This year, Max finished 3rd, well behind the Mercedes at Melbourne, Barcelona. He finished 4th behind 2 Mercs and 1 Ferrari at Bahrain, Shanghai, Baku, Monaco, and Paul Ricard. He finished 5th behind the Mercs and the Ferraris at Montréal. In all these races, he ran solitary races, by his own confession, not able to catch the leaders, but well away from his pursuers. That's why he had looked "matured" this year, so far. His car is only the 3rd best in the field. But given half a chance of duelling with an other driver, he will go back to his toolbox of dirty tricks to gain advantage.
Ballestre lacked the guts to suspend Senna for a few races to teach him a lesson. I think that the kind of punishment needed to bring some change in an individual.
Right...So we can only take race by race again now? You ignore all races post baku last year? Overtaking 10 or so cars in Monaco, constantly in the midst of everyone at nearly all races, overtaking lewis in Brazil etc. FFS I can run arguments like that all day long then!
If sending one up the inside is considered a dirty trick, all racing drivers should pack up and go home
Maybe you should revisit the rules to know what is acceptable and what is not. Making contact to shove a competitor off the track isn't the expected move when overtaking.
You are allowed to have a different opinion, this is still a free country. I concentrated on this year's races. In most of these, Max wasn't in contention for a win, so he kept to his best behaviour. But at Spielberg, he had a sniff of victory, so went bad to his "get out off my way" thinking, where making deliberate contact is his favourite weapon. I think the drivers confronted to that should respond in kind, and barge into Max, to ruin his race too. A bully never like to taste his own medecine. That way, he may understand one day ?
You could post thousands of testimonies like this, I still wouldn't change my opinion. We used to have "only clean, polite passes" in the past, and that was fine. Eliminating the risks in F1, they have lowered the standards of driving at the same time. If you are nostalgic about the noise of NA V10:12, I am too about the age of gentlemen drivers.
No, i just judge a driver by his full career, not just one season. But yeah he has been driving great lately, he will be a force going forward.
[QUOTE="SimCity3, post: 146691360, member: 185954" The race stewards decide what is acceptable.[/QUOTE] If they have to investigate in the first place, that means there was something suspicious or at least controversial. Clean passes don't get their scrutiny, do they?
I value their opinion too, like yours BTW, but that doesn't mean I accept them without questioning them. F1 is going through a difficult period, but that doesn't mean that anythin different is better. Because of safer cars, and forgiving tracks, the standards are lower than they have ever be, and it's staggering to see that they become the norm now. What does that tell the aspiring racers in the lower categories? That motor racing is a contact sport? I though it was all about driving SKILLS.
There has been contact in F1 through the decades. Often unavoidable when two drivers are entering the same piece of tarmac. The skill lies in both drivers exiting the corner without damage.
I see that most sports try to maintain some sort of fair play and discipline, but F1 is constantly hesitating in following the rules it edicts. Yes it's frustrating to me, I admit, because I have followed F1 for 58 years now and I see its values desintegrating years after years.
If the rules are bad they must be changed, not randomly (or purposefully) applied depending on who breaches them.
