Welcome to Monday’s edition of the RaceFans round-up.
Comment of the day
Have recent decisions by the stewards shown penalties are generally too lenient?
Penalties need to be way more harsh. It’s the same situation last week where Norris made two places by false starting. The advantage almost makes up for the penalty.
Teams and drivers shouldn’t be in a position to come close to gaining from cheating. Make those penalties 30 seconds or drive throughs and this nonsense stops the next race. No way Max cuts the corner if he thinks there’s the risk of an actual penalty. Ben
Lewis Hamilton: 'I was miles off pace-wise and I didn't have the speed today. There's not really anything to take from these three weeks, except for I'm slow so I've got to figure out how to undo that.'
Oliver Bearman: 'We were struggling a little bit, especially in that first stint with balance, so I wasn’t able to do much out there today. It was close with RB but we couldn’t quite match their pace and I had to get off that medium tire early, plus it’s very tough to overtake and to follow in sector one.'
Gabriel Bortoleto: 'We chose to switch to hard tyres during the Safety Car at the start, but by the final 15 laps, they were completely gone and I was just focused on bringing the car home.'
'Swear words uttered in stage-end interviews will no longer be penalised, provided they are not directed at anyone in an insulting or aggressive manner. These interviews take place immediately after intense competitive runs, when emotions are often running high.'
'The Dutchman made the race-winning pass on DAMS Lucas Oil’s Jak Crawford on the final lap, while ART Grand Prix’s Victor Martins earned third position and the final place on the rostrum.'
'Chambers began to build a small lead over her rivals, getting it up to over a second for a short period, but her hopes of clinging onto the lead were dashed as she was handed a five-second time penalty for forcing Weug off the track at turn 22 during their tantalising battle.'
I couldn’t agree more with the COTD.
Immediate position swap order, drive-through penalty, etc.
Stewards should be harsher & more flexible with penalty options.
Hulkenberg & Doohan ultimately pitted again among the four who pitted during the SC period, so I was surprised that Ocon & Bortoleto didn’t do the same, but ultimately their sets lasted until the end.
Rally Journal: Finally a solution, which means that time control interviews can again happen normally rather than similarly to Rally Kenya, although I quite liked the use of native languages or otherwise languages other than English for a change.
Keith’s tweet: Indeed. I don’t think he’s going to get off easily for nearly causing a big accident by unnecessarily veering rightwards so close to the corner apex instead of just turning right from that point.
As for Masi back in 2021, that was actually a good call. The rules state it is the job of the race director to compel drivers to give up any advantage gained from leaving the track. He might delegate that to the stewards, who can then issue one of the prescribed penalties, but ordering an immediate swap has benefits. Like with Magnussen last year, sometimes a driver stands to gain a lot from keeping track position, especially when team games are involved. Even a drive through, which has to be served in three laps, might then be too late.
Being given a 5-second penalty at the start of a race is 100% pointless.
All the teams have dozens of Boffins both at the track and back at base who can calculate multiple strategies to counter such a penalty.
And in the meantime their guy has free air and can control the race as they see fit.
If you steal a place you should be told to give it back or be given a 1 lap penalty.
Not entirely because he had he been running second in his first stint, he could have finished third. The calculated risk paid off for Max, if anything since he was destined for no better than second anyway, so why not try to get away with one? A 10 second penalty would have served its purposes better.
It only worked because Piastri could keep up with him in the first leg.
But imagine if he were the faster guy like in 2023? He would have created that gap easily.
The real question : if Carbon Industries run a superior brake system. Why is Ferrari protecting Brembo ? Of course there are many considerations surrounding a different brake setup, especially concerning brake cooling, but if I were Ferrari, I would be putting those CI brakes on during preseason test months ago.
What were his lap times? It sounded like he had at least one pretty good lap, it’s just that he can’t replicate that lap. I was trying to see the lap times. At least if he has a good lap, they can look at what was different in the other laps and then come up with a setup that allows him to more easily extract that lap time.
I found the lap times – Lewis didn’t have a single decent lap. Leclerc was quicker by at least 0.3 seconds. Wow, this is a tough week – they need to figure out why he can’t get the speed out of the car during the race at least. Normally, you’d expect him to make up ground in the race that he’d lost in quali but he had terrible pace all the time.
Bring back the old 10 second Stop/Go penalty. None of this 5 seconds that can be served before work starts on the pit stop, a full on come in within the next 3 laps, stop 10 seconds, drive off, if you want to make a pit stop at the same time, tough, come in again next lap.
Never liked the 5 or 10 seconds penalty. Bring back drive through. Or force them to serve the penalty within 5 laps. No jeopardy if you have the whole race to think about it with a car that has a pace advantage.
El Pollo Loco
21st April 2025, 3:18
It’s Monday already?! I’m really late for work!
SteveP
21st April 2025, 10:47
Chill. Easter Monday.
If you were living in a country with a Christian ethic, only essential services would be working.
Jere (@jerejj)
21st April 2025, 6:44
I couldn’t agree more with the COTD.
Immediate position swap order, drive-through penalty, etc.
Stewards should be harsher & more flexible with penalty options.
Hulkenberg & Doohan ultimately pitted again among the four who pitted during the SC period, so I was surprised that Ocon & Bortoleto didn’t do the same, but ultimately their sets lasted until the end.
Rally Journal: Finally a solution, which means that time control interviews can again happen normally rather than similarly to Rally Kenya, although I quite liked the use of native languages or otherwise languages other than English for a change.
Keith’s tweet: Indeed. I don’t think he’s going to get off easily for nearly causing a big accident by unnecessarily veering rightwards so close to the corner apex instead of just turning right from that point.
MichaelN
21st April 2025, 8:21
As for Masi back in 2021, that was actually a good call. The rules state it is the job of the race director to compel drivers to give up any advantage gained from leaving the track. He might delegate that to the stewards, who can then issue one of the prescribed penalties, but ordering an immediate swap has benefits. Like with Magnussen last year, sometimes a driver stands to gain a lot from keeping track position, especially when team games are involved. Even a drive through, which has to be served in three laps, might then be too late.
Nulla Pax (@nullapax)
21st April 2025, 11:13
Being given a 5-second penalty at the start of a race is 100% pointless.
All the teams have dozens of Boffins both at the track and back at base who can calculate multiple strategies to counter such a penalty.
And in the meantime their guy has free air and can control the race as they see fit.
If you steal a place you should be told to give it back or be given a 1 lap penalty.
Tony Mansell (@tonymansell)
21st April 2025, 11:43
He got a penalty that meant he lost 1st place. The penalty worked perfectly
Applebook
21st April 2025, 13:59
Not entirely because he had he been running second in his first stint, he could have finished third. The calculated risk paid off for Max, if anything since he was destined for no better than second anyway, so why not try to get away with one? A 10 second penalty would have served its purposes better.
Edvaldo
21st April 2025, 16:37
It only worked because Piastri could keep up with him in the first leg.
But imagine if he were the faster guy like in 2023? He would have created that gap easily.
pcxmac (@pcxmac)
21st April 2025, 16:00
Hamilton looked like he never had a setup that worked the whole weekend.
‘consistency’ is what Fred called for. Hopefully Ferrari can figure out whats going on with getting the right setup.
pcxmac (@pcxmac)
21st April 2025, 18:26
The real question : if Carbon Industries run a superior brake system. Why is Ferrari protecting Brembo ? Of course there are many considerations surrounding a different brake setup, especially concerning brake cooling, but if I were Ferrari, I would be putting those CI brakes on during preseason test months ago.
Michael (@freelittlebirds)
21st April 2025, 19:50
What were his lap times? It sounded like he had at least one pretty good lap, it’s just that he can’t replicate that lap. I was trying to see the lap times. At least if he has a good lap, they can look at what was different in the other laps and then come up with a setup that allows him to more easily extract that lap time.
Michael (@freelittlebirds)
21st April 2025, 19:58
I found the lap times – Lewis didn’t have a single decent lap. Leclerc was quicker by at least 0.3 seconds. Wow, this is a tough week – they need to figure out why he can’t get the speed out of the car during the race at least. Normally, you’d expect him to make up ground in the race that he’d lost in quali but he had terrible pace all the time.
Mark (@mrcento)
21st April 2025, 20:10
Bring back the old 10 second Stop/Go penalty. None of this 5 seconds that can be served before work starts on the pit stop, a full on come in within the next 3 laps, stop 10 seconds, drive off, if you want to make a pit stop at the same time, tough, come in again next lap.
That’d soon sort them out!
Yes (@come-on-kubica)
21st April 2025, 20:54
Never liked the 5 or 10 seconds penalty. Bring back drive through. Or force them to serve the penalty within 5 laps. No jeopardy if you have the whole race to think about it with a car that has a pace advantage.