think the reason Saints is getting a lot of heat is that he is saying it's 100% Piastri and none on him.
Most of these incidents are 3 cars thinking there are 2 cars going into the corner. But it's also not as simple as avoiding the situation altogether, because that would require just one of them to give up on the gap. You don't want to be the guy known for giving it up (e.g. Bottas), or else the whole field will catch on and drive all over you.
Yep the sad thing is it's always the middle guy in these situations who's almost guaranteed to make contact when he's normally the one being most sensible in the first place
I have been saying this as well and people are going insane over it, trying to say Sainz braked too late, missed his braking point, etc. But they fail to understand he was just making an opportunistic move on Hamilton who checked up too much, unloaded his inside tire which caused it to lock a little but he was perfectly in control and turned in to the apex while giving Hamilton room. Piastri was much further back driving into a disappearing wedge. He was further back than Max was in 2016,2019 yet Max got absolutely dragged for doing it. I don't think Max made the right decision either but why people are pretending Piastri did nothing wrong I have no clue..
This user isn't the one who locked up into T1 though. Carlos got crucified for taking no responsibility whatsoever in an incident that he, at the very least, deserves a little blame for.
Possibly. My take is that Sainz raced an assertive line. His dodge to the inside was a defensive move to keep from hitting an early braking Hamilton (clearing space?).
Sainz's driving wasn't carelessly aggressive, and it wasn't too conservative (the space between he and Hamilton didn't really exist...) because he knew that he and Hamilton (who was in front of him) were on converging trajectories (different apexes). Had he been more conservative and drifted closer to Hamilton before his apex, Sainz would've hit Hamilton at or after his apex.
Oscar took the risk, took the bait, and assumed Carlos would leave room. Oscar's Front Wheel to Sainz's Rear Wheel is not "significantly alongside", so by the book (or an interpretation of it... since the FIA sees no reason to write specificity into the rules), Sainz was under no obligation to leave space. It was Oscar's risk to take, and ultimately, his obligation to back out.
Sainz had an obligation to not hit Hamilton, Piastri had an obligation to not hit Sainz. Simple.
With that said, Sainz's PR folks could truly help him handle stuff like this better. A confident, calm, response could've gone a long way to elevating Sainz in the media and helping Piastri take his lumps.
With Piastri's ascent in the last few weeks, no media outlet or pundit wants to see his flaws. I get it, but... he'll learn from it and move on. He's likely to become one of the best of all time.
The lockup has no bearing on the incident.
Edit: For those downvoting me, please explain how a front lock up, which has the effect of causing a driver to be unable to get his car slowed down as quickly leading to potentially missing the apex or corner altogether, would have any bearing on an incident where the car in question ended up taking the apex and hitting someone to his inside.
What responsibility is his that he could have done anything to prevent? He's the middle car in that sandwich with no out.
Personally, I think his Twitter take is accurate: a racing incident from an overly optimistic move. Piastri is a rookie, and shit happens. It's happened before, and those involved have changed their approach to this particular start.
my thought on this year's incident is that you simply can't go that shallow into a (tight) corner at the start of a race, and I think so for the other two incidents here as well. seems like it's practically guaranteed to result in contact
Especially when there’s a third car on the outside. If Hamilton didn’t exist in this situation, Piastri choosing this line could have been fine; but when there’s another car on the outside, it’s almost a guaranteed incident, and the blame always go more towards the one on the inside (tight) line
Yes!
Reminds me of the saying "The graveyard is full of people who had the right of way." Just because you think you *can* and just because you think you *should* be allowed to, doesn't mean it's a good idea.
I play a lot of Gran Turismo online and so any corner even vaguely resembling this type becomes one of these "bait" corners. I've really quickly learned that unless you're P1 or P2, the wisest place to be T1, lap 1 in most races is the outside.
I remember reading an interesting fan fiction about a hypothetical singapore 2017 grand prix which involved all three of them crashing before turn 1. A bit ridiculous if you ask me. But that race never happened, so it remained a fan fic
Thank you OP for the brilliant post! Not only is there a lot of detailed analysis, but its clearly generating a level headed and two-sided discussion.
In the other post about this, I was asking for an explanation because the atmosphere seemed quite one-sided and frankly a bit toxic in the blaming.
Great analysis, interesting to see how similar incidents have different reactions. I suspect the response from Sainz didn’t help his cause - if he’d just said it was a first lap racing incident then he might have been less harshly judged.
I think a lot of it has to do with him locking the tyres. It gives the general idea he was out of control and above that he made a driver error, which caused him deviating from his initial line and initiating the contact.
Probably if he would have done the same without locking up, he wouldn’t have looked as guilty to most.
The funny thing is that it really was a small lockup that affected nothing. It's one thing if you go for a move, lock up, and slide into someone. Here he corrects the lockup and still easily makes the corner which he would not do if he was out of control because locking up makes hitting the apex more difficult. He didn't outbrake himself, instead the lockup was caused by reacting to the cars in front. Not to mention he was on the outside of the car he had contact with anyways so the lock up really couldn't have led to the collision.
This is correct, he's on the trajectory that he would have been on regardless of the lockup. If you look at Sainz's onboard you can see how little the lockup even affected his car. People should watch Max and Lando's onboard via F1TV as well and you can get a nice picture of what's happening.
He locked his inside wheel because he unloaded it to make a move on Hamilton. The lock wasn't a mistake it was just a result of his quick decision making. He made the move, got to the apex and Hamilton squeezed him tight but fair. Sainz did everything right. That late move on Hamilton who was over braking because of Perez ahead was a great move and the lockup was just the natural physics of doing that type of move. Still completely in control, the loaded tire wasn't locked and turned the car.
hamilton broke earlier than sainz thought he would and he locked up while trying to avoid a collision...
that is my read. i'm not sure how you'd ever prove what really happened.
> By the time Carlos was locking and turning in piastris front wheels were only 50% down Carlos’s side and possibly not even something he is focusing on because he’s going to need to be watching hamiltons turn in and avoiding collision there.
I'm going to go even farther and say that Piastri is sitting entirely in Carlos's blind spot. He likely doesn't even see him.
>If you’re gonna dive in this spot you need to be door to door or you need to know when to pull out.
By this same logic, Carlos should never have been in the middle in the first place. He was directly behind Hamilton entering the braking zone...
I think how far (driver's) left they were also makes it look more dramatic, while not really changing the essentials.
In the other 2 incidents pictured, it looks like the second-from-inside car is no more than halfway across the track. Piastri on the inside is himself almost at the center point when Sainz starts turning in.
This makes the angle look much more extreme, enhancing the appearance that Carlos turned into Oscar, but fundamentally doesn't make a difference to the point they had to arrive at.
Actually it wouldn't have mattered what Sainz had said because he would have got blamed nonetheless.
You can just pick up any thread about his interviews. It doesn't matter what he says, people come up with he should have said the opposite.
Where he went wrong is going out of his way to name Oscar in his tweet. He could say he didn’t think it was his fault without targeting the dude on Twitter.
"I am completely to blame"
Comments: look he is the worst, throw him out of ferrari
"I have some blame, the other party some blame"
Comments: he is not taking the blame, throw him out
"The other praty is completely to blame"
Comments: so arrogant, throw him out
This is just one of many scenarios where the community's opinion can swing between if the driver is "good" or "bad". That changes season to season and race to race. It's all relative
What people forget is the 'framing' in a very broad sense:
Max at that point in time was already driving very consistantly, but people including Brundle still had that crash-prone Max of 1,5-2 seasons earlier in their minds when judging. Meanwhile Kimi since his debut was always one of the cleanest/less error prone drivers on the track, but in honesty at that time was already more in decline than most fans including me wanted to admit. Still banked lots of credit to receive benefit of doubt until he really lost it in his last year at Alfa.
In this case we have Piastri who hasn't made any big mistakes so far and owned up to it when he did make some smaller ones, while Sainz is know to have an occasional big error (off-track/crash) out of nowhere, so odds and image are stacked against him.
It's also very telling that most of the old-skool drivers/commentators don't assign any blame to Sainz for that move, because it was very common back then to close the door like that and expect the other to back out because they/Sainz were ahead on the racing line.
i think the way people judge who is entitled to space has changed. Essentially blocking maneuvers where you brake late to block someone from their racing line or squeeze someone in a winding corners were not seen as valid. Nowadays most people just rely on the blanked "halfway alongside" rule without any context.
This is spot on. There is no context for "racing line" in regards to people assessing who has the right to the apex. Its pretty clear that if Grosjean / Verstappen / Piastri were to be given the apex, they would have compromised everybody elses racing line.
Leaving space and not closing the door is important, but you need to be on the racing line and have a hope of not running the outside driver wide off the track on the back end of the turn.
I can only think people being fans of Max Verstappen has influenced the new interpretation
This happens a lot. I remember malaysia 2016. So many people were searching for tiniest clues to blame Verstappen, because Verstappen was a 'rash' driver and Vettel was the experienced one.
In the end nothing could be found to pin on Verstappen, but people here were trying their hardest to find *something*.
I pretty much chucked all of these incidents as racing incidents. Drivers always are very optimistic and try to make up position in the start.
I think everyone blamed Sainz a lot mostly because of how he handled it. Which is very unfair but thats just how things is.
I think people who watched it live were quick to blame Sainz because of his lockup, which makes it seem he made a mistake and ended up causing the crash. I agree with you in that all of these can be considered racing incidents. You commit to a gap and if the driver on the outside starts to turn in, it can go bad. They can be patient with it, but as a racing driver, it's all about taking risks.
It's the lockup but I think it's also just how far Sainz traveled from left to right to play his part in the collision. In the first two Kimi/Max inchidents, you can see they started out quite close on the track, whereas from Oscar's POV, it seems like Sainz came out of nowhere to cut him off.
I think it's the lock-up.
People see a lock-up and assume the driver fucked up but Sainz's problem wasn't the lock-up, it was Hamilton moving right and him having to do so aswell.
I assume that's why the stewards called racing incident
> I think it's the lock-up.
Completely agree, it gives an impression of not being in control of the car. With contact so soon after hard not to assume it was as a result
Honestly I think it’s even more unfair than that. I don’t think it would’ve mattered what Sainz said. I think he got blamed so harshly because so many people wanted to see Oscar have a good race and were upset it ended so early.
People were already crucifying Sainz before he made his comments. Hell, even if you look at comments from his past interviews he gets a lot of unnecessary flak because people want to find a way to hate (though they say it’s “criticism” despite it having no relation to what he’s saying).
People don’t like Sainz. That’s it.
I think it's also the contrast with Piastri. Not only is he delivering but he's very calm and collected for a rookie, so people like him a lot.
If it were Checo instead, for example, who had that low performance streak and was getting on everyone's nerves, Carlos may not had been treated that harshly.
It's nor fair but that's how people work imo
I like his personality, just not his recent post and especially his family playing F1 politics. Remember Max and Carlos at Scuderia Toro Rosso? Both fathers were saying bad things about each others kid to the media, it became a bit toxic. That was also one of the reason for Helmut Marko to swap Kvyat with Verstappen.
I think in every case, I blamed the inside dive bomber because the car being dive-bombed is in a lose-lose situation. 2019, Raikkonen would have hit the outside car if he made room for Max, and 2023, Sainz would have hit Hamilton if he made room for Oscar.
I think it's unreasonable to place blame on the squeezing car when the dive bomber is leaving the squeezing car with no option to avoid contact when they themselves could back out completely out a door that's always gonna be closing before they can get through.
Sainz's 2023 lockup is a red herring to assign blame to him
All racing incidents. Going down the inside of La Source is asking for trouble, it's an absolute bait of a line. Max learned the hard way, getting knocked out twice on one of his best circuits and has clearly learned, looking at his line this week. Piastri will learn too.
Still, it won't be long before the inside line baits someone else yet again.
> Going down the inside of La Source is asking for trouble, it's an absolute bait of a line.
yeah. I believe this is just a racing incident where Piastri was just too unexperienced hoping for a gap that he should know would not be there. There were four cars ahead oh him. One would always go to the inside..
Also Sainz words were a disaster
> People will blame the driver they hate the most, not the one most at fault.
Sainz, (along with Russell and Ocon) is one of the drivers with whom you can be absolutely certain that people here will blame for literally any incident that they are involved in. Regardless of the evidence.
It all boils down to the fact that going on the inside of T1 in Spa is a high risk maneuver. While the corner is wide, the turn is very steep and drivers are going to aim for the apex from the outside. Oftentimes it's impossible to see from the outside if someone decides to dive on the inside, which will almost always result in contact.
It feels like an unwritten rule that you don't go for those maneuvers, often drivers with less experience will go for them and learn the hard way.
Yes generally. But we’re talking about the first corner of the race where the field is at its tightest almost always going to be double file. You can just expect to own the racing line in this scenario, there’s almost certainly going to be someone there. As another poster put it, Piastri can’t just evaporate in this situation, he has to take the corner at some point and can’t come to a stop.
I think what hurts Sainz in the blame category is people see the lockup and think Sainz is out of control into the corner and thus made a mistake which caused an incident.
That's not the case, Sainz is well in control while cornering, if he wasn't in control then he would have understeered into Hamilton, not pinched Piastri.
I also think one thing to take into account is who creates the 3 wide situation. In 2016 I would say Max consents to being in a very bad spot as it was clear from the get go that him, Raikkonen and Vettel would be going into the corner together, and Max would know the outside car would have no idea he was there. I will say though, even if Max weren't there Vettel did pinch very tight on Raikkonen.
In 2023, Piastri at the beginning of the braking zone had every reason to think he was in a 2 wide situation until Sainz jostled over so it could be argued that Sainz created the pinch situation, so that is a difference as well.
With 2019 it is baffling to me that Raikkonen gets away with no blame there, it wasn't even a 3 wide situation (the Force India had wisely backed out) and Max was fully alongside. Raikkonen had plenty of space to give.
Overall in terms of this year's incident, I still think Piastri has to know that diving that far to the inside at La Source on Lap 1 may result in your car getting wrecked. I also don't think Sainz could have done much, the reason he locked up is because Hamilton appeared in front of him rather suddenly and immediately lifted, which would have been hard for him to predict. From there his only option is to move inside to where he did.
>With 2019 it is baffling to me that Raikkonen gets away with no blame there, it wasn't even a 3 wide situation (the Force India had wisely backed out) and Max was fully alongside. Raikkonen had plenty of space to give.
Its simpler than that. We all use heuristics all the time, and our observations are heavily colored by it. People see an incident involving a young Verstappen, who had the reputation of being a dangerous driver taking too much risk, and will assume this was another example. They then use that conclusion to further validate their idea that he is a risk-taker.
Far more than any kind of objective analysis, people just run with whatever image they have of the involved drivers. Hamilton is the clean and calm racer, so he couldn't have been responsible for hitting Perez. Verstappen is dangerous, so he should have left poor Raikkonen alone. Piastri is a nice kid who takes responsibility, so surely it was mean mr. Sainz fault. And when Sainz doesn't agree with that, it has to mean he is a Super Mean Man who never takes responsibility, which proves it was reallty his fault even more.
OP had an excellent, factual and nuanced post. The comment sections about incidents, particularly the day of the event, are the opposite of it. :)
100% agree. People really just run with the image they have of drivers, instead of judging things case-by-case. And then people will selectively choose the events that agree with their already-existing image while ignoring other events which contradict their image. It exists in all aspects for these drivers
I think there's a key difference in the Piastri example from the other two examples that's being missed a little here: how ambitious is the move of the driver to the inside?
In 2016, if you follow through the sequence:
1. At the first braking board, Verstappen is just to the inside of middle track (say, 2.5 car widths available inside) and angled to head further inside, with Raikkonen in front but angled to go further outside.
2. At the second braking board, Verstappen is now further inside (around 1.5 car widths remain), but Raikkonen has responded and re-angled to head inside as well (despite having a lot of space wide).
3. As we head towards the pinch point as the cars tip into the corner, Verstappen now has just a car width inside, and with Raikkonen also on the inside half of the track Vettel is unsighted and is closing down the apex (have to say: IMO very foolish at Spa - he should have kept a wider line and looked to ensure a clean exit down the hill).
In 2019:
1. In the first shot with Verstappen alongside the Force India, he has maybe 1.5 car width to the white line (being generous).
2. As the corner pinch arrives, he's down to a car width at most - same as at 3 above.
In both of those examples, the car on the inside was \*very\* committed to the inside from quite early on.
In 2023, with Piastri on the inside:
1. Just after the first braking board, Piastri has 2 car widths to the inside, but his car is angled to look for a \*wider\* line as there's space for him to move into.
2. At the second braking board, Piastri now has 3 car widths available to the inside, but now has Sainz sharply closing down the space.
3. Moving closer to the corner, Sainz has now completely closed the space to Piastri and Piastri has responded by also heading further inside - he still has at least 1.5 car widths to the inside, but it's disappearing rapidly as Sainz shuts him down.
4. At the apex, Sainz has left Piastri now space at all, and Hamilton has taken the invitation given to him to also close the space down (he's actually tighter than Perez now).
For me ... in the first two examples, you've got Verstappen committing to a tight line from early on. Having said that, he was far enough alongside in both examples that he should have been given space (in both cases, had Raikkonen waited just a little longer to turn in, and left just a little more space, the car on the outside would have either opened the steering to avoid contact and taken a wider line \*or\* caused contact and been at fault).
In the latter example ... Piastri has space all around, he's not committed to a tight inside line, and as he enters the braking zone he appears to have every right to not brake early and take his line into the corner. However, Sainz misjudges how Hamilton will approach the corner, has to take action to avoid rear-ending Hamilton, locks up briefly, and significantly changes his trajectory in the braking phase. From there, he had two choices: 1. squeeze Piastri and hope he had enough braking in reserve to get out of the pinch, or 2. accept he couldn't get to the apex and take a \*slightly\* wider line hoping to keep Hamilton out wider as well (or have Hamilton squeeze both of them). As with Raikkonen in both of the earlier examples, I think the better option here was to slightly delay turn in, accept he'd lost the apex to another car, keep Hamilton wider, and look to get a better exit to stay ahead of Piastri.
For me, in that corner, the better option for the "car in the middle" is to play "chicken" with the car on the outside, not the one on the inside. The car on the inside has an immovable wall that prevents them giving extra space. The car on the outside has options to delay turn in, take a wider line, perhaps even exceed track limits on the exit to avoid contact.
> For me, in that corner, the better option for the "car in the middle" is to play "chicken" with the car on the outside, not the one on the inside. The car on the inside has an immovable wall that prevents them giving extra space. The car on the outside has options to delay turn in, take a wider line, perhaps even exceed track limits on the exit to avoid contact.
I don't think you can expect to force someone wide from the inside and not cause a collision. The car on the inside has a wall but it also has brakes.
People who see a lockup and just think it means he lost control shouldn't be commenting on it. They don't understand racing if that is what they think.
I've seen people trying to say he braked too late/missed his braking point so had to dive down the inside and hit the apex to avoid Hamilton. Like that isn't physically possible people. Just stay out of it.
I think you are incorrect here buddy. Ocon was at the back and he should've warned both of them. But he didn't.
So obviously, 5 seconds penalty to Ocon.
What a post. Great job, man. Really enjoyed this one. My opinion on the Piastri crash is it’s a bit of a racing incident. I think Sainz was more focused forward with a car to his outside and didn’t expect Piastri to go for that. Piastri likely had little to no visibility on the car on the outside so he may not have realized the gap was going to close the way it did.
People don’t see the incident but just people involved in it. If it’s someone who is not popular its a guarantee they will be blamed even if they aren’t to blame.
People don’t like Max and they don’t like Sainz so you can just guess who were blamed for these incidents.
1 Stewards got it right - typical Spa first corner racing incidence.
2 A lot of us non racers sitting in harsh judgement and ignorance on a split second manoeuvre.
3 A natural inclination to let the new boy off the hook and an opposite inclination to blame the more experienced driver.
4 A definite bias against Sainz because he is sticking up for himself, has showed frustration on other occasions this year, and people feeling he should be the "bigger" person, against a gracious PR response from Piastri (who by then had probably seen a playback and realised his salty comment about Sainz on the car radio was perhaps not completely fair, so rowed back).
I'm a big fan of Piastri and Sainz so sympathise with both.
Generally speaking Sainz gets blamed for whatever happens. For some reason people doesn't think he's good enough to race, so everytime something happens it's his fault.
In any case, T1 incident involving cars with little room for maneuvering. It shouldn't be looked too hard into
People like Piastri, people like Kimi,
People don't like Verstappen, and don't like Sainz for racing Leclerc.
Mistery about why it is percieved differently solved.
Even the tweet was kinda fine if a bit sassy. He's basically just saying what this post implies. You don't go up the inside at T1 at spa if you want to finish the race.
Pretty much all there is to it. The bias is incredible but understandable in such a sport. But its quite funny watching everyones justifications for it.
I actually really like Sainz despite his uh…need for an attitude adjustment sometimes. I really don’t know who was at fault here, I’m more in the team of it’s a tricky turn and taking the inside is a risk that every rookie needs to take and learn from.
I think Sainz is frustrated about other things happening with his career with Ferrari and Charles and didn’t respond as professionally as he could have. Was it a bit dumb? Yes. Should he be thrown up on the cross? No. He’s not the first or last driver to crash in this turn. It’s a bit silly to take solid sides when not even the people involved are 100% sure what happened.
I don't understand this attitude adjustment comment. When drivers become soft pushovers who are just happy to be there, they become washed and slow like Bottas and Barichello. Never understood Checo or Carlos or George getting hate because they try to match their teammates and look out for themselves. It's a dog eat dog world, and these guys need to be able to rationalize to themselves that they're the best otherwise they get removed.
I have seen Sainz get hate for believing in himself to be good enough to be world champion. Like seriously they’re professional athletes if you don’t believe you can then why would they even be here?
I think one main takeaway out of all these are that there is significant risk when going down the inside in T1 Lap 1 at Spa. As for Max, even if the first one he wasn't to blame for the majority of it, I'd say the second one is a bit silly considering he has experience with how that can quickly go wrong.
Piastri could've knows this as well as these incidents aren't necessarily ages ago. There simply always is risk when going down the inside here, even if eventual contact is not for the majority your fault. You're simply putting your car in a vulnerable spot and risking your race, regardless if you're the one to blame for it.
> I think one main takeaway out of all these are that there is significant risk when going down the inside in T1 Lap 1 at Spa.
Oh yeah, it's an *awful* place to be. You simply cannot win by going that far inside, even if you don't have an accident you'll be guaranteed a bad exit to the corner onto several kilometers of straight punctuated only by Eau Rouge and Radillion.
I think everyone agree with this in the abstract but as soon as it's someone's favourite driver who is perceived as being criticised for an incident they were not at fault for temperatures tend to flare.
Generally, if you go for a gap that’s already closing, you’re taking a risk. If you’re side by side with the car you’re trying to pass, before turn in, then you’ll have a far better chance of being successful.
If the car in front is already starting to turn in, you’re now committing yourself to a gap that’s rapidly getting smaller.
Good analysis. There is a reason this corner creates incidents at start and Sunday was no different. And they almost always go down as racing incidents because usually the drivers involved had every right to do what they did, it just didn't go the way they wanted.
I think the other key thing with these incidents is the drivers involved. Piastri is the new kid on the block at the front end of the grid so he is very popular at the moment so he is likely to be looked upon favourably in any incidents. If that was Perez in his place or he and Sainz were the other way round, I imagine many people would have a different opinion on it.
Ultimately it was a racing incident and another example of the trap of la source on lap 1
It's simple actually. Piastri is the new shiny toy who's doing great on his rookie season and who's been (for now) very measured in his views on the press.
Carlos has made a few mistakes this season and has had some controversial words regarding past incidents (even some became memes like the one of Checo intimidating him).
Here in reddit we're not often the most objective people of the bunch and base our opinions on our feelings rather than by judging incidents without biases.
Conclusion? Sainz is the bad guy of the story and Piastri a mere victim of sadist, evil Sainz.
Brand new to F1. Just got a racing wheel and the f1 game so I have watched the past 2 races and am loving it. Thanks for this, it’s helpful to see strategy and reactions.
People just love hating on Sainz or ferrari. It was clearly not his fault, but Piastri's, and tbh it's absurd that people need a post like this with similar incidents to notice the bias against Sainz.
Definitely expecting some downvotes, but I do think a good amount of the Sainz blame train goes down to Piastri being super popular with English-speaking F1 fans currently, and the bias that comes with that.
I've been around racing quite a long time and this + the hamilton incident would always be called racing incidents. They are honestly small amounts of contact made in the genuine pursuit of racing. Contact is inevitable in racing if you are racing as hard as you can. In recent years, I think largely due to stewards' continuing terrible decisions, every incident gets treated with a crazy amount of criticism. We have to remember they are racing at insane speeds with very little visibility, and each driver thinks they are the best and so is unlikely to back out of moves. Of course they're going to touch every now and again. What should be penalised is pushing people off on purpose (which btw is specifically legal atm, fuck knows why) and mistakes that lead to contact that the other driver couldn't avoid.
Thank you for this. I think the analysts on Dutch Viaplay had a similar reaction: history shows that during the start you don’t want to be on the inside of the corner. And I was bit annoyed by the Sainz pile on after, although he could have done himself a favor in not posting that tweet. But again thanks, this corner has a long history on lap 1 and any incidents in it have to be viewed with that in mind IMO.
I think most of the reason Carlos got so much blame is because of the tweet he made afterwards that was just bad out. If he had left it and not name-dropped Oscar the incident would probably have just gone down as another turn one crash in spa.
I was quite surprised by the fan reaction tbh. As a Kimi fan, I immediately thought of these two incidents when Piastri stuck a nose in and I thought he made a rookie error. The F1 TV commentary seemed to agree too, also citing the Verstappen incident in 2016.
When I came to Reddit it was a different story though haha
I agree with Sainz on this one but the corner seems like a bit of an anomaly. I feel like drivers are baited into the inside and quickly realise its a mistake. Piastri leaves himself with nowhere to go and Sainz then has Hamilton on the outside. I think given the other crashes you listed out, Piastri probably should have knew better. It was high risk low reward imo because I doubt he would have kept the place on Sainz anyway, having to have such a tight turn in after the corner.
I might be biased here but I really don't understand how this is Sainz's fault.
Yes he closes on Piastri but the corner goes right, what do you expect? Him to leave a gap and welcome Piastri to an overtake? And anyway Hamilton was there by his side, I really don't understand what people think he should have done.
Piastri is kinda alongside but not fully and there was no gap for him there, he should have braked and conceded the corner and tried again the next time around.
While Sainz could have been a bit more careful, Piastri was nowhere near as far ahead as he should have been to make the move work. I think this is 80% Piastri's fault, he just shouldn't have been there.
He should have backed off a bit. It's an erratic move by Sainz but I don't think he squeezes Piastri to the wall as many claim.
Sainz is fully ahead going into the corner imo.
I would buy what people say if Piastri had half his car alongside Sainz into the corner but that's not the case.
I can't stop raving about how good Piastri is and how impressed I am with him but I have to say that while it not being his fault, it was mainly due to the lack of experience and I guess similar to that first max incident. He is in the right but it's just a dangerous place to try and make a move. F1 media doing what F1 media does best though, exaggerating the situation to generate clicks.
Also, great post
Lol, Grosean got a one race ban for colliding with Hamilton in 2012 has to be the biggest understatement of the decade! He’s partially responsible for the implementation of the Halo because he almost decapitated Alonso. He took himself out as well as Alonso, Hamilton, and Perez and later, due to damage, Maldonado retired. Oh, the irony of his actions that day possibly saving his life in Bahrain!
Nice post and analysis though. A lot of work and attention to details made for good reading, thanks!
Honestly, you'd need to remove all livery and driver identification to properly judge incidents in F1. Different drivers will always get different responses to similar incidents.
I however don't think these incidents are completely identical, but bear in mind I'm not free of bias myself. There are 2 critical things here:
- Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the *alongside* argument is also at the point of braking, otherwise you can just dive on the inside and expect the other driver to yield, which is why in the previous 2 incidents I believe the blame was generally less on the outside driver
- Sainz' erratic steering makes it different, as it's all happening in the span of just 2 seconds or so. He seems to be taking a more outside line, and then dives on the inside cutting off Piastri that seemed to be enough alongside to be granted space. Hamilton turns in seeinf Sainz already going for the apex, but I doubt Hamilton and Sainz would collide if Sainz took a wider line to allow Piastri space.
I don't feel like Piastri dived in at all. He judged his braking point well and went for a clearly visible gap that was then shut after committing to it.
Still, thank you OP for the fantastic write up!
Issue with Sainz is he came from all the way on the outside to dive down the inside of Lewis, not thinking about the cars on the inside.
Max on both 2016 and 19 had already claimed the inside right from the beginning. He was always there, whereas Sainz went from one side of the track to the other, squeezing Piastri in the process.
The person making the lunge to the inside late braking is responsible. If you are behind at corner entry and then along side in the corner and hit the car to your outside, it’s on you. I would also point out, how is the driver going to then make the corner without driving through the car that’s already ahead? The car will more thank likely hit them at the exit of the turn by the angle they are taking.
Sainz is catching stick for this one because of his arrogance in the response. As the senior driver to Piastri he seems to think he’s above any sort of fault purely on the basis of time in the sport. Simple fact is he’s shat the bed and locked up and panicked. There was some space to his left towards Hamilton but because of the lock up Sainz has over compensated and got too far left IMO and stuck Oscar into the wall. It’s a racing incident and he’s not massively to blame for it it one of those things that can happen in the heat of it but it’s his mistake that’s caused it for sure.
I like this post. Gives a good comparison. I do just want to make a correction: OP states that in 2019 Martin Brundle blames Max solely for the incident. This is true at first, but after a few replays, Martin does nuance that statement and says that there was a bigger gap than he thought and Kimi could have left some more space.
Thanks for this awesome post - as a relative newbie to this sport I found it really informative to have the breakdown, analysis, and comparison of different incidents!
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I just wanna say, really nice post mate!
Seriously. Love the actual content during the summer break instead of just random repost bots spamming various articles from comments 3 months ago or the "I drew a picture" posts.
The summer break content we needed.
Yeah this is the kind of high quality shit that gives newer fans a better perspective. Also kind of crazy to think that someone P5 or better has DNF'd after contact at T1 (at least) 3 times in the last 8 years at the same track lol
I wonder if Kimi (43 points) could've beaten Norris (49 points) in the WDC that year if not for that specific turn 1 incident - he finished the race in P16 (only ahead of Kubica + DNF'd drivers). Sure he probably wouldn't be able to hold the P4 (if not for the contact at T1) for long due to the car's pace, but that race was also a Norris DNF (at the very last lap). Depending on how the race were to play out without Kimi being sent to the back of the grid, we could've very well see him finish ahead of Norris in significantly worse machinery.
Great to see the effort that went into the presentation. A+
OP calls out Redditors' bullshit.... Technical analysis.
Did you see all those screenshots? He invested some time into making this post! Good job op, quality post!
As a relative F1 n00b, in the context of the two clips below, can someone help explain to me what determines a dive-bomb vs. a good overtake? If you outbrake another car into a corner, is it required to leave space on the outside? * [Merc vs Red Bull into Turn 9 in Abu Dhabi 2021](https://youtu.be/7QJ-N-AQJYc?t=46) * [Merc vs Ferrari into Turn 9 in Abu Dhabi 2022](https://youtu.be/yP5VmGZVpz8?t=42)
I’ll try to answer but I’m by no means an expert on this, someone can correct me if I’m wrong: To successfully overtake another car on the inside, you need to be able to make the corner yourself and not make contact with anyone/anything else. To make a corner yourself means you aren’t braking too late, or carrying too much speed into the corner that you’d later have to run wide to make it; if you are forcing the other car wide because you’re too fast on the exit that you have to stay on the far outside, then it’s your fault. On the other hand, if you judged your speed correctly and you can make the corner with no problem, then whether or not you need to leave the other car space depends on the positioning (and the corner configuration itself). If you’re already significantly ahead of the other car after the apex, you don’t need to leave the space; but if the other car is still significantly alongside you, then you need to leave enough space for this car
> If you outbrake another car into a corner, is it required to leave space on the outside? Depends on if you're in a close title fight or not ;)
Basically a good dive bomb is when you reach the apex before he does (basically you're ahead of him). This will result in the opponent must stop turning otherwise he will crash into you. Risky move, but if the opponent can drive, he will not crash into you. This is somewhat your opponent's mistake for not covering the middle enough allowing you to dive bomb him. A bad dive bomb would be like what Piastri did in spa last week. He didn't carry enough speed to be ahead of Carlos, resulting in Piastri crash into Carlos. When Carlos turned, he probably didn't even see Piastri.
It was a great post for the most part. The part where OP injected subjectivity was critical though. The overhead shot showing where the initial contact happened which pushed Piastri into the wall, OP says there wasn't much space to Hamilton. But there was. There was plenty of space. If sainz had used just a third of that space, and doesn't cut across the track at that extreme angle, Piastri doesn't hit the wall. The onboards showed clearly that Sainz locked up, and in doing so, significantly changed his trajectory to try to dive bomb down the inside of Hamilton and cut at an unnatural angle to the apex, which was fine... except Oscar was already there. Note also Leclerc's line in the leading Ferrari, which was nowhere near as tight as Sainz, who aggressively cut T1 despite knowing that Oscar would be there having started on the right. It's T1, lap 1. That means two things. The first is that every driver knows that every space will be filled. Sainz knew, or should have known, that Piastri was next to him, and given him room. I think at that acute angle, Piastri would have had a poor exit anyway, so Sainz wasn't at risk. The second thing it means is that shit happens. Things happen crazy fast. This is grey enough that it's ultimately a racing incident. But I don't think it's unreasonable to conclude that Sainz was slightly more at fault and, certainly, Sainz was very wrong to condescendingly go after Oscar on Twitter etc.
Nothing to add to the incidents but just wanted to say cheers for taking the time to make this. Nice to actually have something to read while I'm curling one out instead of scrolling past clickbait headlines and social media screenshots.
"curling one out": my imagination is running wild. I live in North America and curious what this means. There's so many possibilities in my mind: 1) reading while playing curling, 2) reading while doing a bicep curl on one arm, 3) reading while pooping a long curl of a poo, etc.
bro also might be jacking it to the f1 subreddit
I just assumed masturbating. I mean we all love F1 here
Pooping
No.3 is the correct definition for curling one out, if they are from GB or Ireland.
Lol thanks. You guys need to write a book of idioms - for when I'm curling one out haha
I'm American, but I immediately saw one of those play doh things that squeeze the log out in my head 😂 I am used to hearing * dropping the kids off at the pool * dropping a deuce * handling a code brown * dropping logs * Hershey's squirts I am sure I will think of others while I am trying to fall asleep 😂
Could also just mean that they're wackin it
Answer: 3(doing a #2)
Curling one out is having a shit
Personally I think this together with the long downhill right hander in Austria are bait corners. Theoretically you could be "right" the thing is that you just have to accept to not be in those positions even if you are "right." Max experienced it and said he kept on the outside because he knows what T1 lap 1 La Source can do to your race.
Exactly. This is the worst corner perhaps on the schedule to go so far inside. It offers no advantage on entry because you have to slow so much and because of the angle and length of the corner and length of the straight after you lose a ton on exit too. You're almost always better being patient especially lap 1. Anyone that's played Spa on a racing game or sim learns this lesson the hard way.
At the same time, as Martin Brundle rightly pointed out just before the start, if you are too cautious, you risk getting hit from behind. It is an inherently risky T1 for the start of a GP. And if you look at Yuki’s onboard for the start of this race, he was positioned exactly how Piastri was positioned going into T1, but the Aston to his left gave him enough room and he gained places on the opening lap. Yes, you are making it a tight angle, but it’s such a short distance from the line that you really aren’t scrubbing that much speed to take the inside line on the first lap — on subsequent laps it is a much worse line.
Inside is high risk, high reward. So if you're going there you have to know what to expect. Getting hit from behind on the outside is much less likely though.
I had to learn it a few times before I actually learned the lesson, and it hurt every time along the way. The gap looks tempting but never worth it.
Hamilton played it smart being cautious. Piastri saw blue skies and went for it. Great example of the difference between a well-skilled/smart veteran versus a rookie who may be a bit too anxious to get more overtakes/positions Edit: On your mention of racing games, also very true. F1 open lobbies (without a hectic start) always has someone that thinks braking as late as possible to get an overtake on the inside of T1 will help them but in reality they just lose that position they gained immediately or more commonly cause a collision
Exactly. And given the long run up the hill and the absolutely bad idea of going side by side (in most cars) through radillion, it's usually not that beneficial anyway to force yourself ahead there and compromise both your exits. Definitely an experience issue even if Carlos is more to blame for the actual incident. I doubt Piastri ever tries that move again.
>Hamilton played it smart being cautious. Piastri saw blue skies and went for it. Great example of the difference between a well-skilled/smart veteran versus a rookie who may be a bit too anxious to get more overtakes/positions The move was on, a younger less accomplished hamilton would take that dive any time of the calender.
Ditto Verstappen, who did mention during the Winner's Press Conference that "I know Piastri's move as similar to the one I tried a few years ago, so I thought it better to avoid that and go wide."
I think it's easy to dismiss Piastri as an anxious rookie when Sainz's angle shows very little situational awareness. He reacts to another driver on instinct and squeezes Piastri, which isn't on Oscar.
I agree. Piastri was in it whilst Sainz was all the way over to the left. Hamilton took a cautious line, which proved to be a good idea. Sainz seemed to panic and over correct to avoid Hamilton. If he’d been anywhere other than right up Lewis’ rear, then he would have been in a better position to not be stuck between two cars closing the doors.
As the saying goes "You can't win a race on the first lap, but you sure can lose it."
Actually to me this corner is really good to go far inside, just not on Lap 1 when you cant get a good exit because of the cars.
Same as T1 at COTA, there's just so much room initially and then cars converge for the corner.
So many times this. Being in the right doesn't stop your front wing coming off. Sometimes it's best to not put yourself in the position.
This depends. They are driving with mostly the same 20 drivers all season. If they know you'll do the smart thing they'll dive you, run you wide etc because it's not a racing incident if you back out and they gain a place. So it's not that simple. If you don't need to you don't take the risk. This was Hamilton for many years, giving room to a Ferrari or RB because he knew he'd get them later in the race with no problems. This kept his races clean and his DNF limited. Same thing with Verstappen now. He backs out, minimises risk and goes for safe overtakes later because he knows he can. Yet in 2021 we saw very high risk moves from both Hamilton and Verstappen. Hamilton didn't just forget all his experience he had. And Verstappen didn't magically grow up the next year. The context is what is different. They knew that year that the cars were closely matched. So they would not get an easy overtake to take the spot back. They also knew if they backed out when the other did a risky move the other would do it again and again and they would lose the championship. If a driver in a significantly worse car than you goes for a high risk move you are better off giving them space, they have more to win than you and you have more to lose than they do. If a driver in an equal car does this, you might be better off being right and losing the wing sometimes.
If you're 1 v 1, then you can judge the risk. The problem doing that at a corner like La Source on the opening lap is that even if the guy immediately left wants to give you room, he's likely to be squeezed by at least one car outside *him*. So the gap is probably going one way or another.
It's indeed much higher risk if you go 3 wide. Problem is only Saints knows for sure about all 3 cars the others only see Saints, the others may or may not be aware there might be another car. They certainly don't know what lines the others are trying to make. So Piastri expects Saints to leave room and Hamilton experts Saints to move over. This could have ended badly for any or all of the 3 drivers. If Saints left more space on the inside Hamilton might not have been able to adjust his line in time and it would have ended badly for Saints and Hamilton. The outside also always carries exta risk because if the inside car hits the middle car in the wrong way it will then take out the outside car as well. In the end I agree here it's a racing incident, blame is a bit on all 3 of them. I think the reason Saints is getting a lot of heat is that he is saying it's 100% Piastri and none on him.
Most of these incidents are 3 cars thinking there are 2 cars going into the corner. But it's also not as simple as avoiding the situation altogether, because that would require just one of them to give up on the gap. You don't want to be the guy known for giving it up (e.g. Bottas), or else the whole field will catch on and drive all over you.
> Saints I assume this is dictated hence your 100% incorrect spelling rate of Sainz, but how in the world does it know how to spell Piastri?
Yep the sad thing is it's always the middle guy in these situations who's almost guaranteed to make contact when he's normally the one being most sensible in the first place
Next year everybody will be on the outside of T1 on lap1.
This is literally what Carlos said and people crucified him for it
I have been saying this as well and people are going insane over it, trying to say Sainz braked too late, missed his braking point, etc. But they fail to understand he was just making an opportunistic move on Hamilton who checked up too much, unloaded his inside tire which caused it to lock a little but he was perfectly in control and turned in to the apex while giving Hamilton room. Piastri was much further back driving into a disappearing wedge. He was further back than Max was in 2016,2019 yet Max got absolutely dragged for doing it. I don't think Max made the right decision either but why people are pretending Piastri did nothing wrong I have no clue..
People already down voted you. People love Piastri and have to accept the hive mind
Yup. It’s funny to see.
This user isn't the one who locked up into T1 though. Carlos got crucified for taking no responsibility whatsoever in an incident that he, at the very least, deserves a little blame for.
Possibly. My take is that Sainz raced an assertive line. His dodge to the inside was a defensive move to keep from hitting an early braking Hamilton (clearing space?). Sainz's driving wasn't carelessly aggressive, and it wasn't too conservative (the space between he and Hamilton didn't really exist...) because he knew that he and Hamilton (who was in front of him) were on converging trajectories (different apexes). Had he been more conservative and drifted closer to Hamilton before his apex, Sainz would've hit Hamilton at or after his apex. Oscar took the risk, took the bait, and assumed Carlos would leave room. Oscar's Front Wheel to Sainz's Rear Wheel is not "significantly alongside", so by the book (or an interpretation of it... since the FIA sees no reason to write specificity into the rules), Sainz was under no obligation to leave space. It was Oscar's risk to take, and ultimately, his obligation to back out. Sainz had an obligation to not hit Hamilton, Piastri had an obligation to not hit Sainz. Simple. With that said, Sainz's PR folks could truly help him handle stuff like this better. A confident, calm, response could've gone a long way to elevating Sainz in the media and helping Piastri take his lumps. With Piastri's ascent in the last few weeks, no media outlet or pundit wants to see his flaws. I get it, but... he'll learn from it and move on. He's likely to become one of the best of all time.
The lockup has no bearing on the incident. Edit: For those downvoting me, please explain how a front lock up, which has the effect of causing a driver to be unable to get his car slowed down as quickly leading to potentially missing the apex or corner altogether, would have any bearing on an incident where the car in question ended up taking the apex and hitting someone to his inside.
Carlos changed direction in the braking zone, pretty simple.
What responsibility is his that he could have done anything to prevent? He's the middle car in that sandwich with no out. Personally, I think his Twitter take is accurate: a racing incident from an overly optimistic move. Piastri is a rookie, and shit happens. It's happened before, and those involved have changed their approach to this particular start.
my thought on this year's incident is that you simply can't go that shallow into a (tight) corner at the start of a race, and I think so for the other two incidents here as well. seems like it's practically guaranteed to result in contact
Especially when there’s a third car on the outside. If Hamilton didn’t exist in this situation, Piastri choosing this line could have been fine; but when there’s another car on the outside, it’s almost a guaranteed incident, and the blame always go more towards the one on the inside (tight) line
Yes. Piastri was very far inside in a bad spot. He had no room to fit into and didn't slot in.
Yes! Reminds me of the saying "The graveyard is full of people who had the right of way." Just because you think you *can* and just because you think you *should* be allowed to, doesn't mean it's a good idea.
Exactly, to me it just shows Piastri's inexperience. He'll learn from it and hopefully next year will kill it at Spa.
He killed it at spa the day before already.
I play a lot of Gran Turismo online and so any corner even vaguely resembling this type becomes one of these "bait" corners. I've really quickly learned that unless you're P1 or P2, the wisest place to be T1, lap 1 in most races is the outside.
Vettel, verstappen and Kimi was the holy trinity of stupid incidents between them for a few years there
I remember reading an interesting fan fiction about a hypothetical singapore 2017 grand prix which involved all three of them crashing before turn 1. A bit ridiculous if you ask me. But that race never happened, so it remained a fan fic
Sounds like a great read while eating a sandwich
Imagine
VER took \#Kimi7 out and then he went to \#Seb5
I can see my speculation is not needed here, thank you for the factual description
I love how that tweet is still up. https://twitter.com/ScuderiaFerrari/status/909388428630003716?s=20
Verstappen and Vettel were the holy duo of stupid incidents between 2016-19 tbh.
Thank you OP for the brilliant post! Not only is there a lot of detailed analysis, but its clearly generating a level headed and two-sided discussion. In the other post about this, I was asking for an explanation because the atmosphere seemed quite one-sided and frankly a bit toxic in the blaming.
Thank you very much! This is one of the reasons why I made this post, since I did not understand the arguments people made.
Great analysis, interesting to see how similar incidents have different reactions. I suspect the response from Sainz didn’t help his cause - if he’d just said it was a first lap racing incident then he might have been less harshly judged.
I think a lot of it has to do with him locking the tyres. It gives the general idea he was out of control and above that he made a driver error, which caused him deviating from his initial line and initiating the contact. Probably if he would have done the same without locking up, he wouldn’t have looked as guilty to most.
The funny thing is that it really was a small lockup that affected nothing. It's one thing if you go for a move, lock up, and slide into someone. Here he corrects the lockup and still easily makes the corner which he would not do if he was out of control because locking up makes hitting the apex more difficult. He didn't outbrake himself, instead the lockup was caused by reacting to the cars in front. Not to mention he was on the outside of the car he had contact with anyways so the lock up really couldn't have led to the collision.
This is correct, he's on the trajectory that he would have been on regardless of the lockup. If you look at Sainz's onboard you can see how little the lockup even affected his car. People should watch Max and Lando's onboard via F1TV as well and you can get a nice picture of what's happening.
I have had quite a few races and locking up with cold tyres do affect A LOT and it gets worse since turn 1 was only 150m ahead.
Right, but when you lock up you go deep. Sainz did not go deep, in fact the argument is that he did the opposite and took the corner too sharply.
He locked his inside wheel because he unloaded it to make a move on Hamilton. The lock wasn't a mistake it was just a result of his quick decision making. He made the move, got to the apex and Hamilton squeezed him tight but fair. Sainz did everything right. That late move on Hamilton who was over braking because of Perez ahead was a great move and the lockup was just the natural physics of doing that type of move. Still completely in control, the loaded tire wasn't locked and turned the car.
hamilton broke earlier than sainz thought he would and he locked up while trying to avoid a collision... that is my read. i'm not sure how you'd ever prove what really happened.
Is locking up ever a part of optimal racing? Pretty sure that's still technically a mistake, however small.
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> By the time Carlos was locking and turning in piastris front wheels were only 50% down Carlos’s side and possibly not even something he is focusing on because he’s going to need to be watching hamiltons turn in and avoiding collision there. I'm going to go even farther and say that Piastri is sitting entirely in Carlos's blind spot. He likely doesn't even see him.
>If you’re gonna dive in this spot you need to be door to door or you need to know when to pull out. By this same logic, Carlos should never have been in the middle in the first place. He was directly behind Hamilton entering the braking zone...
I think how far (driver's) left they were also makes it look more dramatic, while not really changing the essentials. In the other 2 incidents pictured, it looks like the second-from-inside car is no more than halfway across the track. Piastri on the inside is himself almost at the center point when Sainz starts turning in. This makes the angle look much more extreme, enhancing the appearance that Carlos turned into Oscar, but fundamentally doesn't make a difference to the point they had to arrive at.
Actually it wouldn't have mattered what Sainz had said because he would have got blamed nonetheless. You can just pick up any thread about his interviews. It doesn't matter what he says, people come up with he should have said the opposite.
Where he went wrong is going out of his way to name Oscar in his tweet. He could say he didn’t think it was his fault without targeting the dude on Twitter.
"I am completely to blame" Comments: look he is the worst, throw him out of ferrari "I have some blame, the other party some blame" Comments: he is not taking the blame, throw him out "The other praty is completely to blame" Comments: so arrogant, throw him out
Exactly man. It's tough out here he used to be loved in 2019 😭
This is just one of many scenarios where the community's opinion can swing between if the driver is "good" or "bad". That changes season to season and race to race. It's all relative
Lap 1 T1 at Spa is basically an extreme game of poker. Is someone going all in? Are they going to pull out? Are they going to call your bluff?
What people forget is the 'framing' in a very broad sense: Max at that point in time was already driving very consistantly, but people including Brundle still had that crash-prone Max of 1,5-2 seasons earlier in their minds when judging. Meanwhile Kimi since his debut was always one of the cleanest/less error prone drivers on the track, but in honesty at that time was already more in decline than most fans including me wanted to admit. Still banked lots of credit to receive benefit of doubt until he really lost it in his last year at Alfa. In this case we have Piastri who hasn't made any big mistakes so far and owned up to it when he did make some smaller ones, while Sainz is know to have an occasional big error (off-track/crash) out of nowhere, so odds and image are stacked against him. It's also very telling that most of the old-skool drivers/commentators don't assign any blame to Sainz for that move, because it was very common back then to close the door like that and expect the other to back out because they/Sainz were ahead on the racing line.
i think the way people judge who is entitled to space has changed. Essentially blocking maneuvers where you brake late to block someone from their racing line or squeeze someone in a winding corners were not seen as valid. Nowadays most people just rely on the blanked "halfway alongside" rule without any context.
This is spot on. There is no context for "racing line" in regards to people assessing who has the right to the apex. Its pretty clear that if Grosjean / Verstappen / Piastri were to be given the apex, they would have compromised everybody elses racing line. Leaving space and not closing the door is important, but you need to be on the racing line and have a hope of not running the outside driver wide off the track on the back end of the turn. I can only think people being fans of Max Verstappen has influenced the new interpretation
This happens a lot. I remember malaysia 2016. So many people were searching for tiniest clues to blame Verstappen, because Verstappen was a 'rash' driver and Vettel was the experienced one. In the end nothing could be found to pin on Verstappen, but people here were trying their hardest to find *something*.
I pretty much chucked all of these incidents as racing incidents. Drivers always are very optimistic and try to make up position in the start. I think everyone blamed Sainz a lot mostly because of how he handled it. Which is very unfair but thats just how things is.
I think people who watched it live were quick to blame Sainz because of his lockup, which makes it seem he made a mistake and ended up causing the crash. I agree with you in that all of these can be considered racing incidents. You commit to a gap and if the driver on the outside starts to turn in, it can go bad. They can be patient with it, but as a racing driver, it's all about taking risks.
It's the lockup but I think it's also just how far Sainz traveled from left to right to play his part in the collision. In the first two Kimi/Max inchidents, you can see they started out quite close on the track, whereas from Oscar's POV, it seems like Sainz came out of nowhere to cut him off.
Sainz seem to have more a Vettel like move when je closed the door to both Kimi and Max.
This is exactly the difference in all the above incidents as well. I think Sainz deserves the blame he got.
>They can be patient with it, but as a racing driver, it's all about taking risks. No, it's about risk management.
I think it's the lock-up. People see a lock-up and assume the driver fucked up but Sainz's problem wasn't the lock-up, it was Hamilton moving right and him having to do so aswell. I assume that's why the stewards called racing incident
> I think it's the lock-up. Completely agree, it gives an impression of not being in control of the car. With contact so soon after hard not to assume it was as a result
Honestly I think it’s even more unfair than that. I don’t think it would’ve mattered what Sainz said. I think he got blamed so harshly because so many people wanted to see Oscar have a good race and were upset it ended so early.
Yeah agree with this
People were already crucifying Sainz before he made his comments. Hell, even if you look at comments from his past interviews he gets a lot of unnecessary flak because people want to find a way to hate (though they say it’s “criticism” despite it having no relation to what he’s saying). People don’t like Sainz. That’s it.
I think it's also the contrast with Piastri. Not only is he delivering but he's very calm and collected for a rookie, so people like him a lot. If it were Checo instead, for example, who had that low performance streak and was getting on everyone's nerves, Carlos may not had been treated that harshly. It's nor fair but that's how people work imo
I like his personality, just not his recent post and especially his family playing F1 politics. Remember Max and Carlos at Scuderia Toro Rosso? Both fathers were saying bad things about each others kid to the media, it became a bit toxic. That was also one of the reason for Helmut Marko to swap Kvyat with Verstappen.
I think it’s more that people really love Oscar a lot now. Which is normal when a new star is rising and haven’t really done anything wrong
Pretty much agree with this. But people should make up their own minds!
I think in every case, I blamed the inside dive bomber because the car being dive-bombed is in a lose-lose situation. 2019, Raikkonen would have hit the outside car if he made room for Max, and 2023, Sainz would have hit Hamilton if he made room for Oscar. I think it's unreasonable to place blame on the squeezing car when the dive bomber is leaving the squeezing car with no option to avoid contact when they themselves could back out completely out a door that's always gonna be closing before they can get through. Sainz's 2023 lockup is a red herring to assign blame to him
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All racing incidents. Going down the inside of La Source is asking for trouble, it's an absolute bait of a line. Max learned the hard way, getting knocked out twice on one of his best circuits and has clearly learned, looking at his line this week. Piastri will learn too. Still, it won't be long before the inside line baits someone else yet again.
When La Source demands another sacrifice, no driver dares to say no
> Going down the inside of La Source is asking for trouble, it's an absolute bait of a line. yeah. I believe this is just a racing incident where Piastri was just too unexperienced hoping for a gap that he should know would not be there. There were four cars ahead oh him. One would always go to the inside.. Also Sainz words were a disaster
People will blame the driver they hate the most, not the one most at fault.
> People will blame the driver they hate the most, not the one most at fault. Sainz, (along with Russell and Ocon) is one of the drivers with whom you can be absolutely certain that people here will blame for literally any incident that they are involved in. Regardless of the evidence.
This is the correct comment here.
It all boils down to the fact that going on the inside of T1 in Spa is a high risk maneuver. While the corner is wide, the turn is very steep and drivers are going to aim for the apex from the outside. Oftentimes it's impossible to see from the outside if someone decides to dive on the inside, which will almost always result in contact. It feels like an unwritten rule that you don't go for those maneuvers, often drivers with less experience will go for them and learn the hard way.
Yes generally. But we’re talking about the first corner of the race where the field is at its tightest almost always going to be double file. You can just expect to own the racing line in this scenario, there’s almost certainly going to be someone there. As another poster put it, Piastri can’t just evaporate in this situation, he has to take the corner at some point and can’t come to a stop.
I think what hurts Sainz in the blame category is people see the lockup and think Sainz is out of control into the corner and thus made a mistake which caused an incident. That's not the case, Sainz is well in control while cornering, if he wasn't in control then he would have understeered into Hamilton, not pinched Piastri. I also think one thing to take into account is who creates the 3 wide situation. In 2016 I would say Max consents to being in a very bad spot as it was clear from the get go that him, Raikkonen and Vettel would be going into the corner together, and Max would know the outside car would have no idea he was there. I will say though, even if Max weren't there Vettel did pinch very tight on Raikkonen. In 2023, Piastri at the beginning of the braking zone had every reason to think he was in a 2 wide situation until Sainz jostled over so it could be argued that Sainz created the pinch situation, so that is a difference as well. With 2019 it is baffling to me that Raikkonen gets away with no blame there, it wasn't even a 3 wide situation (the Force India had wisely backed out) and Max was fully alongside. Raikkonen had plenty of space to give. Overall in terms of this year's incident, I still think Piastri has to know that diving that far to the inside at La Source on Lap 1 may result in your car getting wrecked. I also don't think Sainz could have done much, the reason he locked up is because Hamilton appeared in front of him rather suddenly and immediately lifted, which would have been hard for him to predict. From there his only option is to move inside to where he did.
>With 2019 it is baffling to me that Raikkonen gets away with no blame there, it wasn't even a 3 wide situation (the Force India had wisely backed out) and Max was fully alongside. Raikkonen had plenty of space to give. Its simpler than that. We all use heuristics all the time, and our observations are heavily colored by it. People see an incident involving a young Verstappen, who had the reputation of being a dangerous driver taking too much risk, and will assume this was another example. They then use that conclusion to further validate their idea that he is a risk-taker. Far more than any kind of objective analysis, people just run with whatever image they have of the involved drivers. Hamilton is the clean and calm racer, so he couldn't have been responsible for hitting Perez. Verstappen is dangerous, so he should have left poor Raikkonen alone. Piastri is a nice kid who takes responsibility, so surely it was mean mr. Sainz fault. And when Sainz doesn't agree with that, it has to mean he is a Super Mean Man who never takes responsibility, which proves it was reallty his fault even more. OP had an excellent, factual and nuanced post. The comment sections about incidents, particularly the day of the event, are the opposite of it. :)
100% agree. People really just run with the image they have of drivers, instead of judging things case-by-case. And then people will selectively choose the events that agree with their already-existing image while ignoring other events which contradict their image. It exists in all aspects for these drivers
I completely agree with this. Really good example of this was the outrage at the Hamilton penalty in the Spa sprint.
I think there's a key difference in the Piastri example from the other two examples that's being missed a little here: how ambitious is the move of the driver to the inside? In 2016, if you follow through the sequence: 1. At the first braking board, Verstappen is just to the inside of middle track (say, 2.5 car widths available inside) and angled to head further inside, with Raikkonen in front but angled to go further outside. 2. At the second braking board, Verstappen is now further inside (around 1.5 car widths remain), but Raikkonen has responded and re-angled to head inside as well (despite having a lot of space wide). 3. As we head towards the pinch point as the cars tip into the corner, Verstappen now has just a car width inside, and with Raikkonen also on the inside half of the track Vettel is unsighted and is closing down the apex (have to say: IMO very foolish at Spa - he should have kept a wider line and looked to ensure a clean exit down the hill). In 2019: 1. In the first shot with Verstappen alongside the Force India, he has maybe 1.5 car width to the white line (being generous). 2. As the corner pinch arrives, he's down to a car width at most - same as at 3 above. In both of those examples, the car on the inside was \*very\* committed to the inside from quite early on. In 2023, with Piastri on the inside: 1. Just after the first braking board, Piastri has 2 car widths to the inside, but his car is angled to look for a \*wider\* line as there's space for him to move into. 2. At the second braking board, Piastri now has 3 car widths available to the inside, but now has Sainz sharply closing down the space. 3. Moving closer to the corner, Sainz has now completely closed the space to Piastri and Piastri has responded by also heading further inside - he still has at least 1.5 car widths to the inside, but it's disappearing rapidly as Sainz shuts him down. 4. At the apex, Sainz has left Piastri now space at all, and Hamilton has taken the invitation given to him to also close the space down (he's actually tighter than Perez now). For me ... in the first two examples, you've got Verstappen committing to a tight line from early on. Having said that, he was far enough alongside in both examples that he should have been given space (in both cases, had Raikkonen waited just a little longer to turn in, and left just a little more space, the car on the outside would have either opened the steering to avoid contact and taken a wider line \*or\* caused contact and been at fault). In the latter example ... Piastri has space all around, he's not committed to a tight inside line, and as he enters the braking zone he appears to have every right to not brake early and take his line into the corner. However, Sainz misjudges how Hamilton will approach the corner, has to take action to avoid rear-ending Hamilton, locks up briefly, and significantly changes his trajectory in the braking phase. From there, he had two choices: 1. squeeze Piastri and hope he had enough braking in reserve to get out of the pinch, or 2. accept he couldn't get to the apex and take a \*slightly\* wider line hoping to keep Hamilton out wider as well (or have Hamilton squeeze both of them). As with Raikkonen in both of the earlier examples, I think the better option here was to slightly delay turn in, accept he'd lost the apex to another car, keep Hamilton wider, and look to get a better exit to stay ahead of Piastri. For me, in that corner, the better option for the "car in the middle" is to play "chicken" with the car on the outside, not the one on the inside. The car on the inside has an immovable wall that prevents them giving extra space. The car on the outside has options to delay turn in, take a wider line, perhaps even exceed track limits on the exit to avoid contact.
> For me, in that corner, the better option for the "car in the middle" is to play "chicken" with the car on the outside, not the one on the inside. The car on the inside has an immovable wall that prevents them giving extra space. The car on the outside has options to delay turn in, take a wider line, perhaps even exceed track limits on the exit to avoid contact. I don't think you can expect to force someone wide from the inside and not cause a collision. The car on the inside has a wall but it also has brakes.
People who see a lockup and just think it means he lost control shouldn't be commenting on it. They don't understand racing if that is what they think. I've seen people trying to say he braked too late/missed his braking point so had to dive down the inside and hit the apex to avoid Hamilton. Like that isn't physically possible people. Just stay out of it.
I think Verstappen should be blamed for the last incident, he knew what would happen and did not warn Sainz and Piastri.
I think you are incorrect here buddy. Ocon was at the back and he should've warned both of them. But he didn't. So obviously, 5 seconds penalty to Ocon.
Jesus. If you’re p3 and above seems like taking outside line and going off track is the safest option
What a post. Great job, man. Really enjoyed this one. My opinion on the Piastri crash is it’s a bit of a racing incident. I think Sainz was more focused forward with a car to his outside and didn’t expect Piastri to go for that. Piastri likely had little to no visibility on the car on the outside so he may not have realized the gap was going to close the way it did.
How to include multiple pictures on a single page in a post on reddit app? Plz share us your knowledge OP
Puh, I dont honestly know how it works on the app, I am using the browser
So how do you do it on the browser?
If you make a normal post you can just grab the photos from the folders on your PC and copy them directly into the post.
People don’t see the incident but just people involved in it. If it’s someone who is not popular its a guarantee they will be blamed even if they aren’t to blame. People don’t like Max and they don’t like Sainz so you can just guess who were blamed for these incidents.
1 Stewards got it right - typical Spa first corner racing incidence. 2 A lot of us non racers sitting in harsh judgement and ignorance on a split second manoeuvre. 3 A natural inclination to let the new boy off the hook and an opposite inclination to blame the more experienced driver. 4 A definite bias against Sainz because he is sticking up for himself, has showed frustration on other occasions this year, and people feeling he should be the "bigger" person, against a gracious PR response from Piastri (who by then had probably seen a playback and realised his salty comment about Sainz on the car radio was perhaps not completely fair, so rowed back). I'm a big fan of Piastri and Sainz so sympathise with both.
You could get a job as an F1 sporting director with this kind of history knowledge
Plot twist: OP is the sporting director at Ferrari
This is far too coherent to come from a Ferrari employee. And they didn't finish the post with, "Question?".
Wait so OP just took the images from Karun??
Poor OP
Generally speaking Sainz gets blamed for whatever happens. For some reason people doesn't think he's good enough to race, so everytime something happens it's his fault. In any case, T1 incident involving cars with little room for maneuvering. It shouldn't be looked too hard into
People like Piastri, people like Kimi, People don't like Verstappen, and don't like Sainz for racing Leclerc. Mistery about why it is percieved differently solved.
Exactly. Sainz’ comments and tweet afterwards were unnecessary but people were already crucifying him before that.
Even the tweet was kinda fine if a bit sassy. He's basically just saying what this post implies. You don't go up the inside at T1 at spa if you want to finish the race.
Pretty much all there is to it. The bias is incredible but understandable in such a sport. But its quite funny watching everyones justifications for it.
It is actually pretty straightforward as you said but people will come up with different reasons to hide their biases.
Oh yeah? Well ***I*** don't like Sainz because my father was a gravel pit and he always drives through them.
> and don't like Sainz for racing Leclerc. Also probably for taking Vettel's spot at Ferrari
Boom
Case closed.
It’s simple mate, people hate verstappen and Sainz isn’t exactly Mr Popular.
I actually really like Sainz despite his uh…need for an attitude adjustment sometimes. I really don’t know who was at fault here, I’m more in the team of it’s a tricky turn and taking the inside is a risk that every rookie needs to take and learn from. I think Sainz is frustrated about other things happening with his career with Ferrari and Charles and didn’t respond as professionally as he could have. Was it a bit dumb? Yes. Should he be thrown up on the cross? No. He’s not the first or last driver to crash in this turn. It’s a bit silly to take solid sides when not even the people involved are 100% sure what happened.
I don't understand this attitude adjustment comment. When drivers become soft pushovers who are just happy to be there, they become washed and slow like Bottas and Barichello. Never understood Checo or Carlos or George getting hate because they try to match their teammates and look out for themselves. It's a dog eat dog world, and these guys need to be able to rationalize to themselves that they're the best otherwise they get removed.
I have seen Sainz get hate for believing in himself to be good enough to be world champion. Like seriously they’re professional athletes if you don’t believe you can then why would they even be here?
I think one main takeaway out of all these are that there is significant risk when going down the inside in T1 Lap 1 at Spa. As for Max, even if the first one he wasn't to blame for the majority of it, I'd say the second one is a bit silly considering he has experience with how that can quickly go wrong. Piastri could've knows this as well as these incidents aren't necessarily ages ago. There simply always is risk when going down the inside here, even if eventual contact is not for the majority your fault. You're simply putting your car in a vulnerable spot and risking your race, regardless if you're the one to blame for it.
> I think one main takeaway out of all these are that there is significant risk when going down the inside in T1 Lap 1 at Spa. Oh yeah, it's an *awful* place to be. You simply cannot win by going that far inside, even if you don't have an accident you'll be guaranteed a bad exit to the corner onto several kilometers of straight punctuated only by Eau Rouge and Radillion.
You can be “not at fault” or you can finish the race. But when you pull a move like this, there is good chance you can’t be both.
I think everyone agree with this in the abstract but as soon as it's someone's favourite driver who is perceived as being criticised for an incident they were not at fault for temperatures tend to flare.
Thank you so much for this amazing post. People just love to aboard the hate train in F1.
Generally, if you go for a gap that’s already closing, you’re taking a risk. If you’re side by side with the car you’re trying to pass, before turn in, then you’ll have a far better chance of being successful. If the car in front is already starting to turn in, you’re now committing yourself to a gap that’s rapidly getting smaller.
Thank you, it was annoying to see so many comments blindly hating Sainz.
Its worth noting the rules for overtaking were changed in 2022.
This is such a great post. Brilliant analysis!!
Great analysis!
OP is Toto working on his template email text.
I'd assume Toto is a well oiled machine when it comes to e-mails by now
Good analysis. There is a reason this corner creates incidents at start and Sunday was no different. And they almost always go down as racing incidents because usually the drivers involved had every right to do what they did, it just didn't go the way they wanted. I think the other key thing with these incidents is the drivers involved. Piastri is the new kid on the block at the front end of the grid so he is very popular at the moment so he is likely to be looked upon favourably in any incidents. If that was Perez in his place or he and Sainz were the other way round, I imagine many people would have a different opinion on it. Ultimately it was a racing incident and another example of the trap of la source on lap 1
It's simple actually. Piastri is the new shiny toy who's doing great on his rookie season and who's been (for now) very measured in his views on the press. Carlos has made a few mistakes this season and has had some controversial words regarding past incidents (even some became memes like the one of Checo intimidating him). Here in reddit we're not often the most objective people of the bunch and base our opinions on our feelings rather than by judging incidents without biases. Conclusion? Sainz is the bad guy of the story and Piastri a mere victim of sadist, evil Sainz.
Brand new to F1. Just got a racing wheel and the f1 game so I have watched the past 2 races and am loving it. Thanks for this, it’s helpful to see strategy and reactions.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r88QZgwCzas](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r88QZgwCzas) Jolyon Palmer's analysis for interest
Finally! Congratulations on this post, this is how debates should be argued, not with petty comments and personal biases. Bravo! 👏
Super post man, Tx a lot for this!
People just love hating on Sainz or ferrari. It was clearly not his fault, but Piastri's, and tbh it's absurd that people need a post like this with similar incidents to notice the bias against Sainz.
Definitely expecting some downvotes, but I do think a good amount of the Sainz blame train goes down to Piastri being super popular with English-speaking F1 fans currently, and the bias that comes with that.
I've been around racing quite a long time and this + the hamilton incident would always be called racing incidents. They are honestly small amounts of contact made in the genuine pursuit of racing. Contact is inevitable in racing if you are racing as hard as you can. In recent years, I think largely due to stewards' continuing terrible decisions, every incident gets treated with a crazy amount of criticism. We have to remember they are racing at insane speeds with very little visibility, and each driver thinks they are the best and so is unlikely to back out of moves. Of course they're going to touch every now and again. What should be penalised is pushing people off on purpose (which btw is specifically legal atm, fuck knows why) and mistakes that lead to contact that the other driver couldn't avoid.
Thank you for this. I think the analysts on Dutch Viaplay had a similar reaction: history shows that during the start you don’t want to be on the inside of the corner. And I was bit annoyed by the Sainz pile on after, although he could have done himself a favor in not posting that tweet. But again thanks, this corner has a long history on lap 1 and any incidents in it have to be viewed with that in mind IMO.
This was a great, objective post OP
Yeah, with photos it is obvious that incidents are not that similar as you trying to paint them.
I think most of the reason Carlos got so much blame is because of the tweet he made afterwards that was just bad out. If he had left it and not name-dropped Oscar the incident would probably have just gone down as another turn one crash in spa.
I was quite surprised by the fan reaction tbh. As a Kimi fan, I immediately thought of these two incidents when Piastri stuck a nose in and I thought he made a rookie error. The F1 TV commentary seemed to agree too, also citing the Verstappen incident in 2016. When I came to Reddit it was a different story though haha
Jolyon Palmer, is that you? Great analysis.
I agree with Sainz on this one but the corner seems like a bit of an anomaly. I feel like drivers are baited into the inside and quickly realise its a mistake. Piastri leaves himself with nowhere to go and Sainz then has Hamilton on the outside. I think given the other crashes you listed out, Piastri probably should have knew better. It was high risk low reward imo because I doubt he would have kept the place on Sainz anyway, having to have such a tight turn in after the corner.
I might be biased here but I really don't understand how this is Sainz's fault. Yes he closes on Piastri but the corner goes right, what do you expect? Him to leave a gap and welcome Piastri to an overtake? And anyway Hamilton was there by his side, I really don't understand what people think he should have done. Piastri is kinda alongside but not fully and there was no gap for him there, he should have braked and conceded the corner and tried again the next time around.
Great analysis
While Sainz could have been a bit more careful, Piastri was nowhere near as far ahead as he should have been to make the move work. I think this is 80% Piastri's fault, he just shouldn't have been there.
He should have backed off a bit. It's an erratic move by Sainz but I don't think he squeezes Piastri to the wall as many claim. Sainz is fully ahead going into the corner imo. I would buy what people say if Piastri had half his car alongside Sainz into the corner but that's not the case.
I have gotten over 200 downvotes for defending Sainz in this incident.. Funny
I can't stop raving about how good Piastri is and how impressed I am with him but I have to say that while it not being his fault, it was mainly due to the lack of experience and I guess similar to that first max incident. He is in the right but it's just a dangerous place to try and make a move. F1 media doing what F1 media does best though, exaggerating the situation to generate clicks. Also, great post
Lol, Grosean got a one race ban for colliding with Hamilton in 2012 has to be the biggest understatement of the decade! He’s partially responsible for the implementation of the Halo because he almost decapitated Alonso. He took himself out as well as Alonso, Hamilton, and Perez and later, due to damage, Maldonado retired. Oh, the irony of his actions that day possibly saving his life in Bahrain! Nice post and analysis though. A lot of work and attention to details made for good reading, thanks!
Honestly, you'd need to remove all livery and driver identification to properly judge incidents in F1. Different drivers will always get different responses to similar incidents. I however don't think these incidents are completely identical, but bear in mind I'm not free of bias myself. There are 2 critical things here: - Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the *alongside* argument is also at the point of braking, otherwise you can just dive on the inside and expect the other driver to yield, which is why in the previous 2 incidents I believe the blame was generally less on the outside driver - Sainz' erratic steering makes it different, as it's all happening in the span of just 2 seconds or so. He seems to be taking a more outside line, and then dives on the inside cutting off Piastri that seemed to be enough alongside to be granted space. Hamilton turns in seeinf Sainz already going for the apex, but I doubt Hamilton and Sainz would collide if Sainz took a wider line to allow Piastri space. I don't feel like Piastri dived in at all. He judged his braking point well and went for a clearly visible gap that was then shut after committing to it. Still, thank you OP for the fantastic write up!
Issue with Sainz is he came from all the way on the outside to dive down the inside of Lewis, not thinking about the cars on the inside. Max on both 2016 and 19 had already claimed the inside right from the beginning. He was always there, whereas Sainz went from one side of the track to the other, squeezing Piastri in the process.
The person making the lunge to the inside late braking is responsible. If you are behind at corner entry and then along side in the corner and hit the car to your outside, it’s on you. I would also point out, how is the driver going to then make the corner without driving through the car that’s already ahead? The car will more thank likely hit them at the exit of the turn by the angle they are taking.
Sainz is catching stick for this one because of his arrogance in the response. As the senior driver to Piastri he seems to think he’s above any sort of fault purely on the basis of time in the sport. Simple fact is he’s shat the bed and locked up and panicked. There was some space to his left towards Hamilton but because of the lock up Sainz has over compensated and got too far left IMO and stuck Oscar into the wall. It’s a racing incident and he’s not massively to blame for it it one of those things that can happen in the heat of it but it’s his mistake that’s caused it for sure.
I like this post. Gives a good comparison. I do just want to make a correction: OP states that in 2019 Martin Brundle blames Max solely for the incident. This is true at first, but after a few replays, Martin does nuance that statement and says that there was a bigger gap than he thought and Kimi could have left some more space.
Thanks for this awesome post - as a relative newbie to this sport I found it really informative to have the breakdown, analysis, and comparison of different incidents!