F1 - 2016 Mexican Grand Prix

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2 major things set off this entire, stupid clusterf*#k. First off, with the race so close to finished, they should have been all over Verstappen immediately, like stink on dog $h!t, to give up the position to Vettel. Not wait until the end of the race to sort things out. This placed doubt in Vettel's mind that Verstappen was getting away with pulling yet another driving boner. Of course he's going to be upset. Especially with Ricciardo rapidly gaining on him. Regardless of the reason why. It just made an already bad situation worse, by adding more unnecessary drama, and highly agitating Vettel. Whiting should have been the one screaming on the radio, not Vettel, for Verstappen to give up the position NOW.

Secondly, in spite of the above, Vettel was stupid for cutting loose on Whiting over the radio. I like Vettel, and I understand how frustrating that whole deal had to be for him. But a $60 Million dollar a year Formula 1 driver should have more self control... Period. He's smart enough to know things would have been eventually cleared up. He should have let his team do the fighting in the office. Not himself on the radio. He would have ended up keeping third place. Finally, someone, either Whiting or Todd, needs to sit Verstappen down and tell this kid to smarten up out there. Or else he's going to be watching races from the garage for a while, and not driving in them. Enough is enough. Grosjean did far less early in his career, and he was benched for a few races. It straightened him out right quick. And as far as Ricciardo drinking his own toe jam, I could care less. Anyone else is an idiot for doing it with him. F1 is getting more like NASCAR with all of this silly post race lunacy.
 
They should have been on Max many races ago. I'm a huge Vettel fan, but this is the result of the whole problem. Max gets to do whatever he wants, and most drivers are complaining about him. Now, everything has come to a head, where Vettel is absolutely irate and goes off in a way that should get him benched for a few races. But, since Max can do what he likes, why not, right? And yes, I bet he would have avoided the penalty himself if he kept a little more self control. His move technically violated the rules, but he left Ricciardo enough room, and it could have been left alone. But, drivers are simply allowed to drive wherever they want whenever they want, so everyone gets irate at odd officiating.

Maybe the speculation is right and it's time for Charlie to move onto something else, like retirement. If he's afraid to penalise drivers, it's time to move on. Any of the teams will offer him large dollars, so he won't have to worry about unemployment.

The system of volunteer stewards is idiotic, too.
 
Originally Posted By: Garak
The system of volunteer stewards is idiotic, too.


I honestly think this is the problem, not Charlie. He's not sitting up there with his finger on the god penalty button. He sits above a race weekend chief steward, who sits above a panel of stewards and they are expected to make the calls. Those guys vary weekend to weekend resulting in a lack of consistency in applying the rules. The drivers appeal to Charlie over the radio because he's the only consistent face race to race and whatever they say is recorded for any required investigation.

Sure, Charlie is the man responsible for the race management (VSC, Safety Car & Red Flags for example), but he leaves the racing incidents to the stewards.

Vettel appears to be starting to believe he's more important than Ferrari. He's had to be reminded to pull his head in a couple of times now on both race and team behavior. Prost got that arrogant once too, but they soon sorted him out by demonstrating that drivers are not indispensable. Plenty of quality drivers in the queue to replace Vettel if they decide he's more of a liability than advantage.
 
That is true. Charlie can only do so much, but, given his position, the stuff rolls uphill. They would be well served to have some permanent stewards, and pay the people. You can't have a constantly in flux list of officials, and then have them paid nothing for all the trouble. I have no idea how much grief they get behind the scenes, but expecting a bunch of volunteers to try to bring order among these types of personalities is a little over the top. These teams run with some of the highest budgets in any sport, much less simply in motor racing, and they rely on the same officiating system as they do for grade school baseball?

Maybe instead of banning the team talking to the drivers, they should try banning the drivers talking to the team.
wink.gif
 
Originally Posted By: Brad_C
Originally Posted By: Garak
The system of volunteer stewards is idiotic, too.


I honestly think this is the problem, not Charlie. He's not sitting up there with his finger on the god penalty button. He sits above a race weekend chief steward, who sits above a panel of stewards and they are expected to make the calls. Those guys vary weekend to weekend resulting in a lack of consistency in applying the rules. The drivers appeal to Charlie over the radio because he's the only consistent face race to race and whatever they say is recorded for any required investigation.

Sure, Charlie is the man responsible for the race management (VSC, Safety Car & Red Flags for example), but he leaves the racing incidents to the stewards.

Vettel appears to be starting to believe he's more important than Ferrari. He's had to be reminded to pull his head in a couple of times now on both race and team behavior. Prost got that arrogant once too, but they soon sorted him out by demonstrating that drivers are not indispensable. Plenty of quality drivers in the queue to replace Vettel if they decide he's more of a liability than advantage.



I'm not sure the Scuderia is in the same position of strength now as they were with Prost in 1991. The drivers market is not as good now as it was then in my summation. Not to mention Ferrari has many more performance issues with the car than they have driver issues.
 
Originally Posted By: Brad_C
Originally Posted By: Garak
The system of volunteer stewards is idiotic, too.


I honestly think this is the problem, not Charlie. He's not sitting up there with his finger on the god penalty button. He sits above a race weekend chief steward, who sits above a panel of stewards and they are expected to make the calls. Those guys vary weekend to weekend resulting in a lack of consistency in applying the rules. The drivers appeal to Charlie over the radio because he's the only consistent face race to race and whatever they say is recorded for any required investigation.

Sure, Charlie is the man responsible for the race management (VSC, Safety Car & Red Flags for example), but he leaves the racing incidents to the stewards.

Vettel appears to be starting to believe he's more important than Ferrari. He's had to be reminded to pull his head in a couple of times now on both race and team behavior. Prost got that arrogant once too, but they soon sorted him out by demonstrating that drivers are not indispensable. Plenty of quality drivers in the queue to replace Vettel if they decide he's more of a liability than advantage.



I've been watching Vettel's attitude deteriorate progressively through the season. I think the pressure from above to produce wins has been getting to him. Raikonnen has been outperforming him and has had his contract renewed for 2017. Ferrari was looking like they were going to be a close #2 to Mercedes this year, and Red Bull has leapfrogged them. He's been behaving like a frustrated child instead of a 4-time World Champion. It's easy to be nice when you've got the dominant car, as he had at Red Bull. But once you're at a performance disadvantage and have to scrap for positions, your true mettle comes out. Fernando Alonso was more gracious when he was stuck with inferior cars in his years at Ferrari.
 
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