Anyway I now think Rosberg may win the title. Mercedes may favour a German driver over a random Brit now he can be seen to be competitive.

Yes, looks like things are heading Rosberg's way. With 7 starts and 7 podiums, it would appear that he is having a better season than Lewis with his two DNF's, which were both down to technical issues rather than down to accidents or driver error. Mercedes should be able to learn from Montreal.

Am also disappointed that McLaren are so far back when they have a similar engine package as the Mercedes - if Mclaren were to switch to Honda engines tomorrow it would make Honda themselves appear to be very uncompetitive.

Massa's not a top-rank driver. Never mind the crash, he should have been able to get past in those last laps. Not up to it.

I'm glad you think it's funny. What a stupid thing to say.

On the Perez/Massa crash, I place the blame on Sergio. The track and racing line veer to the right just before the braking zone, Vettel ahead turned right to follow the edge of the track, as did Massa but Sergio didn't, and the inevitable happened.

Sergio defended far too hard, especially with his car having braking issues and his tyres having done a quite a few laps at this point, Massa would have easily outbraked him with his fresher tyres and more functioning brakes.

See, I'm not sure Perez was "defending" at all.

If you look at his on-board, he caught up with Vettel awfully fast as they entered turn 2 (the left) and, if anything, I wouldn't be surprised if Perez thought Vettel had screwed-up and he was positioning himself to get around Vettel if necessary, when he was hit by Massa.

At the end of the day, this wasn't a case of 2 cars that were alongside each other colliding. Massa simply drove into the back of Perez's car and, in cases like that, I really don't see why the leading driver should have any requirement to leave a path clear for a following car to take in a corner.
It's up to the following car to put himself in a position where the other driver has to yield, not just drive into the back of the other car, take both cars out and then whine that the other guy should've been somewhere else.

Again, if you're going to apply that sort of decision across the board it means that, basically, every driver is entitled to just drive into the back of another car if the driver doesn't get out of the way and allow himself to be overtaken.

No one wants to get beat by their team mate, especially on a consistent bases, which Vettel is. However he did show class in going up to Ricciardo, and congratulating him. If they were both fighting for the WDC, I still think they would both congratulate the other. They may not mean it inside, but they would go up to the other driver and at least shake his hand. Something that Hamilton didnt do, whilst Rosberg has in all his defeats to Hamilton this season.

Vettel did have a choice, he could have snubbed Ricciardo, much like Hamilton did, however he decided not to.

To be honest, I cant see any other driver not going up to their team mate and at least shake hands after a win. Hamilton does seem to be on his own their.

I guess you havent heard Hamilton comments, about how the two were brought up. I think you need to do a bit of googling.

Not sure how you can still blame Massa. The stewards that have far more data than us viewers, obviously saw something that we havent and ruled in Massa's favour. Whatever they saw must have been pretty damning. Also there is no news of an appeal yet either, which is pretty telling on its own.

Martin Brundle posted this up on his Twitter page @MBrundleF1

https://v.cdn.vine.co/r/videos/F79EF...dxuuQeZNvea8nY

It certainly changed my opinion and after viewing it , I cannot understand how Massa didn't at least get a place penalty like Perez

Massa was in behind Perez so he should have Perez easily , whilst Massa was at the rear of Perez so maybe Massa was in Perez's blind spot ?

Meh,

I guess sometimes it's not so much whether or not you think the marshals made a poor decision rather than whether or not the basis for that decision is flawed.

As I said, I just fundamentally disagree with the idea that a driver should be required to do the same thing lap after lap and, if he does something different, he can be blamed for another driver colliding with him.

I mean, in Bahrain, would it have been okay for Rosberg to just ram Hamilton when Hamilton defended his position by modifying his line through various corners?

If another driver manages to get alongside the car in front, sure. It's a good idea to have a rule that says you can't force the other car off the track.
Saying that you've got to leave space so that a following car has somewhere to go if they elect to try and overtake is just pathetic though, IMO.
What's next? Fit all F1 cars with indicators and make it a rule that if the following car indicates you've got to let them past?
F1 should require more talent than that.

was vettel lucky, skillful, or both to drive through the spin?

Fully aware of the comments. I suggest you familiarise yourself with the term context. Unless yours was simply a feeble attempt at humour, of course.

Massa moved to the right a bit but Perez tried to close the door, cant do that these days.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bps9T4rIQAAwLm_.jpg

Firstly, I can't say just how nice it is to be reading comments from people who actually know what they're talking about. Some of the comments on Facebook are just hilarious.

Sergio had no hope of overtaking Vettel, he had problems with his brakes so had no chance of outbraking him. Even if his brakes were fine he was too far back for it to come off.
As for him catching him, you would expect him to considering the start/finish straight was a DRS zone.

I personally do not think Massa did anything wrong, he had massive overspeed compared to Perez thanks to a combination of fresher tyres, DRS and a tow which allowed come up from behind, and had Perez not moved to try and stop him doing it he would have easily had him in the corner.

Perez moving his car (or technically not moving his car while on a bend in the track) whether intentional or not is what led to the collision, hence him getting the penalty.

Had Perez followed the racing line the two would not have collided, which I believe could be one of the reasons for Perez getting the penalty.

Indeed Massa was coming from behind, but his line meant that if Perez had taken the corner ordinairly the two would not have touched, Massa would have just breezed past him and outbraked him into corner.

Like ACU says, the stewards have access to far more data and camera angles than we do, they decide Perez was at fault, so they obviously thought his actions caused it not Massa's.

Lucky! He could have quite easily been taken out by either one of them as they crashed by him.

As posted above (thanks for the link), this video clearly shows Massa turn his car to the right and into Perez:

https://v.cdn.vine.co/r/videos/F79EF...dxuuQeZNvea8nY

Massa clearly hits him.

The stewards got it wrong. The video clearly shows Massa driving into the side of Perez. He was at fault. A crazy move, for sure. If he was trying to overtake him he would be taking a wider line to the left of Perez, not turning right into him. He's a lucky guy to avoid punishment! I don't know if it's possible under the rules of the sport, but Perez should appeal the penalty grid position!

The track veers to the right at that point, and the line also veers right too.

Vettel ahead took the normal line, compare that to what Perez took.

http://www.imagebam.com/image/bed0a9332037273
^Look at this and see who moved over...

The boxes show the distances of their front and rear wheels against the edge of the track, and how originally Perez had his car pointing to the edge of the track at first, but just before the crash happens his car is facing away from the edge of the track.

Whereas Massa kept the same angle in regards to the edge of the track as it swerved right.

FWIW, I don't think Massa did anything particularly worthy of a penalty either. To me it was just a racing incident, for which retirement was sufficient "punishment" itself.

Given that his brakes were dodgy, I doubt Perez was deliberately considering overtaking Vettel. It's just that, from the on-board, it looks like he caught up with Vettel really fast in turn 2 (maybe because his brakes were shagged?) so it seems reasonable that he might begin to take action to avoid Vettel, leading to Massa colliding with him.

Thing is, if Vettel had made a mistake in turn 2, or his car had lost power, are we saying that Perez should've just "stayed in his lane", stayed behind Vettel and allowed Massa to pass before making any further moves?
Again, if they're going to suggest that kind of thing they might as well fit all the cars with indicators and make it a rule that a driver can only overtake after indicating.

F1 is, by it's nature, a chaotic sport and drivers shouldn't have to not move on track to avoid being blamed for a collision from behind.

Sure, given their interpretation of the current rules, maybe the stewards were correct but that doesn't mean the rule, itself, or the way it's being applied isn't worthy of criticism.

Drivers shouldn't be penalised for every tiny mistake they make.

What should be penalised is blatant deliberate moves, attacks or chops (eg: Maldonado ramming Perez off the track a coupe or so years ago, Schumacher blocking the track in Nonaco qualifying).

There are going to be accidents occasionally in motorsport. That is inevitable

The stewards also have an ex driver on the panel. So its not just people that have never raced. Not sure who the ex driver was at Canada. It is possible that they made a mistake, however you would think that FI would then lodge an appeal and hopefully the mistake would be overturned. Since FI have not lodged an appeal, there must have been given a reason as to why Perez was at fault and they agree with it. They may not like it, but they can see the reason behind the decision.

What would be nice, if the reason was made public and the logic at how they arrived at that decision explained to the public. I will have a look on the F1 site later, and see if there is any info there.

The accident was a shame, as both drivers were on for a decent amount of points. Massa is quite a bit behind his team mate, so this haul would have been welcomed. The same applies to Perez.


In this case it was luck, with maybe 10% skill. I think he did slow down as Massa flew across him. However cant be 100% sure. When an accident like that happens, at the speeds they were doing, there isnt much a driver can do.


I take it the great big smiley emoticon, didnt make it obvious I was joking. If you were aware of Hamiltons comments, you reply to me is even more puzzling.

That's the way I see it too.

I admit that it might be difficult to reliably quantify the difference between blatant and unreasonable blocking and just "assertive racing" but in this case it really didn't look like Perez did anything especially underhanded.
At worst, it looked like Perez started to move out from behind Vettel because gained so much ground entering the corner.

I mean, normally when there's this sort of incident you've got one bunch of people saying "ZOMG! He was totally out of order!!!" while another bunch of people will be saying the driver in question did nothing wrong.
In this case, however, the best anybody can come up with is "The stewards saw fit to issue the penalty so it must be justified" and, IMO, if that's the best explanation they can come up with, it really can't have been that much of an infringement.

Its not complicated. Its too dangerous to change line in the braking phase, pick a line and stick too it or you get situations like this. Not saying Perez should of got a penalty, but its ultimately an accident of his making.

In the old days, drivers knew if they did stuff like this, people would die. Hence why they go on about being more respectful back then.

S'funny, I don't recall anybody complaining about it a few weeks ago, in Bahrain, and I don't recall either Hamilton or Rosberg getting a penalty for doing it either.

Course, maybe it only becomes an issue when there's a crash, in which case we're back in the position of being forced to consider that it's the guy behind who makes the crash happen.