But D'Ambrosio offered nothing last season, except a good nickname (The custard kid). Oh, it's Boullier, the idiot who dropped Heidfeld for Senna. You may have a very huge point. . (that was the biggest i could do)
I tend to agree with Kyle on this. Despite the impending ban, I do not think it threatens his seat within the team. I believe they have come to appreciate some considerable ability in him; as well as there being little doubt that nationality is in his favour…
1 race ban very harsh 100% Romain's fault 0% Lewis's fault. Jacques Villeneuve once said 'Mistakes should not be punished as much as dirty driving.' I totally agree Maldonado(Spa 2011 to Lewis, Monaco 2012 to Sergio) should be banned for 3 races while Grosjean who made a silly mistake should be given a 1 race ban. Pastor Maldonado is a ****ing prick. Romain Grosjean is a exuberant rookie.
Yeah... in many ways, that's what makes the penalty harsh. There was no intent or malice in it... it was just a head up his arse move, and then intentional contact goes by with very little punishment. An accident is one thing... intent is another that should never be tolerated.
As far as I'm concerned, he races as a Frenchman. Of mixed parentage, he has said himself that he prefers to be thought of as French. And that suits Boullier and Renault very nicely…
I completely agree that the degree of intent may constitute far greater crime. After all, it defines the difference between murder and manslaughter. However, precedents should have been addressed long ago in order to clamp down on recklessness and a lack of appreciation of the circumstances, taking account of intent. This inconsistency is an embarrassment for the motor racing fraternity, very much exacerbated by what has so publicly happened in F1 in the past. Nonetheless, F1 is no place for incompetence and clamping down on it is long overdue.
I hear ya... You make it rather hard to argue against sometimes. I think I'm just inclined to take pity on him... Stupid move, could have ended in tragedy but thankfully didn't. On a different thread, today is one of those days that show that drivers are still vulnerable in the sport, and that those that say "People don't die in F1 anymore" need to rethink. F1 is still very dangerous and the safety aspect should not be taken for granted. '94 came out of the blue... and will happen again one day. Hopefully not for a long time though.
Absolutely right there Sgt! It is all too easy to become complacent with serious injury (or worse) being so rare. As for your first sentence and on a more personal note, perhaps I should apologise: I wasn't arguing, so much as expressing strong feelings, having witnessed too many tragedies and injustices. Like you, I also feel a little sorry for Grosjean (a very pleasant, likeable guy) that he became involved in this; but as others have pointed out, he has tended to look like a loose canon occasionally, with this being clearly the worst example. And despite being difficult to ignore, personal niceties should not form part of the equation when looking at what happens on track. On average, F1's drivers are of the very highest quality, with roughly 75% of the world's top two dozen drivers at any given time. Clear driving errors of this nature – with so much space, yet so much potential for disaster at the same time – should not be present in top quality professional driving. This is why I have been aghast at what has been tolerated for too long. Don't get me wrong: I'm all for a good scrap. But I'm also all for it to be honourable and respectful of the safety of others, as is so beautifully demonstrated most of the time by most Super Licence holders. The background It might be said that Senna A. set the ball rolling and that the tolerance shown to him precipitated some tit-for-tat retaliation from Prost, or vice-versa. It might also be said that repetition of such antics gave a clear indication to a certain upcoming and talented youngster at the time, of what one might get away with; and that he exploited this 'loophole' in etiquette to the absolute maximum, going way beyond the boundaries of what was reasonable, honourable and respectful of one's fellow driver's safety. Not only going unpunished but effectively rewarded for stealing a World Championship (in my view), reinforced the notion that in carrying on like that he could continue to expect to be rewarded for it – which is precisely what happened! It is therefore ironic that the biggest reason Williams did not appeal the Adelaide farce and 1994 World Drivers' Championship decision was because they (and significantly, Damon Hill) were more concerned with the gravity of, and fallout from, a dangerous incident: Senna's death. This really confirmed (to Dick Dastardly) that deliberately putting one's opponent in danger by running a fellow off track was perfectly acceptable. No wonder he made a whole career* on the back of it… Little wonder some drivers may have felt encouraged to adopt similar tactics; although in this I do not include Grosjean, who I believe is not doing it deliberately but through a lack of awareness at critical moments.- - -o0o- - - *To my mind, a sour and often disgraceful one.
The incident was horrific and I do believe that the stewards need to impose the same rules on the lower series so that they are prepared for life in Formula One. Overall, I have to say that of the lower series, the GP3 lads have been more well-behaved than the GP2 field. There was an incident at Monaco where there was a multi-car pile up and I was astounded that no-one got seriously hurt. Anyone who saw the race would have seen the cars everywhere. Surely the culprit who caused that incident should have had a race ban, but I don't think there was any punishment. Absolutely disgraceful! Then we had drivers arriving at the scene failing to touch the brakes meaning that they flying over others. I agree with the comments on consistency and surely this needs to be addressed.
Basically Grosjean has been running a thin line since the start of the 2012 season, Maldonado also has been, but the magnitude of the crash yesterday sent shivers down the spectators spines, and reminded us that a lack of competence for fellow drivers can potentially end in tragedy. Maldonado should have been given a ban of some sort earlier in the season, but weird penalties (3-place grid drop? wtf), and maybe his funding from Venezuela is allowing him to remain ahead of any kind of punishment. His interview with Natalie Pinkham also showed me personally that his driving style, if there is any, is that he wants to provoke a fear into other drivers, as he mentioned with Perez. As Monisha Kaltenborn said yesterday, she thought that being ahead of the mid-field would be an advantage, it was the quality of the field at the top end that led to the incidents. A crash-prone Frenchman and a jump-starting Venezuelan collectively summed up what is wrong with F1 at the moment.
I'm a litle suprised at some of the views on this thread. Grosjean has been involved in something like 7 incidents at the first corner in 12 races. This clearly has to stop. It may only apear to be a racing incident to some people, but it was reckless, completely un-necasary and he was obviously not aware of what was around him. If this was a case of two people coming together mid race that is one thing, but with so many other driver about you can't just drive into what you hope will be a space. It is also not just the crime that is looked at, but the outcome. Two drivers on normal roads doing 20+ the speed limit. if one kills two people and the other doesn't, they don't get punished the same. So one "racing inicident" does not always warrent the same punishment as another. At worst, It could have cost a driver his life, but it did deffinatly ruin a race that thousands of people have put hours into, and £££££'s of pounds taking away the oppertunity for Sauber and Kamui to shine, Alonso to go for the title, Lewis to stay in the hunt and RB to stay midfield. 1 race ban is not exactly harsh imo. (though the stewards were very week giving only a 10k fine for the un safe release, and schumi did nothing wrong on Vettel imo)
The problem is that the stewards explicitly said that they were only considering the incident at the first-corner, they did not take into consideration Grosjean's 7/12 first-lap incidents (which is a misleading statistic given that not all of those were his fault - Australia he got taken out by Maldonado, for instance). As a result, it's kind of strange that they have given this a one-race ban yet have let slip other instances of deliberate crashes this year on the basis that the drivers involved did not affect the outcome of the race so dramatically. Therefore they are essentially condoning the behaviour of other drivers (who shall remain nameless) as long as their incidents do not have the same magnitude as Grosjean's. Which is all kinds of wrong because Grosjean's incident was one of reckless clumsiness, not deliberate and malicious intent as has been seen most notably in the past but more worryingly in the present. No examples given because I'm sure people can come up with their own.
For me I just feel that the stewards this year have failed to consistently and fairly penalise driving issues that had intent in the same manner as a mistake or misjudgement. I also feel that whilst its difficult to defend Grosjean in any way, I do have an element of empathy with his situation due to Charlie in the past being more passive with the rules at the start of race in previous seasons. I do agree with alot of coments reffering to the type of track whereby you have to be more aware at race starts and he has caused/been involved in 2 of the worse incidents at the worst tracks/first corners in Spa and Monaco. However, this is not the first time drivers have cut across the track and expected other drivers to yield, swerve, brake..... and it wont be the last unless there is a new ruling and it is implemented consistently moving forward. Somebody mentioned the HRT taking out several cars in Monza 2011 and I see some similarities in that incident with this one. I also see the similarities with this one aswell which is probably more appropriate to discuss or relate to the Grosjean incident; http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/95217 I mentioned this earlier on. Did vettle technically do the same as Grosjean and was there no penalty because; A) Button Yielded B) Button took evasive action where Lewis probably couldn't C) They were front running drivers If people are able to agree that there are similarities then it would appear that the penalty is for the result rather than the action (which has been discussed previously in the thread) and I think thats a dangerous precident to make!
I think this acts as a warning not just to Grosjean (whose record of first lap incidents is frankly shameful) but to the whole of F1- driving standards are slipping too much, and hopefully now the likes of Maldonado will see the consequences of these stupid decisions- not just in terms of a personal ban, but the safety aspect too. On a completely different note, I found it funny that many websites are so fixated with Schumacher being the last driver banned from F1- wasn't it actually Yuji Ide, after all, the stripping of a superlicense is much more serious than a ban.
Smithers raises a good point about Vettel chopping Button. It is unfortunate that the actual consequences of such tactics, rather than the potential consequences, are perhaps weighed disproportionately, too often. When viewed in the light of Vettel's move on Button (thanks Smithers) and utterly disgraceful stuff like Schumacher on Barrichello which carried no significant penalty, Grosjean's ban seems harsh. But the point is that it has been tolerated far too long and when penalties have been meted out, they have either been too lenient or plain non-existent! As I attempted to explain before, this is the real root of the problem and ultimately, the reason we are discussing this particular penalty.
I have voted that it wasn't deserved, but that is only in relation to other events that have gone unpunished. RG made an error. A bad one but not a malicious one. I am not against his ban, but if this deserves a ban what does deliberately using your car as a weapon deserve? (PM)
I disagree with that statement completely. Compared to 4/5 years ago, the number of incidents has gone down. Rewind the clock, cars with coliding with one another left, right and centre and nothing was being done. Since the stewards have starting penalising, the number of stupid incidents has decreased.
Schumacher was the last driver banned from a race, but that was more a technical infringement (ignoring black flags)at the British GP in 1994, rather than dangerous driving and he wasn't banned until some 3 races after that following various appeals etc. For an immediate dangerous driving ban, you have to go to the next race in Germany in 1994 and to one Mika Hakkinen who was banned from the following Hungarian GP following a first corner collision at Hockenheim. Ironically, his replacement was the, erm, accident prone Phillipe Alliot! So Grosjean's replacement should ideally be someone who is equally adept at ending a race either buried in a gravel trap or harpooning other drivers......... Is Andrea de Cesaris still about?
