yup thats right only 9. Good that Ferrari clinched some points out of the afternoon. Moving on to Nurburgring.... Only 1 week to go.
MS was simply warming his brakes up ... they do this all the time!, and yes a following driver should be expecting this in any form of motorsport when following a SC. MS did this earlier on the same lap and JPM did not hit him then!. There was no mechanical failure, JPM was simply asleep as was Button many years ago (first season) and spun off when this happened in front of him. Saying that JPM did miss MS ... almost, but it was a pity to ruin a race like this. Montoya has appologised and as with ROAD accidents it is always the following cars fault. BTW: Montoya was not penalised as it was deemed a racing incident. In the end this was another case of MS not using his brain ... it is hard to see in the tunnel, these cars do not have brake lights so why do the warming up in the tunnel?. Thus not smart, but he was entitled to do it ... but again not smart. In the end I think MS would have given Trulli a hard time and we would have had the best race this season ... Pete
Well, yeah, perhaps... it looked more like he was flat spotting his tires to me... I think he felt an imbalance (perhaps he had flatspotted the other side earlier) and waited until just the right moment and flatspotted the other side to even things out. The tire was locked for many, many feet... not your typical brake or tire warming. In fact, brakes don't really get too hot under lock up... just the tires do... but only 1/8th of the tire... Whatever. I'm not sure what caused it, but I'm fairly sure it wasn't intentional.
Looks like a bad place to be doing the brake warming thing in the tunnel after. Poor visibility since eyes may not have fully adjusted and you have all that "clag". Get a little of line and tap the brakes. You get an unexpected lock up. Also JPM may have not expected it and with the sudden change of light. Well, it apears to be a combination of mistakes in judgement where Micheal got the short end of that one. On the street, JPM is at fault for not maintaining space in front of him. But this is raceing and I only have armchair/web/video game experience. Certainly not a racing expert. It was an eventful race though.
Two small disagreements... first, it is not always the following cars fault on the street. If the car in front does something to cause an accident, they can and will be held liable. At least in the USA I know that to be true. Second, MS is frequently criticized for using the rules to his maximum advantage, even if it is not in the spirit of the rules. I think MS probably knew JPM was pretty close - I don't think he's an airhead driver. Was slamming on his brakes to the point of lockup and cutting to the right really just "warming up the brakes"? Maybe its not against the rules, but it certainly is not too bright. And was it coincidence it happend in the tunnel and when it was JPM behind him? Who knows... only MS does, and he would never admit otherwise. I think that those who are saying it's JPM's fault would feel entirely the opposite had it been JPM in front and MS behind that hit him. Take the bias out of it, and it was poor judgement on MS's part, overzealousness on JPM's part, and the two of them probably contributed in part. As it happens, MS lost out. Take a risk, sometimes you lose, like he did today. The stewards absolved both of blame, and they have the job of making informed and fair decisions.
MS has done this before! Whats up with his braking? 1995 Imola Grand Prix, MS was reported to have been "brake testing" when going into a corner, thus making him stop very short, Damon Hill, who was pursuing MS' position misjudged his braking point and collided with MS; MS at was racing for Benneton at the time. MS and Hill were actually under fire at the time for their dangerous racing tactics and were warned by the FIA after the "stunt." Benneton soon came back with evidence stating MS was not at fault...so on and so on.. I found this in AutoCourse the Grand Prix Annual. -jt
IMO...Shumi did this one to himself... Locking up in front of others is a mistake...nothing else... Trulli deserved the 1st place, there is no doubt about it...Jenson for 2nd was a very good one. Their chase to the finish was very entertaining. Poor Ruben was left alone to drive and enjoy the view....ha ha...I am glad to this the result like this...
One MAJOR point to consider here! We all know there is no love loss between JPM and MS. The fact that JPM apologized to Ferrari for hitting Michael indicates to me that he did feel some degree of (or complete) responsibility for hitting Michael. Maybe he was too close or maybe he did not expect such sudden deceleration from Michael. I am sure it was not intentional or JPM would have blamed Michael for locking up for no good reason and causing the accident. Instead - he apologized and probably realized he should have given Michael a little more room.
Okay I am a fan of Michael, a fan of Ferrari, and own a Ferrari, however. I don't think that it was Pablo's fault. I don't know what Michael was thinking when he slammed on the breaks, but I think it was pretty crafty. Now I may be sturring the pot here with this, but could it be possible that Michael was trying to cause what happend to him to the guys in back? I was really think about this, and that just dawned on me. Michael was in the front and hadn't made his second pitstop, while Trulli and Button already had. They were behind Schumacher with a pad of a car between them. So Michael slowed way down, causing the field to bunch up. Then, he SLAMS on the breaks to keep them "warm". Could it be that he was hoping to cause either Trulli or Button to slam into the back of Juan Pablo. Hey, I would have tried the same thing. You may just knock everyone out. I think the plan just back fired, that's all.
Read my post again (gosh some of you cannot read at all ) ... I'm pretty damn sure I said it was stupid driving by MS, ie. he put himself in a position where he could get hit (just like Montoya at Imola) ... but this is how MS warms his brakes/tyres/competitors up all the time. This has nothing to do with the rules and MS did not do this to stuff JPM ... please get off that case. Please give me an example in where it is the car in fronts fault (excluding stopping and then reversing ). In NZ and Australia it is the following cars responsibility to follow at the correct distance to stop no matter what the car infront does ... and if JPM had a brain he would have kept a safe distance, like Trulli did. Again to clarify the HIT was JPM's fault that was caused by MS being stupid and warming up something in a dark tunnel, thus even stevens as MS has to take some of the blame too ... MS has ocassionally made these stupid mistakes, and will continue to do so, as I think MS is not good when not racing. Pete
Brian, The television images I saw did not show the complete incident ... I think there might already have been contact and the brake lockup was AFTER JPM's first hit ???? It is a pity when we have all these modern cameras and stuff and we still miss the important stuff ... Pete
BS... locking up a wheel does not warm the brakes much at all (almost none at all)... to warm the brakes big time, keep your foot on the gas and brake gently such that you don't slow down much at all... but keep riding the brake... after about 30s, your brakes will be damned hot!! Brake warming is just BS. Now, you could argue he was brake testing... he wanted to make sure his prior warming had the brakes up to par... to do that, a quick stab to make sure you can lock them up would make sense (if you can lock up the tires, you've got the max braking possible to test at that time). But a guy like MS can easily feel that he has lock-up with just a momentary lock... he doesn't need to leave a 40-foot strip of rubber on the road. So, while a tiny lock-up and a puff of tire smoke would not be a surprise, an extended lock-up and a lot of tire smoke is not normal or expected. You could argue that he was tire warming. Indeed rubber gets hot when locked up. But not uniformly... only the small tire patch will be getting hot. Worse, you don't really want to flat spot your tires... bad for performance. Sooo, unless there was a mechanical failure, MS (at the very least) made a mistake there... either he goofed and locked up his tires inordinately long on accident while brake testing... or he goofed in his intentional brake test of JPM. If the car in front swerves into your lane in front of you and then slams on the brakes before you have a chance to establish adequate following distance, then they can be found at fault. Of course, you have to prove they did that. More relevant to this case, the street the car in front will be at fault if their brake lights are shown to not be working. Note that MS's brake lights were NOT working. So, MS would be at fault on the street! But this discussion of street rules is irrelevant! How boring would the races be if the cars kept "proper on-street following distances"... they'd be hanging back a dozen car lengths going into the corners! Street rules do not apply on the racetrack!!!
One was an auto maker's publicity nightmare: the bright red HONDA on the BAR wing disappearing in a cloud of white smoke, shot from the on car camera. The other was FA shaking his fist at RS whilst exiting the tunnel in reverse direction after smaking the wall. Why did FA feel Ralf was at fault in this incident? A third would be those incredible on car shots looking staight ahead at full speed, it looked like the track was about ten feet wide! I liked Trulli's comment about the end of the race, "Everything was under control".
It was also a bad weekend for Jaguar: Somebody even stole the 300k Diamond from Klien's crashed car. As much as I like Alonso, that was his own fault, no need for the finger. I liked that Trulli comment as well. Hopefully he has now learned how to win races. Some drivers are like this and start winning races (Hakkinen), others never do it again (Alesi, Panis).
The accident was MS fault 100%. JPM did all he could to avoid hitting the fool when he locked up his brakes. MS has done this type of crap before when he knew he couldn't win so he tries to take out his rival. Remember Japan a few years ago. It's MS that should be sanctioned by FIA, not JPM.
That might be a bit harsh. I agree MS is at fault. I just wonder, whether JPM would have hit him even if MS hadn't locked up his brakes. In that case JPM would have the egg on his face. Anyway, to some degree MS did deserve this outcome. As you said, MS does this crap quite often: Check out his "erratic" driving behind the pace car in past races. In Monza it even caught Button out and he crashed. What goes around comes around.
Please explain to me why MS would need to test his brakes in the tunnel when the next time he was going to need them was at St. Devote? How long do F1 cars keep heat in their brakes? I would have to say MS did this on purpose. He had plenty of other opportunities to warm up his brakes and to test them - but he chose to do it in the tunnel?
Everycar was doing it. It's how you keep temperature in the tires and brakes. Long story short, they were too close {JM fault} and MS was roasting his tires and brakes in "not the best place". Why would he do it on purpose??? He had nothing to gain.
