Interesting points from Brundle and it is interesting to note that similar punishments have been handed out in the past - be it the best part of 20 years ago - for race start incidents; "Romain Grosjean has had so many first lap incidents that it simply can't be bad fortune. Either he assumes others will yield, he lacks spatial awareness, or he is simply too aggressive and wild and needs to calm down. I think a one race ban is fully deserved. My team-mate Mika Hakkinen received a ban in 1994 for causing a first corner shunt in Hockenheim. So did Eddie Irvine in 1994 for causing a shunt in Brazil which as it happened nearly killed me, although frankly given all the circumstances of that shunt, my McLaren had just lunched its engine as he followed me three abreast, I thought his penalty was unfair." He also eludes to the point some have made on here already that whilst in no way was Lewis liable for even partial blame, could he have taken avoiding action (A point I was making in the Vettle/Button start at Suzuka)? "I can't help but wonder if Lewis could have done a little more to try to avoid the contact, just as with Maldonado back in the closing stages of the Valencia European GP. In both cases Lewis was at zero fault, but he still needs to finish the race. He might just have lifted off, braked slightly, or moved a half a metre further right to avoid his car being collected by the errant Lotus. It's like having some clown pulling out in of a T Junction immediately in front of you, it's all his fault but there still no point in having the accident if you can avoid or minimise it." Its worth considering.
I agree with all of this, but in mitigation of Schumacher on Barrichello, that incident posed a low risk to cars other than the two involved. Maldonado needs to be dealt with due to the frequency of his dangerous behavior, but it's a similar story with him. The line that the stewards seem to be drawing is that once you start posing significant danger to cars other than the two involved in a move, that is the point at which they will start to consider something more drastic than a grid drop or time penalty.
Thinking about bans for dangerous driving, there used to be an awful lot more than there are now. Surely a ban would be more punishment to a driver than a drive-thru or grid penalty? We don;t want drivers to be scared of going for an overtake, but blatant squeezing of another driver should be stopped. Previous bans/severe penalties for dangerous driving:- Michael Schumacher 1997 Eddie Irvine 1994 Mika Hakkinen 1994 Nigel Mansell 1989 (but also black flag issue as well as taking out Senna) Ayrton Senna 1989 (licence suspended but later reinstated) Bernd Schneider 1987 Monaco GP practice (DSQ for enitre weekend following practice crash with Alboreto) Why not have a totting up process? 3 drive-thru penalties means a 1 race ban? It's all a bit dramatic but there are certain drivers, Grosjean, Maldonado, Hamilton, Massa who all seem to be in contact with other cars. Is it a lack of respect for their rivals or just plain bad driving?
Was always going to happen. It's interesting that he got the Renault testing job in the first place given that he hardly set the world alight at Virgin (albeit he did beat Glock on several occasions, and beat him in the overall WDC) - perhaps Renault saw something that we'd all missed. After all, I remember some bloke called Alfonso or something who went from a back-marker team to be Renault's test driver seemingly out of nothing. Wonder what happened to him
There was nothing wrong with Schumacher's pit entry. It's ridiculous that we're talking about non incidents in a thread where we were discussing a very serious incident.
Numbers of collisions of this sort have definitely gone down- we used to see multi-car pile-ups pretty often. But contact between one or two cars is still very common- think of Spa alone we had Maldonado hitting Glock and Kovalainen and Karthikeyan's pitlane collision. On a different note, I would've liked to have seen Rubens Barrichello get Grosjean's seat- it would've enabled the F1 community to give him a proper send-off after the uncertainty in Brazil last year prevented one.
Interesting comments from Vettle. He makes reference to Grosjean NOT being a discussion point in driving briefings which seems to contradict the Stewards who autosport "claim" have been "Watching Grosjean" after being involved in several incidents. http://www1.skysports.com/formula-1/news/12475/8058156/Vettel-Grosjean-penalty-harsh-
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/19509199 BBC's compilation of Grosjean's first lap crashes, but it's a bit difficult to see how he can be blamed for all of them. In Monaco he was avoiding a Ferrari, at Silverstone the Force India chopped across him, and he looks like the victim in 2 or 3 of the others. Maybe he just ends up qualifying amongst a bunch of drivers, none of whom want to yield. And, I agree with Brundle - an increasingly rare event! Although Grosjean was to blame for the collision with Hamilton last week, Hamilton took no avoiding action at all. Checking the onboard video again, there is absolutely no steering wheel reaction as Grosjean obviously swings across towards him. Weird.
He's caused 2 accidents. Malaysia and Spa. All the rest he was a victim of circumstance. I saw the Silverstone one for the first time yesterday. I dont see what Grosjean did in Spa what Di Resta didnt in Silverstone. He just chops him and then moans as usual.
Aus- Maldo's fault Mal- wet conditions Spa- Perez fault Mon- Cars around him pushing him Gbr- Di resta's fault Ger- snapped brake. didnt effect anyone else bel- lol
But we do love a scapegoat. If d'Ambrosio gets tagged this weekend perhaps we could blame the number on the car?
I was the first to defend Hamiltons reaction of the crash at Spa, but after looking onboard with Lewis closely you can see he could of moved a few inches to the right and that crash might of never happend. You see Romain hit Lewis' tyre within a few inches while Lewis had about just under a meter of room to his right, looking from that position he could of avoided it if he tried but of course there's still the problem of a wall being there so Lewis had the right to hold his line regardless. I decided to call it a racing incident but of Grosjeans fault! Inches we are on about here though, inches! But inches could be a matter of life and death, 1st place or 2nd place etc...
Its also difficult to tell whether Lewis keeps his foot in it after the collision rather than backing out - he does seem to push Grosjean down the track. I'm not saying he did because he made have had suspension damage or brake damage at that point. I dont blame Lewis in anyway for tha incident but I do agree with Brundle's comments (and others on here) that he may have been able to have reduced the severity.
Once Hamilton had been tagged he was in no position to slow the car down anywhere near the rate the others were able to brake. Grosjean drove across the whole length of the track to run into Hamilton and I think the penalty was partly linked to the fact that Grosjean made such a drastic move in the direction of another drivers car. Theres a chance that Hamilton could have yielded but then your essentially saying that its ok to drive/squeeze other drivers. Theres been incidents like this in the past where one car has squeezed another and the opinion has usually been that its the one who squeezes fault.
Watch it again and you'll see Hamilton does move towards the white line before impact. I find any suggestion that Hamilton could have prevented that a bit laughable. It would be like me suggesting Kobi could have prevented Hamiltons collision with him last year at Spa.
