In the round-up: Nicholas Latifi says conditions were so difficult in qualifying for the Turkish Grand Prix that he was unable to complete a single clean lap.
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What they say
Latifi was not the only driver to struggle in what a number of drivers described as the most challenging conditions they had ever experienced during qualifying. But after the Williams driver spun out of Q1 on the exit of turn eight, Latifi says he struggled to complete a single representative time in the conditions, having lapped over eight seconds slower than anyone else in Q1.
Obviously it’s tricky for everybody. I just literally couldn’t do a lap. I mean, the only lap I did was just before it got red flagged the first time. So there was clearly way too much water on track.
It is what it is. I mean, tomorrow anything could happen and that’s what the focus is going to be.
Quotes: Dieter Rencken
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Social media
Notable posts from Twitter, Instagram and more:
A dog has been spotted near turn seven, just under 10 minutes before the start of qualifying. #F1 #TurkishGP pic.twitter.com/2fq3gcEO6C
— RaceFans (@racefansdotnet) November 14, 2020
|@RGrosjean: "I'm stuck, I'm stuck, I'm stuck."
"Copy, mate."
Grosjean: "Yeah, I don't know why we picked up so much front locking suddenly. The rears were better but obviously the front not."
"Copy that."
Grosjean: "I'm sorry boys you deserved better. I just drove shit." #F1— RaceFans Live (@racefanslive) November 14, 2020
It's not how many times you get knocked down that count. It's how many times you get back up.
Big thanks to the whole team. What a day 👊 pic.twitter.com/SzbYy20OEh
— Lance Stroll (@lance_stroll) November 14, 2020
Hats off to @lance_stroll. That was quite something. Fair play. Congrats on your first Pole Position, well deserved.
— Lando Norris (@LandoNorris) November 14, 2020
You won’t hear any excuses or clever quotes from us today.
We were absolutely nowhere near pole.
Today belongs to @RacingPointF1 and @lance_stroll 👏👏👏
We’ll be down with a bottle of champagne later. You guys deserve it!
— Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team (@MercedesAMGF1) November 14, 2020
Today, we didn’t get it right but it’s days like today we learn the most so it’s actually a good day! Tomorrow, is going to be even tougher but we win and we lose as a team so either way we are in this together.
What do you think Toto and I were talking about here? 👀 pic.twitter.com/sKdxfRW6dQ— Lewis Hamilton (@LewisHamilton) November 14, 2020
The asphalt laid is a regular asphalt for highways. It’s not about curing time but the composition of that. It is very fine, smooth and open texture. Perfect recipe for what we saw. #Racetrack #asphalts are something else.
— Jarno (@jarnozaffelli) November 14, 2020
Please @F1 how on earth can you start the session with the safety truck on track still!?!? Have we not learned from the past? I can’t believe it. #F1
— Marcus Ericsson (@Ericsson_Marcus) November 14, 2020
- Find more official F1 accounts to follow in the F1 Twitter Directory
Links
More motor racing links of interest:
Leclerc labels Ferrari's wet weather performance a 'disaster' (Ferrari)
Laurent Mekies: "We had already seen from the very first round this year in Austria that we struggle in the wet, but this morning on the intermediates, we were competitive and hoped that would also be the case in qualifying. However, especially on the extreme wets, the drivers were just unable to push."
"I respected the rules. We must abort the lap, not just simply lift off, if there’s a double yellow flag – which there was. I’m pretty annoyed with that. Everyone else pushed, improved their laps, but I’m knocked out of Q1."
Lewis Hamilton: the man from Stevenage who became the moral compass of F1 (The Guardian)
"Few can doubt that a kind of racism – even if unconscious – fuels the degree of abuse he attracts on social media, even though it might be camouflaged as criticism of his diamond earstuds, his braided hair, his tattoos and love of hip-hop, his supposed hypocrisy in announcing his ambition to become personally carbon-neutral while competing in a gas-guzzling sport, his decision to live in Monaco for tax reasons – the sort of choice that went unremarked when made by the likes of Clark, Stewart, Nigel Mansell and Jenson Button – or his acceptance of the requirement to race in Saudi Arabia next year."
F1 designer Gordon Murray: ‘Our new supercar is a giant killer' (Telegraph)
"Coronavirus has sent car sales off a cliff, the economy is on a knife edge, and a stormy Brexit with the potential for trade tariffs is just around the corner. But acclaimed Formula 1 designer Gordon Murray is defying conventional wisdom and setting up a new carmaker in the UK."
Mark Skaife: 'There’s no reason why we can’t have high-level female racing drivers' (The Age)
"With the right programs and pathways, there’s no reason why we can’t have high-level female racing drivers. At the Supercars Championship recently, Switzerland’s Simona De Silvestro showed that women can absolutely compete with the boys."
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Comment of the day
An incident in qualifying where cars were released onto the circuit at the start of Q2 while a crane was still on circuit recovering Latifi’s Williams prompted many concerned comments:
This infuriates me. Jules Bianchi was killed by a tractor on the track in the rain. There should be zero risk taken in these situations. Who cares if the session starts a minute later?
We had marshals on the track last week and now this. Let’s not get complacent.
David
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Tristan (@skipgamer)
15th November 2020, 0:15
Yet despite this she never got a drive in a decent team, which is all she wanted and proved she had the skill for. Come on Skaifey, bit of hipocrosy. With the clout he has, he could have made it happen.
S
15th November 2020, 2:43
Don’t forget that she was brought into the series by V8 Supercars administration predominantly because she’s female and a great piece of marketing, not because she was the best person available for the team. She wouldn’t have been there otherwise.
anon
15th November 2020, 9:47
S, is it? In IndyCar, both the male and female drivers suggested that, contrary to what most fans seemed to think, the sponsors didn’t actually back female drivers any more than male drivers. If anything, both female and male drivers in IndyCar thought that companies might have been more willing to talk about female drivers for the media attention, but tended to be less likely to actually stump up any cash to sponsor them.
Alianora La Canta (@alianora-la-canta)
15th November 2020, 3:09
@skipgamer Unfortunately Simona didn’t have the funding to get a race seat at the time she was there. Had she been 10 years older or younger, I think she’d have made it onto the grid.
Rhys Lloyd (@justrhysism)
16th November 2020, 2:19
@skipgamer How to pick an Aussie 101: they refer to another Aussie using a nickname 😂
Hollow words from Skaifey.
slowmo (@slowmo)
15th November 2020, 1:19
COTD is the main takeaway from this weekend regardless of the results. Never again should a tractor be on a race track at the same time as the cars. Yellow flags just aren’t good enough and this lesson has already been learnt for too high a price. Someone needs to be disciplined for that happening, brushing it away isn’t good enough.
S
15th November 2020, 2:49
Yellow flags would be good enough if the drivers respected them.
The culture of respecting the rules in F1 needs to change. If double yellows means slow down and be prepared to stop, then that is what drivers must do. Not just lift a little.
From Race Control’s side of things – they really need to sort out their communication better.
Alianora La Canta (@alianora-la-canta)
15th November 2020, 3:12
S, unfortunately that’s not the totality of what yellow flags mean in F1, and hasn’t for some time. At one point, there were 6 different things a yellow flag meant in F1, which under certain circumstances could clash with one another. At least 3 of them are still extant in today’s regulations.
The regulations apparently don’t know what a yellow flag means. At which point, the drivers, marshals and stewards don’t stand a chance of getting this sorted in a sensible way.
F1 frog (@f1frog)
15th November 2020, 8:17
Even if the drivers did lift off for the yellow flags, when it is this wet it is still possible for someone to aquaplane off the track and hit the tractor. We also can’t rely on the drivers respecting the yellow flags anyway, or even seeing them when it is misty like it was in qualifying. Bianchi’s death happened in very similar circumstances to the conditions in qualifying yesterday, and again yellow flags were not enough to ensure the drivers’ safety in that situation.
S
15th November 2020, 9:40
They’ve also got an in-car system for notifying them of yellows. There’s no excuse that they didn’t see them.
Bianchi’s death also occurred due to a lack of respect for the yellows. Had he slowed down (as the rules state that he must) he wouldn’t have flown off the circuit.
I’m not saying that additional caution shouldn’t be taken to remove the chance of such things happening, but ultimately the drivers need to respect the rules that are there to protect both themselves and the track workers supporting them.
anon
15th November 2020, 10:04
S, but, in this situation, you cannot deny that race control could have avoided the situation entirely by not restarting the session when it did – if the cars were not sent out onto the circuit until it was definitely clear, this issue would not have arisen in the first place and you wouldn’t have needed a yellow flag to begin with.
That is what the COTD is getting at, and which other posters are also getting at – if race control had simply said there would be a short delay before starting Q2 to ensure Latifi’s car was cleared, it’s unlikely to have raised many complaints and would have removed the hazard entirely.
That is the key point – arguing about yellow flag rules is to largely miss the point, as Masi has already failed at your job. If you have an option to eliminate a hazard entirely with a simple action and proceed to ignore it in favour of a riskier method, under the health and safety laws in most countries, your actions would be considered negligent – using yellow flags in that situation should be the last resort, not the first.
BasCB (@bascb)
15th November 2020, 10:12
Yeah, it really is infuriating how this kind of things are still possible. Especially after a string of things like this happening in the last few races, it really points to how much the FIA race control and marshalling desicions badly need to be brought up to par.
Kelly (@kelly)
15th November 2020, 2:38
Mercedes should have brought last year’s car.
Tambeau (@tambeau)
15th November 2020, 4:09
The whole double yellow flags needs to be reviewed. For once K Mag made some sense when he complained about them.
He slowed down when the marshals were attending to Latifi’s car, but others didn’t, meaning he was put out of qualifying but they got through. Even if they were penalised later, it’s still an incentive to ignore the flags.
Surely a much easier solution is, if you see double yellows then your lap is lost, and if you ignore them, you get disqualified. Or at least start at the back, a 5 place penalty is a joke for such a serious offence.
It can’t be that hard for the stewards to determine who slows or not, they were deleting lap times for track limits within a minute of it happening.
socksolid (@socksolid)
15th November 2020, 6:10
I like your solution. Removes all ambiguity and pushing the safety limits desires. I’d even consider losing your fastest lap if you cause a yellow to avoid schumacher monaco 2006 or rosberg 2014 kind of situations.
bosyber (@bosyber)
15th November 2020, 8:02
@socksolid, @tambeau, I’d be okay with just autodeleting the lap, like with tracklimits, agree that clearly it needs a more automatic penalty
Balue (@balue)
15th November 2020, 8:35
@bosyber Agree. Any car passing a double waved yellow in qualifying has the time deleted. Very simple.
BasCB (@bascb)
15th November 2020, 10:13
Yeah, something that completely unambiguous / clear and being a certain deterrent needs to be put in place @socksolid, @balue, @bosyber, @tambeau
Jere (@jerejj)
15th November 2020, 6:35
@tambeau The others did heed for the double yellows as well.
@socksolid
frood19 (@frood19)
15th November 2020, 8:19
If the other drivers had heeded them, they would have set very slow lap times and been knocked out with magnussen. The days are back when a token lift is somehow seen as acknowledging the flag. The sport got complacent about this before and jules bianchi lost his life. It needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency.
Darren Moore
15th November 2020, 8:07
If there was a female driver out there quicker than Max Verstappen she would be snapped up by a big team tomorrow.
socksolid (@socksolid)
15th November 2020, 8:49
That female driver would not even need to be as good as someone like ericsson and the teams would be fighting for her. If you look what kind of opportunities back of the field and, at best, middle of the field f3 female drivers have got then it is clear it will happen as soon as there is such driver available.
Just look at calderon who has had multiple f1 tests despite being a below average even by f3 standards. Carmen jordan made it to being an official f1 test driver. Susie wolff got to drive in official f1 session despite not being able to win in any category and her average championship finishing position being something like 15th. Even the brightest female racing star in europe has just one win from british f3 (not f3 world series) in a reverse grid race with the average finish of 7th in british championship. Good enough for f1? Good enough for formula w for sure.
I hope there is a good strong female driver coming up the ranks somewhere. I hope there is someone who can be in f1 at some point with genuine winning race record at all levels of motorsports. I see no real reason why it could not happen. But no such driver seems to exist yet. Are there women good enough to be in f1 because of their good looks and marketing potential? Yes. Will such… I mean who is next such drive to get her f1 experience?
Darren Moore
15th November 2020, 9:43
There is no discrimination. A young black man debuted in the fastest car on the grid in 2007.
Qeki (@qeki)
15th November 2020, 8:36
Both paydrivers were on the headlines today. Other doing an amazing lap to be on a pole. The other one couldn’t even do a whole lap. This just shows that there are good and bad drivers in this category. Of course car makes a lot of difference but when they both came to F1 they were treated the same
ruliemaulana (@ruliemaulana)
15th November 2020, 8:47
Re COTD: True. After all quali excitements passed, the one that stick is that countdown already starred in upper left tv corner while the tractor still there.