Formula 1 round 19: Brazil GP

Lap before, he wasn't defending a move. Hardly "conclusive".

what else could he do though giving the situation?

So anyway, we have steady regs for 7 years during which time Engineers have fine combed the regs and refined all aspects of design to the point when gains are fractions of 10th of a second generally. How is the sudden Mercedes performance explained?

It cannot be all down to new engine. It's just too much of a differential over McLaren for example.

Assuming it's trick rear wing and suspension, how is bottas race pace explained v Hamilton?

Bottas starts on pole, Hamilton 10th yet gets overtaken by Hamilton after a few laps.

In all my years watching f1, I've not known anything that smells so much as this.

Williams winning with Maldonado on Franks 70th Birthday was fairly dodgy, not forgetting the garage fire after but Mercedes turning up with such a speed differential so late in the development of this series of regs really is hard to explain. I'm thinking the 0.2mm oversize rear wing gap was a red herring.

On the braking early part...it is racing, and for a championship at that.

If you were in his position you would have braked earlier and simply let Hamilton overtake you on the outside? The guy is fighting for a championship here. It was clearly deliberate but it wasn’t dangerous and I think that sort of stuff is to be expected to be honest.

The issue isn't so much maxs decision. But imo his decision was to at the very least take a big gamble that he could brake late and make the corner. Let's say he thought he could brake as late as he did and make the corner.

But he didn't make the corner, not even close, forced Hamilton off the track and should have been penalised.

Drivers are penalised all the time, unless you think the drivers did what they did deliberately then logically they are being punished for poor execution of a plan, where they hit someone or forced someone off the track or went off the track themselves and gained an advantage, because they didn't have the grip or brakes or space to do what they thought they did.

How can you look at the outcome of what max did, see the penalties that are meeted out regularly, and say there is no call for max to have been given a penalty?

Max was comfortably fully in front in Britain, took a wide line and left 2 car widths of space to the apex just to be safe, Hamilton was nowhere near close enough to attempt a genuine overtake but he ignored the apex, braked far too late and ploughed into Max from behind and put him in hospital.

The situation, speed, corner geometry, and positions of the cars were entirely different here - there was nothing for Lewis to "turn into" as he wasn't alongside the Red Bull at the point where Max went off. Verstappen was defending his position, not coming from behind. He was at an acute angle because he was defending the inside line - you're not allowed change line at this point so he was forced to turn in from that angle, he braked as late as Lewis and turned in as much as he possibly could without sliding off, which wasn't quite enough to fully make the corner. There was plenty of tarmac run off, Lewis also outbraked himself, and nothing came of it. Similar incidents happen all the time and never get penalised. It would be incredibly unusual for stewards to issue a penalty in a situation where there is no contact, nobody goes into the gravel or suffers, and the cars don't change position from where they started.

basically what he did in Brazil, and expected Hamilton to do, apparently. and he could have taken a wider line at Silverstone and remained on the track - an option he didn't give hamilton in Brazil.

Hamilton had plenty of space at silverstone, max didn't do anything wrong there. Trying to pin that on Max is total BS

Optical illusion apparently.

Yes, it was the same thing. Perez and Hamilton both had to leave track to avoid collision.

Ricciardo took Bottas out of it in Mexico and got no penalty either. The inconsistency is the biggest problem.

First lap/first corner incidents are way more likely to be treated as racing incidents to be fair - I think it would have been more surprising if DR had been pinned for it - especially when (imo) Bottas broke harder and earlier than you'd expect.