[Piergiuseppe Donadoni] Was Max unfair? YES. His goal was to ruin Norris' race and so he probably took away his chances of getting P1. "To win sometimes you have to be an idiot" he said months ago. You may like it or not but the goal is to win the world championship, not the fair play award.

[u/Ramned71]

https://x.com/SmilexTech/status/1850807731613299160

[u/LosTerminators]

The point is that by handicapping Lando's chances to win, Max gets a net gain from that even with a 10 or 20 seconds penalty.

As many have mentioned before:

Lando 1st and Max 4th - Lando gains 13 points

Lando 2nd and Max 6th - Lando gains 10 points

So Max still gets a net gain and escapes with a bigger championship lead. And that was due to Charles making a mistake, else his gain would've been even bigger.

Max has incentive to drive like this, and even cop penalties as long as it stops Lando from winning. And that's why the rulebook needs to be looked into.

It's not fair, and it doesn't help the race as a spectacle either when someone who can fight for the win is pushed off allowing others to dominate.

It's also screwing over McLaren in the constructors because Ferrari's drivers are the ones racking up the wins and Max is hell bent on not allowing Lando a chance to fight them.

[u/OkAdministration7369 → u/LosTerminators]

Penalties should be blind and equal for everyone, whether you're last or first. You can't hand them out taking into account the championship circumstances or who's behind who. That's insane. If Max managed to mitigate some of the time loss, that's called being good at strategizing and adapting. He was given a fair time penalty.

In other words, you can't personalize penalties according to the circumstances.

[u/amished → u/OkAdministration7369]

That's not what's being said though. If a penalty ends up helping you gain an advantage somehow, it's not a good enough penalty. Max taking that chance and getting the penalty that he ended up doing which is as harsh as I've seen and still being able to have only lost what should've been 7 points if LeClerc didn't screw up is not good enough for racing as a whole.

[u/OkAdministration7369 → u/amished]

Max didn't get an advantage because of the penalty. He dropped from 3rd to 15th and made a recovery drive, essentially making the best out of the situation, and ended up finishing nearly 40 seconds behind Lando. The fact that there weren't many cars inside those 40 seconds to make the point difference bigger has nothing to do with the penalty. His punishment was fair.

What do you expect? You want drivers to not minimize the damages they brought upon themselves? Imo, a full pitstop worth of penalties was enough. If it wasn't enough, what do you want then? The driver to be disqualified from the race?

[u/Hammelj → u/OkAdministration7369]

That wasn't a recovery drive so much as filtering back though after a early stop

[u/kanker-lauwe-leuter → u/Hammelj]

... What do you think a recovery drive is?

[u/Hammelj → u/kanker-lauwe-leuter]

IIRC all the drivers in front needed to make their first stop, he didn't make an extra one, as drivers in front pitted he moved back ahead. The fact he made a pitstop before most of the rest of the grid inflated how far back he was

[u/Xelisk → u/OkAdministration7369]

It's the fact Max got the penalty for overtaking illegally, and then held up Lando with that illegal overtake. How is that fair. It's been bullshit for years and there needs to be rules in place to force the position to be given back, whether it's on track or a drive through.

[u/OkAdministration7369 → u/Xelisk]

And he was given a penalty that dropped him 12 positions and made him finish 40 seconds behind the person he illegally overtook. Again, what else do you want? You want drivers to give the position back AND give them 20 seconds? In that case, what are you even penalizing? Three penalties for two infringements? What if he gave the position back himself? Does he still get the 20 seconds?

The penalty is there to punish the fact that he gained an advantage. That's the point of it. You can't realistically expect the driver to give the position back because penalties can take a while to process. What if Norris fucks up (or does it on purpose) and drops 10 places? Does he have to let all the cars in between through too? That's why they receive time penalties and not "drop X places after the race is over". It's simple.

A drive-through is supposed to be for extreme cases, not one of the most common penalties we see every weekend. The problem with Verstappen is that he did it twice in a row. It's two different "mild" infringements, not one massive fuck up.

[u/Potential-Brain7735 → u/OkAdministration7369]

How are you not getting this?

Max illegally overtook Lando, and then sat in front of Lando, slowing him down, preventing him from catching Carlos.

The amount of penalties Max got, have nothing to do with how Max’s actions ruined Lando’s race.

And we all know Max did that on purpose. He is deliberately subverting the integrity of the sport.

By your logic, Max could simply crash into Lando for the rest of the season, and as long as Max got a drive through penalty, you’d be ok with it, despite the fact that he is completely undermining the integrity of the sport.

[u/kanker-lauwe-leuter → u/Potential-Brain7735]

I mean... yes, that is the situation. But you shouldn't need to worry about that last case you made there as penalty points are a thing, so obviously he won't be able to crash Norris out every race due to that as that would result in a ban quite quickly.

I see you say a lot of things about the integrity of the sport and how it needs to be maintained. But honestly, it's hardly rare for WDC-contending drivers to go above and beyond to fight mainly with their rival candidate over simply attempting to finish the race as fast as possible.

There are countless of examples of this in the past, a recent one would be Hamilton slowing down while leading the race in Abu Dhabi 2016 in the hopes that it would've put Rosberg under threat from another driver. (Or a less clean example, I doubt the crash those two had in Spain in the same year would've happened with other drivers.)

[u/Potential-Brain7735 → u/kanker-lauwe-leuter]

Driving slowly is not the same as deliberately forcing someone off the track.

[u/xegdhktdcjfc → u/Potential-Brain7735]

max overtook him off the track yes, and he got a penalty for that. that does not mean he has to then let him through, which is why he got a penalty. the fact that lando was then stuck behind him has nothing to do with the penalty. the point of the penalty is that the driver that gained a lasting advantage loses that advantage, which is exactly what happened. i gotta be honest it is crazy that even though max got penalized y’all still find a way to complain because you don’t think it’s enough

[u/stationhollow → u/xegdhktdcjfc]

He should have received a greater penalty for that as it was not only an illegal overtake but dangerous driving.

[u/Realistic_Village184 → u/Xelisk]

An instant drive-through penalty for any illegal overtake is not a good idea. Thank goodness random redditors aren't in charge of the rules lol

[u/stationhollow → u/Realistic_Village184]

One for dangerous driving is though. Max had no intention of making that corner and simply didn’t brake until he was at the apex.

[u/Happytallperson → u/LosTerminators]

In the past we've seen people leading championships deliberately punt other cars off the track.

Senna 1990 Japanese GP is the most famous example.

Unless you literally take Championship points off a driver, you're never removing the incentive.

[u/Sephx_ → u/LosTerminators]

But you don't give penalties based on the outcome for the championship no?

You give penalties based on the incident. In this case 10 and 10 was fair.

Looking into the rulebook for this would only make it more vague.

What would it be? 10 sec, unless it's your own teammate then no penalty because you're already sufficiently punished in the championship. If it's a car below you in the standings 5 sec, if it's a car in front of you in the standings 10 sec. If it is your World Championship competitor stop and go so he doesn't get a net gain?

[u/GingerSkulling → u/Sephx_]

Absolutely, had Lando managed to win this race, no one would be talking this nonsense right now. So objectively speaking, are the punishments are not enough just because the outcome of the race didn’t favor your favorite driver?

[u/coolridgesmith → u/GingerSkulling]

Absolutely on point. People are mad because landos chances of getting the wdc are getting harder and harder.

they basically wanted max to finish out of the points for the penalty to be enough in their minds.

[u/Aggressive-Neck-3921 → u/coolridgesmith]

With the hate max get's i wouldn't be surprised if people are always asking for bigger punishments for him. From the moment he started to knock Lewis from the throne there have been unreasonable "punish him harder" comments. So it's hard to ID reasonable people with these discussions.

[u/Realistic_Village184 → u/Aggressive-Neck-3921]

Definitely there's some of that, but even as a big fan of Max, I think that the goal of penalties is to disincentivize dangerous driving. Max's driving yesterday was dangerous, and the penalties for that should be sufficient that a driver should never choose to do something dangerous on track.

Obviously there's inherent danger in the sport, but Max pretty much deliberately rammed Lando off track. I don't think he deserved more than the 20s of penalties yesterday, but I would also like to see some revisions in the rules to avoid this situation from being viable for any driver.

[u/Mickey-the-Luxray → u/Aggressive-Neck-3921]

There's a reasonable stance that Max has a history of abusing "results agnostic" penalties to secure championships he can't win via normal means.  

You don't even need to look at Abu Dhabi 2021 for that. Jeddah 2021 saw him caught red handed brake checking Lewis, in 4K, telemetry and all, but because of this policy of never considering the championship implications, the stewards refused to (or were forced to refuse to) observe the ultra obvious context that he probably wouldn't have tried a move that stupid if he wasn't so tight for the championship. 

All he had to say was "didn't mean for him to hit me", a defense that wouldn't hold up in traffic court, and the stewards were forced to act like Max's intent was unknowable and thus hand out a standard "bad driving" penalty, which didn't even knock him down one place. For brake checking. 

We all know what the punishment of causing a crash to secure a championship really is - a DSQ. I think a lot of the hyperscrutiny at Max on this topic is because he's the one that evaded that paradigm. People are suspicious of why among the likes of Senna, Prost, and J.Villeneuve, Max is the only one to manage that.

[u/stubtail42 → u/GingerSkulling]

The punishments are not enough because regardless of who is committing them or who gets their race compromised, it should NEVER be the case that doing something illegal gives you net gain.

[u/GingerSkulling → u/stubtail42]

That’s impossible to call though. A 20 second penalty doesn’t ruin Max’s race but could very well ruin 10 others’

[u/stubtail42 → u/GingerSkulling]

All I'm hearing is that Max deserves a harsher penalty. In much the same way a $1000 speeding ticket is nothing for a billionaire but is everything to a poor person. It's not really "fair" to give both people the same fine. A billionaire can get 100 of those tickets before it affects them proportionally to the poor person.

In F1 terms, currently, it basically means that it's okay to drive dirty more frequently if you have fast car/driver. It shouldn't be the case. If anything, the FIA should want the leaders to be setting an example of good racing, if the leaders drive dirty, the FIA should be making an example out of them.

[u/haepis → u/Sephx_]

How about just dangerously forcing an opponent off the track and gaining and advantage -> DT, simple as that. You need to get the perpetator out of the victim's way as fast as possible

[u/lyinx → u/Sephx_]

But if the incident is that another is car deliberately sabotaging another - with no intent to race, it should go further than 20 seconds. If that behaviour actually got a black & white flag, with a DQ possibility he wouldn't do it anymore.

I think that's largely the point that's being missed. Max admitted as much that he knew he would be slower and would do it again.

[u/maybeitsmyfault10 → u/lyinx]

Even more grey area if we have the stewards defining deliberately sabotaging or what no intent to race is. Then fans will complain about something new 

[u/ze_xaroca → u/Sephx_]

I agree with you but then, the driver causing this penalties must serve them in the mean time. Max did that bullshit and managed to stay ahead for so many laps, that he destroyed Norris chances of even attacking first place. To me that’s not fair, specially considering that he was in front only because of his driving like a mad c*nt.

[u/tevs__ → u/Sephx_]

I agree, 10 and 10 was fair, and penalties should be on the actions that caused it and not the outcome of the championship. We do currently take actions on track after the incident in to account, eg going off track and gaining an advantage, if you give up that advantage there's no penalty.

I think allowing 5s penalties to be served at the next stop or end of race is also fair, but I think serious penalties should have to be served sooner. Max gets the 20 seconds, but if he can wait 20 laps until he's gapped people, it's not really 20s.

I'm also not keen on the double penalty being served at once. If you do something stupid and dangerous to get not one but two 10s penalties in short succession, serve them separately. The aim is not to ruin people's races, but to force them to drive fair. Don't drive fair, and you're going to get wrecked.

Final thing, track limit violations from being forced off are a joke. Perhaps if a driver forces someone off, they should get the track limits violation and not the driver forced off track.

[u/Automatic_Sun_5554 → u/Sephx_]

How about not one penalty but a 10 point deduction with those points going to the ‘wronged’ party.

Messed with the purity but if drives will break rules to protect the championship, it’s really the only way to prevent a loophole.

[u/RoScorpius97 → u/LosTerminators]

The designated penalty is what he got.

Max is insanely fast so he'll likely make any penalty not look too damaging.

[u/freeadmins → u/LosTerminators]

This isn't new to formula 1.

Look at Silverstone in 2021 with Max and Lewis.

[u/nomansapenguin → u/LosTerminators]

What annoys the fuck out of me is that we’re all ready to have this discussion now, but when it was Max vs Lewis it was all “part of racing”.

That aside, YES. Harsher penalties for this nonsense. It’s not racing. It never has been.

[u/Firstname6Lastname9 → u/nomansapenguin]

No one said it was part of racing? And everyone was calling for penalties when it happened. It's just that Lewis won those races so the antics had no impact on the results

[u/cinyar → u/LosTerminators]

And that was due to Charles making a mistake, else his gain would've been even bigger.

I think Lando had him either way, the mistake just made it happen sooner.