Simon

FIA should mandate a device be fitted inside the cockpit to measure vertical oscillations, and prescribe a safe upper limit for qualifying/races (allowing them to test solutions in free practice). It’s their job […]

I’m not sure that’s the case as a general rule (or at least, there’s not yet enough evidence to say its true), but he clearly has an issue adapting to this particular car in certain races.

In Bahrain and […]

I imagine on reflection, both Mercedes drivers will be satisfied with the weekend. Leaving luck of the safety car aside, Hamilton had the measure of Russell, and the team outperformed their expectations for 2 […]

I do like the idea that Hamilton went from having a near-flawless close to the 2021 season, fighting tooth and nail with Max (and coming out on top in those racing duels), to a level below George a few months […]

He is correct, given he’s talking specifically about reliability. A driver couldn’t race without a car/team behind them. If a team creates a car that can’t finish the race due to reliability issues, then the cars […]

Max would naturally say this, since he doesn’t want any further attention drawn to it. We’d all likely say very similar in his situation, particularly as he had zero responsibility for what happened and thus the […]

Any refers to an indefinite or unknown quantity of something. As an example, if you said “any of the cars” you would be referring to one or more of them, without specifying which cars or how many.

In this […]

Looks like Merc have gone for a calculated gamble, with a non-conventional design they believe has more potential than the route most others have taken, but might take a little while to fully understand and […]

Functionally the rule remains identical, since grammatically “any” means “all” in the 2021 version of the rule. That’s just how English grammar works (it’s dependent on how the word is used in the […]

Not that it will matter in the long run, but removing Masi as race director completely (rather than keeping him as a co-race director, and giving him access to the improvements around support network and rule […]

I understood Grojean’s point, but the fact it would have been “unusal” doesn’t come into it. I also never said the rules were broken, since that wasn’t my point. Arguing over whether the rules were followed or not […]

“It would have been very strange to not unlap those cars and have Lewis first and then Max four cars behind over one lap for the world championship.”

This is the part that shows Grojean’s priority, which I […]

I think a fair result. Hamilton was a bit too patchy, particularly during the first half of the season (seems likely long-covid took a few % off his performances for a white) and Max was the most consistent […]

Not sure where this “never give up” narrative has come from. They have done exactly that, as of the end of this season. They chose to give up well before it was clear RB would be a strong title contender this […]

If we look purely at on-track racing fairness, I would say it’s hard to argue that the Toto/Lewis combo doesn’t value fairness more highly than the Christian/Max combo. That might just be a side-effect of the […]

You’re making big assumptions here. The regulations don’t state that when the incident looks to observers be cleared up, cars can unlap. The regulations are very specific that when the clerk of the course deems it […]

I think Toto is just doing what any top team boss would at this point. He’s painting the best possible narrative for his team/driver, by making extremely clear how much it affected them and that they are […]

I will remain extremely sceptical of any real change for the better occurring in F1’s governance, until we see it happen. I would have liked Merc to continue their appeal to force that change (though not to change […]

Two takeaways for me at this point:

1.) Mercedes must protest, for the good of the sport. The recent FIA statement is a joke and shows they will not take it seriously enough. They need to be forced to do so. […]

Yes, it was a poor excuse. I think everyone agrees its “highly desirable” for as much of the race as possible to be under green flag conditions, including the end of the race. But clearly that doesn’t mean […]