Antonio Giovinazzi, Alfa Romeo, Singapore, 2019

Giovinazzi says Singapore performance reflects improve race form

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In the round-up: Antonio Giovinazzi says his performance in the Singapore Grand Prix shows the gins he has made with his race performances since the beginning of the year.

What they say

Giovinazzi led yesterday’s race at one stage and scored a point for tenth place:

I think to be honest I knew that the speed was already there because since Paul Ricard compared to Kimi [Raikkonen], [who] is a world champion driver, I was always really close to him. A little bit in front, a little bit behind.

The race was maybe the issue that I have. But now it’s coming better and better I think. We need to improve a little bit more. But I’m really confident that with experience and with time I will improve.

Quotes: Dieter Rencken

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Comment of the day

Did the Safety Cars spoil yesterday race?

Another race spoiled by too many safety car laps. We were headed for a good final laps, with the drivers in front on older tires than the drivers bellow, then in the last 25 laps we have a lot of toilet breaks that set the pack all together, leaving everyone with DRS and allowing the tyres to hold on till the end.

I really, really dislike this safety car approach. I understand the safety reasons, but in football the game does not reset to 0-0 every time the medical team enters the field.

I know the rules are the same, but 25 years ago the SC was deployed once a season, today was three times in half the race.
JCCJCC

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19 comments on “Giovinazzi says Singapore performance reflects improve race form”

  1. One can say that safety cars interfere with the race, but maybe only the Perez one was doubtful. The other one were not.
    Russel car was exactly wrere a similar incident would ended up.
    Unless one could assure that a crane would be extremely fast, Kimis’ car position was also dangerous.
    Particularly if one were expecting more shared turns and contacts.

    1. Also, it’s not only the car stopping position that matters, but the path of the crane to get into the circuit, and the path to where the car can be stowed away (including exit path of the crane itself) matters a lot if SC are needed or not.

      That being said, if anything other than racing cars is in the track, SC should be deployed (VSC IMO is only if they working in runoff areas). The nature of Singapore GP (along with Baku and Monaco) just meant any incident results 99% in SC deployed, and I’m fine with that.

  2. After what happen to jules, people are still willing to risk having stranded cars and crane on track without an sc just for the sake of the race

    1. This.
      Every time I see it it blows my mind, the Jules accident had the worst consequence and that crane was well off track, this one was on the racing line! Based on the the onboard gio very nearly hit it and that would only have been fatal!

      After Jules accident I seem to remember reading about;
      1) further use of over the top cranes to remove cars (used widely in Canada for example), and
      2) crash protection added to on track cranes to increase impact time and therefore a drivers chance if there is an impacts.

      Lots of research being done for the future regs and F1 engineers are frequently touted as the best in the world, maybe more money and effort should be spent on stranded car recovery

    2. Driving around people and equipment on track should require the use of the pit lane limiter for that area. I’m sure they could do it with the electronic info boards they have all around the track to say “start” and “end”.

    3. Hans (@hanswesterbeek)
      23rd September 2019, 15:53

      Totally agree! But what about a VSC for (off track) cranes?

      1. @hanswesterbeek I’m not sure if they used off-track for Kimi and Perez but the crane was definitely on track when Russell was stranded and Gio even went too near to it DESPITE a safety car

        1. Hans (@hanswesterbeek)
          25th September 2019, 16:59

          Kimi’s car was on the run off in turn 1, so that counts as off track to me.

  3. I dont see what the furore is with Ferrari’s strategy. Its a team sport, they did what they needed to do in order to jump Lewis, and it worked. I dont think there is any malice involved here. Sure, Charles will feel hard done by, but hey it happens. But imagine if it was Fernando in Vettel’s place!! shock horror..haha.

    I dont think they would have imagined Seb would gain as much as he did. Their focus was to get Lewis. Charles is young, he will learn.

    Good win for Ferrari, they made the most of Merc stuffing up their strategy. However, if it wasnt for the safety cars, Seb and Charles would have probably struggled in the end.

  4. So were complaining about the Safety Cars now? How else could you retrieve those cars safely?

    I rather have a race spoiled than another Suzuka 2014.

    1. I rather have a race spoiled than another Suzuka 2014.

      @fer-no65 – absolutely +1 to this.

      I didn’t see the race, but seeing the clip from above, I don’t think it should have been Giovinazzi receiving a penalty, but the race director instead, for permitting a crane after a blind corner like that with cars still in circulation.

      1. I’m glad not to be alone with this opinion.

      2. Indeed @fer-no65, and I also agree with @phylyp and nase that while the incident was dangerous, there’s no way for Giovinazzi to have known the immediate risk there. I suppose maybe he could have gone slower, knowing it was a SC situation, and I think that’s what the FIA will say if asked, but even F1 SC speed might be a dangerous pace when there is a crane on track, so perhaps an extra warning flag before the corner would be a good idea … (again, back to Suzuka 2014, apart from the the track here being narrower, so that crane was on the track, not even in the gravel beside it, because there is no beside there, apart from the wall).

        1. @bosyber apparently the race director did instruct the drivers to stay to the right on the exit of the corner. Although I’m not sure if he said why. But I like the idea of a flag meaning ‘recovery vehicles on track’ or something in the lead up to the corner, ensuring that drivers go very slowly into there. Double waved yellows are a thing, but they don’t mean that somethings on the track, so yeah.

  5. Can I request that from now onwards, the F1 fraternity stop retweeting the drivel that comes from Sean Kelly a.k.a. @virtualstatman?
    He may be right this time, but then again, we don’t retweet the time on a stopped clock when it happens to be correct, do we?

  6. ”I didn’t know it at the time, but we were running in P2 for a couple of laps before our pitstop”
    – Surely he’s race engineer made him aware that he’s temporarily holding P2. Why wouldn’t he have done that? Ironically, that’s two places higher than he ever managed even briefly to run at Red Bull Racing, and thus, the highest position in which he’s run in F1 so far.

    Regarding the COTD: VSC should’ve been enough for at least one of them, and that is Checo’s stoppage on the left-hand side of the T7-T8 straight. With the other two, the full-SC probably was the ideal choice in the end.

  7. Not sure about the CotD, btw. The comment sounds like it was heavily influenced by Sky Sport UK’s reading of the race, which interpreted the timing of Ferrari’s pit stops as extremely early, so that Mercedes would’ve had a significant advantage at the end of the race, which in turn means that every Safety Car must’ve been an immense relief for Ferrari.
    (They even exaggerated the differences in tyre life by repeating that Hamilton’s tyres were “8 laps younger” than both Ferraris’ – in reality, they were 7 laps fresher than Vettel’s and 6 laps fresher than Leclerc’s … Yeah, it’s very minor, but it fits the picture)

    Contrast this with Mercedes’ assessment that they “missed an open goal” by not pitting Lewis Hamilton even earlier than the Ferraris, allowing him to undercut them and run away with the win. In other words: Mercedes’ own calculations told them that this race was an easy one-stopper. Or contrast this with how easily both Ferrari drivers kept going faster lap after lap at the end of the race, a far cry from the drop off the cliff Sky expected and Mercedes needed to mount a serious challenge. They didn’t even get into the range where tyre degradation was noticeable.

    So, I don’t believe the Safety Car affected the outcome of the race in the slightest, at least in the top 6. On the contrary, I believe it livened up the race from P8 onward by nullifying the gaps without leaving an opportunity for free pit stops. In other words, I do not believe the race would’ve been any more eventful or exciting without Safety Cars.

    1. Indeed, the eventful stuff imo already happened before the SCs.

Comments are closed.