In the round-up: Yuki Tsunoda says Lewis Hamilton’s example showed how Lance Stroll could have avoided his collision with the AlphaTauri in the Sao Paulo Grand Prix.
In brief
Hamilton showed Stroll how to avoid collision
Tsunoda was given a 10-second time penalty for his collision with Stroll early in last week’s race. However the AlphaTauri driver said other members of the grid had spoken up “supporting me and about the 10 second penalty was definitely too harsh” in Friday’s drivers’ briefing. “A couple of drivers agreed with what I’m saying” said Tsunoda.He compared the clash to the hotly-debated incident between Hamilton and Max Verstappen in the same race. “Lewis was watching the mirror and avoided the crash,” said Tsunoda. “But if he was not looking like Stroll definitely they would have had a crash.
“And they didn’t give any penalty and I get 10 seconds penalty, which is a massive difference, so it’s quite inconsistent, to be honest.”
Verstappen has doubts over Mercedes legality
“Also, not only what is moving forwards but of course what has been already done and raced with in the previous races,” he added. “We have footage from it so these things can get highlighted.
“But let’s just hope that we’re going to have a good battle to the end.”
Red Bull threatened to protest the legality of Mercedes’ rear wing earlier this weekend.
Mazepin had “about five minutes” running for qualifying
Nikita Mazepin said his qualifying had been heavily hampered by a near-total lack of running in prior practice sessions.
Mazepin said he had “about five minutes in a space of two hours” to run, after damage to his car in first practice led to him sitting out second for a chassis change, then a power unit problem prevented him getting further than the end of the pit lane in final practice.
A weekend so compromised “doesn’t leave you very much time to play with,” Mazepin admitted. “But we made it out. I made like 10 laps this weekend. Not all of them were push laps and no time to set down the car before quali. It was just tough.”
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Social media
Notable posts from Twitter, Instagram and more:
|@LewisHamilton says he will also wear the 'Progress Pride' helmet he's using at the Qatar Grand Prix for the next round, the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, and possibly the season finale as well:https://t.co/olBhN6LY7K #F1 #QatarGP
— RaceFans (@racefansdotnet) November 20, 2021
Pretty exasperated after another day of FIA delays. How can you justify putting off such a crucial decision until the following day when the evidence is so clear at the time? If ever there was a reason for a paid body of professional stewards, now is the time. #F1
— Ben Hunt (@benjhunt) November 20, 2021
Lucas Romanek is the new Champion of Brands!
The Oldfield Motorsport driver passed poleman Morgan Quinn on lap one and led the distance, resisting a lot of pressure in the race's final third.
British karter Ben Cox made his single-seater debut ahead of a 2022 #FF1600 campaign. pic.twitter.com/RRlTi7bODX
— Formula Scout 1600 (@ff1600website) November 20, 2021
- Find more official F1 accounts to follow in the F1 Twitter Directory
Links
Motor racing links of interest:
Pirelli awarded FIA's three-start accreditation (Pirelli)
"Examples of Pirelli’s own environmental sustainability objectives, both in business and manufacturing, include the reduction of overall CO2 emissions by 25% by 2025 (compared to 2015 levels) as well as the aim of purchasing 100% of its electricity from renewable sources: a target already achieved for all of Pirelli’s European plants."
Hamilton: F1 needs to address big issues (Sky Sports)
"Lewis Hamilton has been praised by Racing Pride for wearing a rainbow colour helmet as the seven-time world champion hopes to educate people around the world and have positive conversations on the matter."
"Pourchaire: 'I could see a lot of people looking at me differently, which was quite strange. I am still the same Theo Pourchaire. I will remember that weekend all of my life, it was amazing to win in Monaco. The best moment of my life, so the best moment of the year so far.'"
Notes: Castroneves doing double duty in 2022 (IndyCar)
"'I’m super excited to be a part of Meyer Shank Racing’s IMSA team next year,' Castroneves said. 'I really love IMSA racing, so I am very lucky to be able to do both IMSA and IndyCar next year. I’m looking forward to starting off with Daytona in just two months time now, and it gives me a little extra confidence going into it as the reigning champion.'"
We always endeavour to credit original sources. If you have a tip for a link relating to single-seater motorsport to feature in the next RaceFans round-up please send it in via the contact form.
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Comment of the day
Looking back on Antonio Giovinazzi’s performances this year, Luc Vanderheyden says insecurity can be as big an issue as any performance barrier, in F1:
I believe it is not easy for a driver to perform at this level when your future is uncertain. Antonio did an excellent job in the second half of the season and deserves a seat in F1.
Perhaps the biggest mistakes were made by the team’s strategy. When good finishes are thrown away because of bad strategy, it becomes a charge for the driver to stay strong knowing he does every thing he can to perform and knowing it’s not in his hands, and knowing he can’t say anything to keep politically credible.
The best previous example in F1 was Stoffel Vandoorne who suffered from Fernando’s inside team dominance and ruined his F1 career. F1 can be a talent-killer.
Luc Vanderheyden
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday to Polishboy808, Piyush Arya and Square Route!
ferrox glideh (@ferrox-glideh)
21st November 2021, 1:01
It is nice to see a high profile athlete like Lewis Hamilton publicly support oppressed people in these middle-east countries. It would be easy for him to do nothing, but he is doing his part. He is behaving like a proper knight.
Mosta
21st November 2021, 2:10
Max can run people off track when failing to make a corner, why can’t I?
Get a handle on it FIA.
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
21st November 2021, 12:36
Hamilton also failed the corner.
KaIIe (@kaiie)
21st November 2021, 6:14
So, one championship contender drives an illegal car and another one does illegal things on the track. Those even out, right?
On a more serious note, when was the last time two teams did not constantly make claims about their rivals and question their legality or their latest innovations in the car? F1 is definitely a race both on and off the track.
Jere (@jerejj)
21st November 2021, 6:43
He still hasn’t realized he was 100% at fault.
Incomparable situations considering Max was considerably closer to Lewis than Yuki was to Lance, so the latter didn’t really have the same option that late anymore.
A good COTD.
frood19 (@frood19)
21st November 2021, 7:48
I guess they happened at different corners (and again, people comparing Brazil to what happened between Hamilton and verstappen at copse should consider the difference in corner radius and entry speed too), but there are similarities between stroll-tsunoda and Hamilton-verstappen. If stroll hadn’t turned in, he probably would have avoided the collision and gone wide – tsunoda didn’t look like making the corner in a million years – so the end result would be the same as Ham-Ver.
So tsunoda is half right about that – but the idea he should avoid a penalty because the guy in front didn’t leap off the track after he (tsunoda) misses his braking point is utterly ludicrous.
The stewards have really painted themselves into a corner with all this – in Austria they seemed to penalise tough but fair racing because some people ended up on the grass/gravel; in Brazil they didn’t penalise verstappen because, I believe, there was a huge tarmac runoff area. For me, they got the tsunoda penalty right and probably the Hamilton penalty at Silverstone too (I would strongly argue that verstappen would have been wiser to give him space as he’d likely have finished 2nd at worst, but the corner was just about his – you don’t win championships by being morally right).
It’s all a frustrating mess and leaves a bitter taste. Consequently, we now have tsunoda saying things like this and who knows how many crashes we’ll get now….not that F1 really sets and follows precedent with any consistency.
F1 frog (@f1frog)
21st November 2021, 9:17
I have a better collision comparison for the Tsunoda and Stroll crash, and that is Senna vs Prost in Japan 1989.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPI5KDSCgAE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zc61isHXYA
I have just realised that they are almost identical. Tsunoda and Senna dive from a long way back, Stroll and Prost turn into the corner, and they collide. With Tsunoda’s crash, I blamed Yuki immediately, and still believe he was at fault. With the McLarens, I always considered it to be a racing incident. Clearly I need to reconsider one of those two opinions.
Ajaxn
21st November 2021, 11:30
About that Senna / Prost clip, that’s the Japan grand prix. The incident occured on the very very tight schikane at the end after the 130R, near the pits run off and the start finish stright.
That schikane only fits a single car, so how the car from behind thought they could overtake there is beyond me.
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
21st November 2021, 12:47
I like Japan, and I want to like Tsunoda. Like I said before the season begun, just because a lot of us want to like Tsunoda does not mean he is any good. Tsunoda has been embarrassingly poor, one of the worst rookies in a long while. I reckon he didn’t show enough to prove he was f1 worthy to begin with, that said I didn’t expect him to do this badly. In fact I expected him to match Gasly who has never shown anything special at least alongside a fast team mate.
The attitude has been the worst surprise. Mazepin would have been slaughtered for having Tsunoda’s attitude.