In the round-up: Andrea Stella says McLaren have “respect” for Lewis Hamilton after he apologised for hitting Oscar Piastri in Monza
In brief
Hamilton apology shows his ‘qualities’ – Stella
McLaren team principal Andrea Stella says that his team appreciated Lewis Hamilton apologising to Oscar Piastri after the pair collided during the Italian Grand Prix.
The two drivers were fighting over seventh place when they collided at the Della Roggia chicane on lap 40 when Hamilton appeared to move into Piastri in the braking zone. Piastri was forced to pit for a new front wing and missed out on points, with Hamilton handed a five second time penalty for the clash.
“I think maybe Lewis got a little frustrated because, in reality, I think Lewis would have overtaken Oscar,” Stella said. “If not there, he would have overtaken at the next opportunity. So in a similar way, I think there was no need to take too much risk for Lewis because he had the pace to overtake with more margin, I would say.”
Hamilton apologised to Piastri after the race after accepting responsibility for the clash.
“Lewis is a fair competitor,” Stella said. “If he apologised it shows his qualities as a competitor and as a person. He definitely has our respect.”
F1, FIA given until “mid-October” for Massa response
Lawyers representing Felipe Massa have reportedly agreed for the FIA and Formula 1’s request for more time to respond to his Letter Before Claim regarding the events of the 2008 world championship.Massa is pursuing legal action in the UK against the FIA and F1 after former F1 chief Bernie Ecclestone claimed that he and then-FIA president Max Moseley were aware Nelson Piquet Jnr’s crash in the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix was deliberate before the end of that season. Massa failed to score in that race after a botched pit stop and Lewis Hamilton beat Massa to the 2008 title by a single point at the end of the season.
“The ball is on their court, we’ve been waiting for their response,” Bernardo Viana of law firm Vieira Rezende Advogados told Reuters. “They asked for more time, until mid-October, and in good faith we have agreed to that.”
Viana says Massa’s action was not targeted against Hamilton and urged the seven-time champion to support Massa’s claim.
“He is an important ambassador for the sport and has always defended sporting integrity. He is an honorary Brazilian citizen and very well liked by Brazilians, so I hope he will support us,” Viana said.
“We have absolutely nothing against Hamilton.”
Point on merit “very important” for Alfa Romeo
Scoring a point in the Italian Grand Prix in a race that ran green from start to finish was “very important” to Alfa Romeo, says the team’s head of trackside engineering, Xevi Pujolar.
Valtteri Bottas finished tenth after starting 14th on the grid, moving them within one point of Haas in the battle for eighth in the championship.
“For us, it was very important to score points in a race like this – no incidents or Safety Cars,” Pujolar told RaceFans. “That shows that the pace was there and the strategy worked out with the two cars working as a team and getting a car in the top ten.
“We finished ahead of Haas and also ahead of AlphaTauri. We just need to keep pushing hard and see if we can catch Williams and overtake them before the end of the season. Still, Albon was too strong for us this race, but we’ve got upgrades in the pipeline for the next race in Singapore, so let’s see if we can finish ahead of them and score more points than them in Singapore.”
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Links
Motor racing links of interest:
Behind the scenes with Pierre Gasly on the highs of Spa and Zandvoort (F1)
''If Zandvoort was an immense high, then Monza was certainly a bitter low. It was a pretty painful weekend for us in Monza and one I intend to move on quickly from. We did expect it to be a tough one as we know where the strengths of our package are and the characteristics of Monza simply do not play into our hands.''
Sky Sports F1 star involved in scary Goodwood incident after car burst into flames (Mirror)
'Karun Chandhok managed to escape safely after a scary moment at the Goodwood Revival Festival after the car he was driving burst into flames. Footage from the event shows the 39-year-old's vehicle on fire. He can then be seen driving off the track and onto the grass at the side of the circuit before jumping out.'
Retired F1 champ Sebastian Vettel revving it up as co-owner of Germany SailGP Team (AP)
Team Germany skipper Erik Heil: ''I think the cool thing about him is not that he’s an investor, I think the cool thing is that he did for very long a professional racing series, and you feel that. When he’s on the water, he’s not like sitting there, he’s making notes, and after we are back from the water, he is telling us from his point of view, what should be developed.''
Carlos Alcaraz could turn tennis into Formula One (Stuff NZ)
'It’s this predictability that could damage tennis, just as Max Verstappen’s domination is doing to Formula 1. When you know who’s going to win, sport is a lot less interesting to watch. It needs jeopardy, uncertainty and equally matched contestants battling it out. That’s no longer the case in Formula 1 and not even the hype from Drive To Survive can stop F1 being a hard watch this year.'
Paddock Buzz: Silly Season Accelerates at Season Finale (IndyCar)
'Romain Grosjean hasn’t confirmed his 2024 plans, but he has said he won’t be driving the number 28 Honda, and Devlin DeFrancesco won’t return to Andretti Autosport’s number 29 Honda. Previously announced is Marcus Ericsson’s impending departure from the number 8 Honda of Chip Ganassi Racing for a seat with Michael Andretti’s organization.'
Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg take on Guess the F1 Car Part Challenge (Haas via YouTube)
'Think you know your F1 car parts? We challenged Nico and Kevin to name some obscure parts of their cars, but without being able to see!'
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 to us via the contact form.
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Social media
Notable posts from Twitter, Instagram and more:
not the usual drivers’ parade at the Red Bull Formula Nürburgring 🥵💪#RedBullFormulaNürburgring pic.twitter.com/RDXLkvqP1J
— Scuderia AlphaTauri (@AlphaTauriF1) September 9, 2023
Tom wanted to speak to us, we promise 😉
Get to know Tom and more of the team in our newest series, 3 Minute Missions! 👀 pic.twitter.com/E7eMY9TQHh
— Williams Racing (@WilliamsRacing) September 9, 2023
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- Find more official F1 accounts to follow in the F1 Twitter Directory
Comment of the day
Romain Grosjean is on the brink of seeing his IndyCar career burn out, but SierraS saw it coming…
If you’d have told me three years ago that Romain Grosjean would go to IndyCar, crash a lot, not win anything and be left with a do-or-die final race to save his career…
…I would absolutely believe you.
SierraS
Happy birthday!
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On this day in motorsport
- On this day in 1978 Mario Andretti won the world championship but a first-lap crash claimed the life of his team mate Ronnie Peterson, who died the following day
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T
10th September 2023, 0:33
damn, the fellas aren’t going to like this one
Coventry Climax
10th September 2023, 1:07
Predictability never damaged tennis, it created legends and opponents as well as a whole next generation set on doing anything just to beat them.
Winning from Federer or Nadal in their heydays really meant something.
Imagine them being restricted by penalty weights with, for example, heavy footwear or having to play with a racket that’s not brought up to the tension they prefer. Or the rules changing every couple of matches, only to create ‘a level playing field’. Winning from them then would have been utterly pointless.
Fihar (@)
10th September 2023, 8:48
Tennis, an individual sport that doesn’t involve any machinery at all, is incomparable to F1.
That op-ed from Stuff is reaching, and so are you
d0senbrot (@d0senbrot)
10th September 2023, 8:49
Tennis naturally has a much more level playing field than any motorsport or F1 in particular could ever have. Generally it’s nonsense to compare F1 to any sport of that kind. Unfortunately, nowadays more than ever, F1 is marketed as an individual competition. With such a premise, seasons with dominating teams are predictably disappointing to an audience that wants to applaud athletes, not engineers.
Electroball76
10th September 2023, 11:37
I guess a better comparison is something like sailing or equestrian, where the human is the pilot but not the engine.
MichaelN
10th September 2023, 13:05
Tennis, like other sports with limited professional infrastructure, will naturally have periods of domination. While dominant winners can be seen as great, their competition is also often fairly unimpressive. We know this because in sports with broader appeal and participation such extensive periods of domination simply do not happen. One or two years maybe, but not over a decade.
Just winning a lot also doesn’t breed legends. Hard fought battles and prevailing against the odds is much better way to do so. You can already see that Hamilton’s titles and wins are being increasingly downplayed and placed on the enormous car advantage he enjoyed; ironically while folks simultaneously prop up the next guy to win in a dominant car as the true great. It’s a cycle of sorts, I guess.
Michael (@freelittlebirds)
10th September 2023, 15:51
Well, tennis is the most difficult sport in the world, bar none – technically, physically, and mentally.
Nonetheless, it was the competition that forged Federer, Nadal, and Djokovic as legends.
Even so during their careers they had to deal with immensely talented players like Andy Murray, Marat Safin, Stan Wawrinka, Lleyton Hewitt (pre-buffing), Del Potro, Andy Roddick, Medvedev, Tsonga, Nalbandian, Gasquet, Zverev, Thiem, Tsitsipas all of which on their day can be very difficult to beat.
Same with other eras like Borg, McEnroe, Connors, Lendl, Vilas etc.
Tennis in the US is an extremely tough sport for young players to play as cheating is uncontrollable and honest players cannot continue playing the sport. To play in the US you must either be a cheater or be ok losing to a blatant cheater – 2021 is nothing compared to an average tennis match. You can have a heart attack watching your child play a single match in this country as you watch another kid call shots down the middle out.
Is it any surprise that Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, and Alcaraz are not American? Is it any surprise that Giannis, Jokic, and Doncic are European in a quintessentially American sport?
But then again, when you read the history and the crimes that have been committed in the Supreme court or other courts, it’s hard not to be in tears.
Red Pill (@redpill)
11th September 2023, 8:28
” tennis is the most difficult sport in the world, bar none”
That is a very subjective statement
Coventry Climax
10th September 2023, 1:10
Was that in the contract for the power unit deal, Stella?
Tyler
10th September 2023, 4:16
Same way that Max spoke against DTS when he had a contract with the Netherlands TV channel…. “Contracts”. GTFO.
SteveR (@stever)
10th September 2023, 2:15
Give it up Massa, this is only diminishing you. How about an asterisk for the records: could have been champion if his team had unhooked the fuel hose before he left the pits. This retro review/revision of a season 15 years ago would open a can of worms. Maximum should be Renault is disqualified but even that, at this late date, is ridiculous.
lynn-m
10th September 2023, 3:42
@stever If the SC hadn’t come out due to a team trying to fix a race by getting a driver to crash intentionally then Massa wouldn’t have been in the pits at that time. And with no SC Ferrari wouldn’t have needed to double stack so would have been under less pressure meaning maybe the pit stop goes better.
But regardless of that the core of the issue is that the FIA became aware that the race had been manipulated by Renault & Piquet Jr.s actions yet rather than investigating and likely having to throw out the results of the race they decided to cover it up until it was at a point where they could claim they couldn’t do anything retrospectively.
But after Abu Dhabi 2021 we know that F1 fans are fine with races & championships been manipulated so long as it goes the way they want it to. And then you have those of us who want rules, regulations & procedures to be followed & any cheating, race fixing & such to be treated accordingly rather than covered up.
Look. I don’t actually think the 2008 championship should be overturned at this point, But I do feel that Massa has a right to feel angry due to the FIA’s cover up & at least look into exactly what happened during this cover up.
Any F1 fan should want to know the truth about what the FIA knew, When they knew it & who decided to cover it up & why. That to me is all thats important about this and it should be to every fan that values the integrity of the sport & the championship.
anon
10th September 2023, 7:20
lynn-m, it has not actually been proven beyond any sort of reasonable doubt that the FIA did actually know at the time, given that the claims rely solely on Ecclestone’s comments – and we’ve seen how, for many, many years, so many posters here have derided Bernie for being so untrustworthy, self centred and manipulative that they wouldn’t normally trust him to tell them what day of the week it was.
Alan Dove
10th September 2023, 8:56
They do not rely on Ecclestone. Whiting even stated he Piquet knew he would tell Max.
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/how-the-fia-found-out-about-crashgate-at-brazil-2008-f1-finale-but-could-not-act/10453434/
So this isn’t a case of Ecclestone saying something. I am not sure how UK law works but if there’s a ‘Discovery’ mechanism, more could come out too.
I am not going to make comment on the merit of the case by the way.
Red Andy (@red-andy)
10th September 2023, 10:49
Surely that would be the purpose of the court case (although the relevant standard of proof would be the balance of probabilities, rather than beyond reasonable doubt, since it’s a civil case), to “prove” one way or the other whether there was a cover-up.
As I’ve said previously I believe the true purpose of this case is to secure a financial settlement for Massa, on the basis that the FIA/FOM won’t want the details of what went went down dragged out in open court via the disclosure process. Overturning the result of the 2008 championship, while it is helpful in grabbing headlines, seems like quite an unlikely outcome – it would be quite an extreme circumstance for the court to effectively order the FIA to disregard its own statutes to retrospectively alter the result.
Red Pill (@redpill)
11th September 2023, 8:46
@red-andy
At the end of the day I think the total accumulated potential income from sponsors and F1 related work lost over time if he didn’t pursue this subject and courts could be worth more than anything FIA is willing to pay out and also would avoid being the pariah that will keep him away form motorsport. It’s something he obviously feels very strongly about and willing to take the risk.
SteveP
10th September 2023, 8:49
Ferrari were the only team to botch the pit stop. I suggest Massa takes his claim for apologies and cash to the doorstep of Ferrari.
Note that the rules of the time, as now, allow a competitor and team to be penalised with a DQ as well as financially.
If there is any retrospective action to be taken, DQ the team.
Rosberg can celebrate his first win 15 years late and the world can continue as it always has, with Massa secure in the knowledge that he finished one place higher than the current records show.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
10th September 2023, 17:38
Rosberg will have thought winning the title at his last race would be the last happy moment, but looks like his first win came after that!
spoutnik (@spoutnik)
10th September 2023, 9:22
Thing is, everyone already knows. He wants money.
Alan Dove
10th September 2023, 16:30
You sure it’s about money? It has been knowledge since 2009 that Piquet Senior went to Whiting.
I think people need to ask what happened between Massa and the FIA between then and 2023.
grat
11th September 2023, 18:44
“There was no evidence”. There’s still very little evidence– Whiting and Mosley are both deceased, and Bernie’s already retracted his comments.
And even so, you don’t punish 20 drivers for the actions of one team. You ban that team and their drivers. Alonso loses, Massa loses, Hamilton and Rosberg gain.
Maybe Massa crashes, maybe he leaves without the hose– truth is, between Singapore and Silverstone, Massa lost enough points that even being handed the win on a silver plate at Spa wasn’t enough to give him the championship.
If Massa had serious grounds to sue the FIA, F1, Bernie or the Fates themselves, he should have done it no later than 2010. At this point, it smacks of desperation and sour grapes. Expecting Hamilton to support taking his title away from him is a sure sign that the legal team advising Massa is either insane, or incompetent.
AlanD
12th September 2023, 2:40
Lynn said “If the SC hadn’t come out due to a team trying to fix a race by getting a driver to crash intentionally then Massa wouldn’t have been in the pits at that time…. etc”
What if there wa sno cheating and instead the SC might have come out the following lap due to someone crashing quite innocently, with the same outcome in the Ferrarri pit, or maybe everyone would have pitted under normal conditions, no pressure, and the Ferrari team would still have screwed up and seen Massa drive away with the hose attached. Even if Massa had won in Singapore, that might well have meant McLaren and Hamilton went into the next race in Japan with a different, more focussed mindset and nailed the win instead of finishing down in 12th. “What if” games are utterly pointless. The only fact that matters is that Massa and Ferrari didn’t deliver.
You may not like the way events affected the other drivers, but you cannot ask for a race to be cancelled because some drivers (who were not in any way involved in cheating), handled the race situation better than other equally innocent drivers who right royally screwed up.
Jere (@jerejj)
10th September 2023, 5:58
@stever Indeed & should he succeed in his overturning attempt, so should Schumi lose his maiden championship, Senna his 1990 championship, etc., for consistency’s sake.
Yellow Baron
10th September 2023, 12:01
I guess masi gets his first then and prost loses one, as well as max
Stephen Crowsen (@drycrust)
10th September 2023, 6:17
A “botched pit stop” means the team itself made performance impairing mistakes. This isn’t something the FIA or Formula One or Mr Ecclestone are responsible for. Yes, someone else was cheating, but Ferrari could have made that pit stop without those performance impairing mistakes. Those mistakes happened, and that’s part of racing. I’ve heard it said that you win as a team and you loose as a team. Massa was contracted to the Ferrari F1 team. Massa got paid handsomely for driving by Ferrari, the vast majority of professional drivers don’t get paid anywhere near what he got paid. A long handled spade can easily stir up the mud at the bottom of a pond with crystal clear water, making all the water muddy. My advice is to put the spade down, don’t dig up the mud, just let the water stay crystal clear so we can admire the pond as it is.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
10th September 2023, 17:39
On the contrary, he should go to the bottom of it.
Jere (@jerejj)
10th September 2023, 5:56
Until mid-October, which probably won’t come even by that point.
melanos
10th September 2023, 10:38
Try this: Throw a glass to the floor so it gets smashed to smithereens. Then apologize to the glass.
Surprise, it stays broken just the same.
Do not T-bone your fellow drivers and you will not have to apologize.
So much BS.
MadMax (@madmax)
10th September 2023, 12:28
yeah, so much BS. who tboned anyone. stupidity of ham hate takes over some ppls brains…
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
10th September 2023, 17:45
Only comment I found talking about hamilton’s apology, I’m just gonna say it’s easy to apologise when you didn’t get any repercussion from your mistake and the opponent did. It’s easy to apologise for silverstone 2021 (and he didn’t do that, I believe), he only gained points from taking out the opponent, it’s harder to apologise when you actually get the worst of it or at least lose points too.
melanos
10th September 2023, 13:01
Go collect your brownie points from the Brigade Hall
GT Racer (@gt-racer)
10th September 2023, 16:21
I’ll say this on Crash-Gate.
There is some concern within the FIA & F1 in general because the feeling is that if Massa goes through with this and it goes in his favour (He’s assembled a very good legal team & it’s felt that he actually has a good case) that it’s going to open up the FIA to additional challenges.
Specifically regarding Abu Dhabi 2021 because the paddock talk going back to early 2022 is that Mercedes had a very, very strong case and only backed down from taking it as far as they could have done due to the FIA not allowing championships to be overturned after it’s been made official at the FIA Gala.
If Massa goes all the way with this & if a judge rules that the 2008 Singapore GP could/should be scrubbed & that the championship could be overturned it then opens up the possibility of Mercedes using the ruling to re-open there AD’21 appeal & take it as far as they can.
SteveP
10th September 2023, 17:11
Any court case would only rule that they apply the sanction available in the rules of the period; which would allow them to DQ the offending team.
Retrospectively applying that sanction would move all drivers up one place, remove that win from Alonso’s stats and give Rosberg a first win earlier than his current stats. Hamilton gains two points (If I recall the points system of the time correctly)
I don’t see how that gives Massa anything other than a large legal bill, since he still wouldn’t be listed in the points scoring positions and his rival is two points better off.
As a Hamilton fan, as far as I’m concerned he did win Abu Dhabi 2021, but starting a sequence of arguments about which races need correction of their results sounds too tedious to merit consideration. MV already knows in his heart that he didn’t win, what more to do?
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
10th September 2023, 17:43
If we’re talking merit, hamilton won abu dhabi and verstappen won 2021, I really have a hard time thinking he, himself, thinks he didn’t deserve it, even a site like this voted verstappen as the best driver of 2021.
Red Andy (@red-andy)
10th September 2023, 18:25
It has always been open to the FIA to entirely annul the results of an event – and they have done so, even in world championship events – Bernie Ecclestone suggested that this is the approach they would have taken had they acted on Crashgate in a timely manner. Obviously this would be Massa’s preferred outcome as it would give him the championship.
grat
11th September 2023, 18:48
Which races / championships have the FIA annulled?
F1 frog (@f1frog)
10th September 2023, 21:17
Exactly. There are plenty of examples of controversies in history and while it is good for them to be made very public years later, to actually change the championship such a long time after would be awful. And it is ironic that the one event that is actually bringing it up, Felipe Massa being robbed at the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix, isn’t one of those controversies at all. It is complete coincidence that in the one race that Renault cheated in that way, Massa happened to have had a bad result that means he stands to benefit from the race being cancelled. And he can only benefit if the race is cancelled, which isn’t something that ever happens. So if he were to win it would be the greatest travesty in motorsport history.
AlanD
12th September 2023, 2:11
Steve said “Retrospectively applying that sanction would move all drivers up one place”
I’m not sure that is correct. I think that when Schumacher was DQ’d from the season he lost all his results, but it didn’t change the results of any other driver, i.e. drivers who finished second to him in races did not have their results rewritten to say they’d won those races. You cannot change the points allocated once the next race weekend has started
Red Andy (@red-andy)
10th September 2023, 18:18
I don’t think Crashgate and AD2021 are comparable, really.
Mercedes had the opportunity to challenge the Abu Dhabi results, in time and within F1’s rules, and were unsuccessful. In Singapore Massa/Ferrari didn’t get that opportunity, allegedly because of a cover-up by FIA/FOM to suppress the relevant information until after they were out of time to protest.
Unless someone was also withholding crucial information from Mercedes that would have been pivotal to their case against the FIA, you can’t really read across from one to the other IMO.
F1 frog (@f1frog)
10th September 2023, 21:08
But how does Felipe Massa have a good case? How can it possibly be that the Singapore Grand Prix can be declared null and void because of Crashgate? There is absolutely no precedent for that whatsoever.
There are so many worse controversies in Formula 1 history and a can of worms could be opened if he gets anything from it at all. It would be terrible for the entire history of Formula 1 to be turned on its head because of this one incident which has nothing to do with Massa anyway.