FORMULA 1 GRAN PREMIO DE MÉXICO 2019: QUALIFYING *** SPOILERS ***

Max lol. Not a genius but great at arrogance. Punk!

Q (Scott Mitchell – Autosport) To all three please. Just to go back to Valtteri’s crash and the yellow flag at the end of Q3. Is it clear among drivers and with the rulemakers what you can get away with, with a yellow flag – and also is it realistic to expect you to back off all that much in qualifying when all that’s on the line?

CL: Yeah, of course, I think it’s clear for everyone that when there’s a yellow flag you need to slow down. On my side, the crash was behind, so I cannot judge that situation but yeah, I think it’s clear for every driver. It’s the basics.

Anything more you’d like to say on this topic Max?

MV: No, I think we all know what a yellow flag means.

Q: (Lawrence Edmondson – ESPN) Why didn’t you back off then, if you saw the yellow?

MV: Well, it doesn’t matter, does it?

Q: Well it might, if the FIA look into it.

MV: Well, then delete my lap. The second. The other lap was fine as well.

Q: Not from a safety perspective? Any concerns?

MV: Do we have to go there? To safety? I think we know what we are doing – otherwise we would not be driving an F1 car. It’s qualifying and, yeah, you go for it. But like I said before, if they want to delete the lap, then delete the lap.

 

Irrespective of a yellow flag or not; he could clearly see a car in the wall on the exit of the corner and common sense would say you slow down; but then this is max and it’s also last corner of the last lap in quali!

 

The stewards and the FIA should be reprimanded for failing to do anything until Max owned up.

 

It all seems to me to sum him up: Quick. Arrogant. Stupid.

I still think he'll win the race though.

 

I love what Max told them. 100% honest, without contrition. The epitome of going down with the ship. Refreshing candour.

I don’t know what Bottles hit at the end of his slide but officials/safety marshals obviously missed something. It should have been rounded off to avoid what became a severe impact. Wally was extremely fortunate not to have suffered more than a knee bruise and a simulated asthma attack.

Again, kudos to Di Resta. He’s really on point these days with his insight. His take on Vettel finally coming to grips with the car is F1 driver intuitive. I find I’m paying more attention to his musings more than anyone else on the Sky team. He’s on another level imho.

This could be a greasy Mexican GP. Scattered T showers on the forecast might placate tire wear concerns.

Checo will finish top eight after Saints and Average Al. .

#1 Manufactured media drama : Bottles chance at winning the WDC.

 

Not the smartest move from Max - he was on provisional pole and the yellow flag meant everybody had to be slower, so why risking - and taking - a penalty?

 

Indeed, but in your Q lap you are full of adrenaline and that push you to the limits. If you are in your 10th+ year of F1 (SV) your brain works. Nevertheless the system that informs a pilot with flags did not work. Not a smart move from MV but understandable.

still a good chance he will win though. Would be epic. BTW what with the small Pirelli tyre. Does he have to handle that over to CL? Personally?

ciao
Oscar

 

It was nice to wake up to this news, really stupid behaviour from Max on track and attitude in press conference.
I have Dutch and Belgian friends who also think he is not too bright CF two first turn crashes at Spa in recent years in front of his fans.

Max van Der Bonehead.

 

It's an attitude that is not out of character for Max, unfortunately.
Stupid comments like these are to be expected; he can't do no wrong in his eyes.
In my book, he truly deserves the label of "fast idiot" Nelson Piquet invented.

 

It's almost pointless to watch F1 live, if the results always change afterwards.

 

You have a point there !

 

Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

It doesn't really matter.

It's a much more interesting race when Max starts behind a few other cars.

Pole to first corner victory cruise, ala Mercedes, is bad box office for F1

 

I didn’t hear that observation from DiResta, but I have noticed that Seb seems very relaxed this weekend. On camera and in pictures, he is smiling. Charles, in contrast, seems more tense and very serious.

It’ll be interesting to see if that has any carryover to the race.

 

It'll be interesting to see if those perspectives are because Charles was told to stay behind Seb.
We'll see who gets to T1 first.

 

I have a feeling Seb and Charles are going to take each other out on Lap 1, or at least compromise their races, Max will be Mad Max and drive thru the field with Lewis pulling over to clinch the championship and avoiding a scrap with Max

 

Raised by an idiot arrogant person. Follows closely it appears. Happy he opened his stupid arrogant mouth and was punished. Sadly it took that for the Stewards to do their basic job.

 

So much for that theory.....

 

Not today lol. Not on pole. Risk strategy and beat inept faster red team lol. Entertaining early on. I’ve given up on Ferrari this year. Done!

 

https://www.espn.co.uk/f1/story/_/id/27945872/verstappen-comments-did-not-trigger-mexico-city-penalty-investigation-confirms-fia

MEXICO CITY -- The controversy over the penalty that cost Max Verstappen pole position at the Mexican Grand Prix continued after the race had concluded at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.

Verstappen started from fourth after being demoted Saturday evening for ignoring yellow flags at the end of his final qualifying lap in Q3. The Dutchman had followed Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel past the wrecked Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas, which eventually triggered yellow flags to be waved at the final corner.

Under the yellow flag regulations, drivers must "reduce their speed and be prepared to change direction," and "it must be clear that a driver has reduced speed and, in order for this to be clear, a driver would be expected to have braked earlier and/or discernibly reduced speed in the relevant marshalling sector." The stewards decided Verstappen had not done this but, speaking on Sunday evening, the Red Bull driver felt that was a double standard.

"The rule is very clear," Verstappen said after finishing sixth Sunday in a frustrating race that saw him clash with both Hamilton and Bottas in the opening laps. "The only thing I want to say about it from my side is, because there were a lot of comments about it, and looking back, for sure I should've lifted -- but then everybody should do the same.

"And I know Seb did the same, but one silver [Mercedes] car didn't. And then he doesn't get a penalty, and that annoys me as well. But it is what it is. I can't decide for other drivers about the rules."

As one of the main talking points of the weekend, FIA race director Michael Masi explained how the entire thing had unfolded. He confirmed Vettel had lifted and Hamilton had not been shown a yellow flag in time.

"Lewis' one was quite easy -- there was no yellow flag, even though the marshal did an amazing job at that point and showed the yellow flag relatively quickly, there was none for Lewis," Masi said. "But for Sebastian and Max there was."

Max's comments irrelevant to outcome
Max Verstappen was stripped of pole position for ignoring cautionary yellow flags at the Mexican Grand Prix. Dan Istitene/Getty Images
There was speculation after the incident that the investigation had been triggered by Verstappen's comments in the post-qualifying press conference.

When Verstappen confirmed he knew he was approaching a crashed car, he was asked if he had slowed down.

At that he smirked and said: "It didn't really look like it did it? No."

Asked why he didn't back off, Verstappen added: "It doesn't matter does it?"

When asked whether he had driven in an unsafe manner, he said: "Do we have to go there? To safety? I think we know what we are doing -- otherwise we would not be driving an F1 car.

"It's qualifying and, yeah, you go for it. But like I said before, if they want to delete the lap, then delete the lap."

The official summons for Verstappen to visit the stewards came after these comments had been made to the media.

When asked if Verstappen would have been investigated regardless of what he had said, Masi replied: "100 percent. By the time I had referred it to the stewards and told the stewards the matter was to be looked at ... it was after that that Max's comments came to light."

He explained why the process took such a long time.

"We were actually looking at it straight away. But with the sequence of what happened, the primary thing was Valtteri's health, getting the medical car out there, making sure he was all OK.

"Being at the end of the session, that was one part. The second part was then once that happened getting the car back to the team, third element repairing the circuit for the next activity, so as my role as the safety delegate I went out there to make sure that everything was there in position.

"[When I got] back to the office and start working through the data that exists and looked over all three cars that were after Valtteri's incident -- which was Lewis, Sebastian and Max -- and reviewed all three of them. So once I did that and looked at all the video evidence and the data ..."

Masi went on to confirm that the severity and location of Bottas' accident had affected the situation as it severed the sensors at the marshal posts, which would have allowed yellow flags to be activated on the LED boards around the circuit and in the cockpit of any car approaching the area.

"The traditional flags of single yellow, double yellow, green flag, white flag, slippery surface red and yellow, are all operated by the marshal operator at that point. So they each have a panel, press a button and bang that activates it.

"Safety Car, red flag, VSC is all operated from race control. So effectively all those that have to be activated simultaneously at all points are operated by us at race control.

"With the incident yesterday, Valtteri's impact severed the chord from the guy pressing the button, so he could have pressed it as many times as he wanted, but the impact severed the chord. At that point there's no ability for the light panel to get a signal. So that's that part of it."