Welcome to Wednesday’s edition of the RaceFans round-up.
Comment of the day
We took a look at some questionable stewarding calls earlier this week but @TonyMansell argues Formula 1 fans should be more accepting of their decisions:
Please can F1 not go down the football road of over-analysing referee/steward decisions, good, bad and indifferent. It’s the dullest and most subjective aspect of F1.
Arguing for/against a decision is a fool’s errand bent by our own inherent biases. Why can’t we accept that the stewards will do the same?
There’s enough of football’s tribalism, abuse and even physical aggression from a minority of fans that has seeped into F1 from football. There is no need to feed it further.
@TonyMansell
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday to Tom Watson and Ian Hayward!
On this day in motorsport
- Born today in 1956: Hector Rebaque, who started 41 grands prix and was team mate to Nelson Piquet in 1981 when the Brabham driver won the world championship, but never finished on the podium
- 15 years ago today Oliver Turvey led a one-two for iSport in the GP2 Asia feature race at Yas Marina ahead of team mate Davide Valsecchi and Jules Bianchi. Sergio Perez copped a 25-second penalty for ignoring yellow flags.
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Jere (@jerejj)
5th February 2025, 6:57
Bearman was involved in the same train of cars as Hamilton in Baku & now that I think again, Hamilton may have passed him for a position once towards T1, but I struggle to recall any direct battle or passing between them in the Sao Paulo GP.
Bullfrog (@bullfrog)
5th February 2025, 7:42
Yes, the penny’s finally dropped after all these years. They missed out on Newey so what’s the point? It’ll be fun watching them and Cadillac throwing money at not coming last.
Trayambak Chakravarty (@major-dev)
5th February 2025, 8:59
COTD is so right. I couldn’t care less about track limits. We need to stop fussing over these small things. This is motorsport and we need to stop looking at it from the lens of other, less spirited sports. Sometimes these things that might seem not right as a fan at the moment or perceivable unfair, add to the mythology of the sport as history moves ahead, like Maradona’s hand of god or Vettel’s Canada 2019 victory or 2021 AD. We live and learn to love these moments as part of the canon.
Alesici
5th February 2025, 9:23
COTD is so wrong! I have to disagree that analysing the stewards’ decisions is the dullest part of the sport – I love it! It’s true that individual track limits are dull e.g. on a qualifying lap, but 9 out of the 10 contentious decisions in the article were not related to that.
When I find their decisions totally wrong, I personally feel both frustrated and gratified that a rank amateur like myself could do a much better job than the stewards. I find that interesting, not dull.
Tony Mansell (@tonymansell)
5th February 2025, 11:25
I find it interesting you think you can do a better job by looking at your TV and without any other data. This is why its the dullest topic, because its basically bloke in pub with little facts telling everyone how everything is wrong
Alesici
5th February 2025, 13:44
I hate this whole argument that the world must never question any steward’s decisions because they always have infinitely more data than us. In 99% of contentious battles, the public have access to enough data* to judge. (Although the FIA does make it difficult by not publishing the sport’s rules to the public, the driving guidelines are out there on the web.)
You’re right that it is dull to hear someone clueless spout rubbish driven purely by their bias, but it is very enjoyable to listen to and engage with an objective debate on an incident.
* One exeption to this is that I suspect the FIA have tools and views that allow them to judge individual track limits better than the public. But like I said, arguments over whever a physical line was crossed are dull.
anon
5th February 2025, 15:11
The problem that poster highlighted is what you have said in your second paragraph – that much of the controversy seems to be driven more by the personal biases of people who are upset that their favourite drivers were penalised, rather than the actual actions of the drivers.
Some posters are rather open about the fact that they wouldn’t have cared if the penalties in question were given against other drivers that were less popular with the public. If it’s usually about driver popularity contests in disguise, then I can see why that poster finds the topic usually turns into boring shouting contests.
Roth Man (@rdotquestionmark)
5th February 2025, 9:48
Comment of the year by @tonymansell.
Unfortunately like football controversy sells column inches so to speak and fills social media engagement. No publicity is bad publicity.
And I bloody hate it.
Tony Mansell (@tonymansell)
5th February 2025, 11:27
Thanks Roth. Its insidious in football and takes it into the gutter. We move on, good bad or indifferent decisions and enjoy the racing
S Arkazam
5th February 2025, 11:25
Why go to ‘remote high-altitude glaciers’ when nanoplastics can be found in a human’s brain (up to .1% by weight).
Bioaccumulation of microplastics in decedent human brains
“Brain samples, all derived from the frontal cortex, exhibited substantially higher concentrations of MNPs () 4917 µg g−1 (25–75%: 4,026–5,608 µg g−1) in 2024 samples”