F1 2021 Round 15:Russian Grand Prix 2021

I know it would suck for Lando if he was penalised on top of everything else, but he really should have been. It’s a very clear black and white rule, one of the most straightforward in the rule book. The fact that he only broke it by accident doesn’t come into it. Aston Martin didn’t intentionally fail to provide enough fuel at the end of Hungary and they were disqualified, there is simply no consistency.

These sort of grey areas where the stewards are free to make it up as they go along and choose whether or not they want to penalise a clear infraction just further damage trust and leaves you with that niggling feeling that they keep leaving the door open for further controversies and further manipulation of results in the stewards room.

Tsunoda got a time penalty and penalty points for this earlier this season:

The rules need to be applied consistently or it just makes a mockery of the sport. If the rule is now "actually crossing the white line is ok as long as it wasn't intentional" then make that clear for everyone going forward and don't penalise anyone else for what Tsunoda did in future.

Ah, it would have been worse to stay on slicks in the wet weather for another lap. I'm fine with applying a bit of cop on too. Rules for rules sake would have penalised Lando and I think that would have been silly. He crossed the line because he was on the wrong tyre for the conditions. He was coming into the pits to get on the correct (and safe) tyre. I'm fine with the decision.

You could make the point that numerous other cars entered the pit lane without incident while conditions were wet albeit not as bad as when Norris attempted to do so. Still, a top F1 driver ought to accomplish such a manoeuvre irrespective of tyres or weather conditions. He was going too fast entering the pit road. That's all. The stewards decision is a joke. You cannot apply the rules selectively just to suit particular circumstances. He crossed the white line (twice) and should have been punished.

Just because he was "brave" and provided some entertainment doesn't give him an exemption to the rules - as was pointed out every other driver on track managed to pit correctly in the conditions. It's not about being a "jobsworth", it's about being consistent and fair. At the moment the FIA are happy to have really vague application of the rules so they can decide who they want to punish and who they want to turn a blind eye to, and it makes a mockery of the sport.

We've seen some really egregious penalties handed out for little or nothing this year, while major offences have gone barely punished. And now they're even taking the most uncontroversial and simple black-and-white rule in the book and setting the precedent that the stewards can decide on a whim to apply that rule differently whenever they like now too.

A reprimand isn't a complete let off though. It's a sort of post race Black and White flag, the yellow card of motorsport. and as noted by the stewards in the notice posted by Jennie Gow, Lando's first offence. T'sounoda probably got reprimanded for something else earlier in the season so by the time he was wandering the pit line in Austria, that was taken into account and the penalty applied.

Norris had 2 options and chose the safer one, so I’m not massively bothered by the reprimand. The rules allowed him to choose to stay on slicks for the rest of the wet weather so when getting to the point where it’s nearly impossible for him to control the car and it crosses the white line, expecting him to stay out for another lap is just being harsh for the sake of it.

Early on in the season I thought he had shown enough to be useful to Red Bull-he can be very quick, and is happy to be considered the second driver. While he was inconsistent we had some races where he’s been in or about, and has had an impact from a strategic viewpoint. So I’m not surprised at all he secured the drive for 2022.

But yeah, any sort of form he’s had has disappeared since then. Too busy playing catch up or making bad decisions and getting himself out of races. With the Merc dominant tracks out of the way, the home stretch this season could be hugely important for him. He needs to start qualifying consistently in the top 5 to help the team disrupt the Mercs-it could be the deciding factor in where the WDC ends up.

If he can’t do that, he should absolutely be looking over his shoulder. Gasly in the AT has been exactly what he hasn’t been, consistent. He’s massively matured as a driver since his first RB stint IMO, and it wouldn’t be a stretch to think he’s targeting that second RB seat for 2023.

Ah yeah but that's not very realistic. In truth he picked the best option. He chose to come into the pits and take the penalty they gave him and hope the penalty is sensible and not too punitive. And that's what they did. They gave him a reprimand, which is a light punishment, and he didn't lose any more places.

Good decisions by both parties.

Just looking at the data there, and McLaren really lost that race twice. When Lance Stroll broke the pack in two on Lap 12, there was the early pitting group of Russell, Stroll, Sainz - and there were the late pitters of Riccardo, Hamilton, Perez (on hards) with Lando also well ahead of this pack. The key for the late pitters of making that work was getting a pit stop ahead of the early pitters. They were relying on those early pitters (on better tires) getting stuck in traffic behind long runners - which is what happened. Pierre Gasly held them up and stopped them doing better laptimes on worse tires. While there was never a full pit stop there, the late pitters were able to emerge in and around the early pitters, but on much better tires.

Ricciardo lost 29.5 seconds (compared to Lando) during his combined in and out lap including McL making a balls of releasing him from the pits. Hamilton lost 23 seconds pitting a few laps later. When Ricciardo emerged from the pits he was behind Ocon (half a second), Russell (4 seconds) and Stroll (9 seconds). So if he'd managed the same in and out lap as Hamilton he'd have got out behind Stroll and quickly driven up to the back of him.

When Hamilton pitted, he emerged behind Stroll too - and to be fair to Hamilton in the critical part of the race he fairly quickly got past Stroll, Sainz and Gasly on track. But ultimately if McL didn't **** up Ricciardo's pit stop, Hamilton would have (at best) emerged alongside Ricciardo who would easily have driven up behind Stroll. Or at worst (for Hamilton) Ricciardo would have already got past Stroll and be working on Sainz and Gasly. If that's the case, McLaren have a 1-2 when the rain begins. You can't guarantee that from a different position they would have made the same decisions, but Ricciardo was one of the earliest to pit - he pit on Lap 48, same as Max and if he'd been where he could have been on track at that stage he'd have won the race.

It's a sport, it's not a civil service department, enforcing the straightforward rules of the sport evenly is not what "jobsworth" means. If the same rule gets broken by two different drivers, they should both get the same penalty. It's a pretty straightforward principal that most other sports adhere to. No amount of mitigating circumstances change that - the right thing to do for Norris was indeed to cross back in after he missed the turn, but that doesn't mean he shouldn't have gotten a 5 second penalty like any other driver who's broken that rule has gotten.

If the team has concerns that a car might turn into a fireball after some diagnostic tests after qualifying, then the safe thing to do is indeed to break parc ferme and replace the problem parts. But that doesn't mean they won't get penalised for it, that's not how penalties work.

It's not the specific incident with Norris that is concerning, it's the precedent that has been set that yet another rule that should be simple and black and white (what previously was just about the most open-and-shut rule in the sport), is now open for stewards to apply as they see fit and treat different teams and drivers differently meaning there will always be doubts cast over the possibility of result manipulation.

Ricciardo was another victim of the pit stop regulation changes sadly. I really really hope they revisit that as it's causing so many problems. One other thing about that stop was that Mercedes blatantly brought their pit crew out with no intention of making a stop, just to entice McLaren to react. This is explicitly against the rules, yet Merc have done it so many times and a blind eye always gets turned.

While I won't disagree with regards to Perez' qualifying performance, I will say that his race yesterday was quite strong and he was booked for 3rd place before the rain chaos started.

Yeah yesterday was a reasonably solid performance. Reasonably solid performances are against the run of form he's been on recently. We'll see if he can do it again next time.

His races are completely undefined by his abysmal quali pace. He consistently fails to get much within 4 tenths if Max. And is often outquaoifird by some of the ferrari and mclarens (who occasionally have a fast car suited to a particular circuit) but there's no excuse for being out qualified by Gasley in a car that's always slower than his Red Bull.

Even occasionally decent race pace and usually decent tyre management, coupled with consistently very poor quality pace can only really lead to the conclusion that he's about average overall. He can never be top tier with his poor quali and occasionally decent race pace.

No. I don't think I've ever seen a team tell a driver to drop 2 places to let a driver get an extra place. Botas taking the engine penalty is the most I've ever seen a team do to help the main driver.

Next year could be and hopefully will be the end of Mercedes dominance of the sport. I have no problem if they are still competitive and racing at the front but I hope Ferrari, Mclaren, Alpine and Red Bull will all be up there too so we will get a great year hopefully. We will just have to wait till next year to see but with Mercedes resources you can be sure they will be up at the front or still near it next year. Still this could be there year equivalent to Red Bulls year in 2014.

Lewis got a 5 second time penalty in the 2019 German grand prix for cutting across the pit lane entrance.

Well Lewis got a penalty that time in Germany it was a similar weather issue and he also had a damaged front wing which was even more dangerous and he still got a penalty. While I'd have sympathy for Lando he still should have a got a 5 second time penalty.

Wrong year. The incident I'm talking about is the 2019 German grand prix not the 2018 race.

Certainly precedent for it, it's just annoying the inconsistencies of when it's applied.

Yeah, it's not the worst decision to just reprimand but I do think that the stewarding standards in F1 are too inconsistent and really need to be tightened up.

I don't think the rules need to be applied in a black and white fashion, but they do need to actually start judging them consistently.

I think the judgement on Lando was reasonable, but the judgement on Tsunoda was ridiculously harsh. If there is a possibility of a reprimand with no actual time penalty, then that should be the default unless there was blatant intent and/or it was safer to stay out and do another lap. If a driver has been reprimanded before for a similar incident then they should be able to take that into account.

Mainly I think that the reason you cannot really judge it in football terms is because of the high risk factor involved in F1. There should always be some leeway to allow the driver to judge the situation he's in and act in what he believes is the safest manner, and then he should be able to explain his actions to the stewards. To treat the rules as absolutes can just invite more risk.

Didn't the pit entry bollard have something to do with the difference between reprimand and time penalty? As I remember it, though could be wrong, Lewis had passed the bollard indicating the start of the pit entry on the track side and then cut in to the pit entry, while on the other he had entered the pit but then hopped out.

Right, so Lando had entered the pits by staying to the right of the bollard but couldn't keep the car under control due to conditions and tyres (and I suspect a hint of red mist)and went straight on. On other tracks with similar pit entries before final turn like Barcelona or Albert Park, there's usually a barrier to keep cars funnelled in. Barriers that Kimi hit in Spa earlier this year and actually Lewis hit in Russia on the Saturday, yet no penalties or reprimands handed out for those. I think it's perfectly fair that Lando retained his 7th.