2012 Formula One Belgian Grand Prix

[My993C2]

With the rate of speed that everything happens in these cars (including deceleration), if Hamilton had lifted off, he'd have likely caused a pile-up behind him, which would have been a stupid move on his part. You don't just lift off when you're in a pack full of cars doing 100+mph, that's just stupid! Those of you who think he could have lifted off, get back to your armchairs and quit being douchebags! -.-

Question, do you have any real world experience driving open wheel cars on a race track? I am no professional race car driver but as one of the people who claimed Hamilton could have lifted, making me one of the people you claim as being an "armchair douchebag", I actually am a regular track day rat driving my 911 on my local race track and I also happen to have real world experience driving a Formula Renault car at my race track. Now the Formula Renault car is only an entry level Formula car, and no where near the same performance as a Formula One car. But I have real world experience dealing with the poor visibility in your mirrors as well as with anything that is not in front of you. Can you say the same? What sort of real world experience do you have?

Watch the replay again and tell me exactly who would have slammed into Hamilton if he had lifted. If you want to assign blame, then fine Grosjean started the whole thing by trying to squeeze Hamilton. But this happens all the time at race starts when one driver tries to get an edge by squeezing another driver off. It was a very unfortunate race incident and thankfully it did not turn worse. Watch the replay again, there is nobody who is immediately on Hamilton's ass. If they were they too would have been collected in the accident and if you have never driven a real world Formula car, trust me when I say visibility is extremely limited.

 

[Dmitry Zaharov]

Good old Ferrari International Assistance. Nothing changed

 

[tjc]

Grosjean banned for one race it would seem...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/19458954

 

[Omer Said]

Maldonado got 10 places grid penalty for Monza. 5 for jump start, 5 for hitting Glock. How on earth he is still allowed to race in F1...!? I hope today's will be his last incidents. Problem is that he is getting worse race by race. Lol he even crashed in his latest demonstration drive

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/102186

 

[Chronus]

Grosjean didn't intend to nearly decapitate Alonso. Just because some incidents cause worse effects than others, doesn't mean the penalty should be changed.

The penalty should be based on the actions, not the results.

Obviously, Grosjean didn't intend to hurt anyone. We know that.

But effects are a reflex of how good a pilot's situational awareness is.

Maldonado shoved Hamilton out on purpose (commentators say not necessarily on purpose but with the intent of getting back on track not matter the cost), and that should have been penalised with either a race or a last place start / pits start in the next race. No doubt. But he was alone.

Totally different when your actions happen in a situation where you're surrounded by others and any mistake will be greatly amplified. That was what happened today. What everybody is calling upon is Grosjean's ability to make use of good judgement. Today, sadly for him, he proved yet again that he doesn't use good judgement, in a situation where one or several pilots, including himself, could have been hurt badly.

Imo.

 

[tjc]

Maldonado got 10 places grid penalty for Monza. 5 for jump start, 5 for hitting Glock. How on earth he is still allowed to race in F1...!? I hope today's will be his last incidents. Problem is that he is getting worse race by race. Lol he even crashed in his latest demonstration drive

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/102186

It has to said, he is involved in a lot of incidents unfortunately...

I think he`s a good driver but he needs to calm down a tad imo.

 

[Omer Said]

I wonder if Grosjean was at the back and with a same crash taken out Caterhams and HRTs, would he get the same penalty?

+1 Chronus. I agree with the penalty, but FIA seems to be deciding according to the damage driver caused, not his intentions or his driving style or the manner of crashing...

Maldonado caused contacts on purpose, (Monaco 2012 practice and Spa 2011 qualifying sessions) yet he races on.

 

[Chronus]

I wonder if Grosjean was at the back and with a same crash taken out Caterhams and HRTs, would he get the same penalty?

Ah, that is a good question.

At least we know that Maldonado can hit the likes of Hamilton and get away with it.

I wonder it this has anything to do with the size of the sponsors behind each driver (greenage: big wallets, big pockets)?

+1 Chronus. I agree with the penalty, but FIA seems to be deciding according to the damage driver caused, not his intentions or his driving style or the manner of crashing...

I call it the Fujita Scale of FIA Penalties: they focus more on how much the wreck "eats" than the intentions per se.

Which, on one hand, seems logical (heavily punish those who cause big crashes), but OTOH is a danger: imagine someone (Maldonado?) hitting other drivers a la-Busch style, systematically wrecking them without actually causing big wrecks. Then what? Hmmm...

 

[Chris Preston]

Excuse me while I comprehend the stupid in this post...

Ok, right, so what happens when we step on the 'GO!' pedal? Acceleration? Brilliant, now we're half way there! Now, what happens when we take our foot OFF of the 'GO!' pedal? Are you telling me that if we were to take an infinite long, perfectly straight and perfectly flat road, take an F1 car to top speed then lift off the 'GO!' pedal, the car would continue on for infinity? If so, the laws of physics have been farting in our face all these years! No, when you lift off, the car stops accelerating and the forces which work against the car (including, but not limited to, mechanical friction, wind resistance and gravity... You know that one, right? GRAVITY!?) begin to slow it down. 'Slow down'=decelerate. Jesus, are you even a real person? What exactly do you engineer? Toilet rolls?! -.-

Ok Mr. Smartass if you really want me to "nerd" it up I will.

Addition and subtraction are opposites correct? Just like you claim acceleration and deceleration are. Is 5+(-5) addition or subtraction? It's addition, but it's treated as subtraction. The correct way to say "slowing down" instead of deceleration is negative acceleration. You are still accelerating, just in the opposite direction. At top speed in an F1 car, if you let off you're accelerating negatively at 1G (9.8m/s^2) due to air resistance. Lets say top speed is 300km/h (111m/s) just to make easy calculations, that means after 1 second you are going 111-9.8=101.2m/s or 273.5km/h .... see the reasoning for "negative acceleration" yet or shall I explain further?

P.S. I'm an electrical engineer.

 

[Lenard Schaeffler]

So how long before we just say Grosjean isnt allowed to race anymore, the man can drive, but if you cannot make it through the first turn on a regular basis and take quite a few cares along with you it kind of ruins the racing we are all looking for

 

[Chronus]

At top speed in an F1 car, if you let off you're accelerating negatively at 1G (9.8m/s^2) due to air resistance. Lets say top speed is 300km/h (111m/s) just to make easy calculations, that means after 1 second you are going 111-9.8=101.2m/s or 273.5km/h ....

Chris,

I know you are trying to simplify things for the sake of explanation.

Things, as you know, are a lot more complex than that. If we want to sum the most important contributions to speed loss, we have to consider:
- drag
- engine braking
- rolling resistance (tires)

Only by taking these into account can we get an exact number for your "negative" acceleration.

And that is the point I tried to get across (not to you, for sure), that this "negative" acceleration maybe hit 1g, maybe slightly above that, but obviously will never be 2 or 3g, which would be what a pilot obtains when he uses the brakes (at several points in Spa telemetry shows braking forces hit 5.2 g).

So how long before we just say Grosjean isnt allowed to race anymore, the man can drive, but if you cannot make it through the first turn on a regular basis and take quite a few cares along with you it kind of ruins the racing we are all looking for

The same was being said about Maldonado.

Both, imo, are good drivers. Probably both have a maturity problem. In the case of Maldonado, the sheer size of sponsorship contribution may keep him afloat.

 

[Chris Preston]

Chris,

I know you are trying to simplify things for the sake of explanation.

Things, as you know, are a lot more complex than that. If we want to sum the most important contributions to speed loss, we have to consider:
- drag
- engine braking
- rolling resistance (tires)

Only by taking these into account can we get an exact number for your "negative" acceleration.

And that is the point I tried to get across (not to you, for sure), that this "negative" acceleration maybe hit 1g, maybe slightly above that, but obviously will never be 2 or 3g, which would be what a pilot obtains when he uses the brakes (at several points in Spa telemetry shows braking forces hit 5.2 g).

I know I'm making it simple, but it was to make a point that you accelerate negatively not to prove F1 cars slow down without braking and why that happens. I picked numbers to make simple calculations, I don't know how much downforce a car is creating so I can't tell you its exact value for its G-force slowing down or the friction the tyres make...

 

[Ivo Simons]

Damn 1 race ban and 50.000 euro penalty.
Thats alot of money.

 

[Bradley Vanian]

Damn 1 race ban and 50.000 euro penalty.
Thats alot of money.

And some people say that Simracing can be expensive

 

[Chronus]

Well, to put everything in context...

The problem seems to be for some that Lewis could not lift off otherwise it could cause even more problems just for lifting off.

Addressing this would resolve the doubts some have.

The moment you stop stepping on the throttle you lose the propulsive force. Whatever acceleration (V !=0 ) is produced by the engine is nullified due to the loss of propulsive force. Then we had all other forces (drag, engine drag, rolling resistance) and still lifting off does not cause a violent "deceleration" / negative acceleration.

To top it off, Lewis could be in real trouble if indeed he stepped on the brakes violently, thus causing braking forces upwards of 2g.

That was the issue some posters had.

Problem is and has been: did Lewis had the time to lift off or brake? I don't think so.

PS: you're an Electrical Engineer. I am a Theoretical Physicist.

 

[Chronus]

Damn 1 race ban and 50.000 euro penalty.
Thats alot of money.

Considering the amount of money brought in by sponsors and the salary some of these pilots have, 50 thou is nothing.

But 1 race ban is. Sponsors must be in a rage.

 

[Shane Butler]

The turn one carnage was so so terrifying. Nothing scarier than seeing a couple of F1 cars crash into each other at about 200+ Kmp.

 

[Diego Lopez]

nasty nasty nasty crash. I don't even know if I want to blame Grosjean since I'm downloading the race cuz it started @ 7 am my time so I watched the last 2 laps.

Anyways, lucky the drivers involved are okay, but that was really nasty...makes me wonder if Grosjean played some F1 2011 Online during the break and got carried away , jk, I like the guy, surprised me @ Melbourne, but the mistakes and incidents he's been on I'm sure he will learn from it, especially after SPA.

Given Jensons pace and Felipes pace Im sure both Lewis and Alonso could of finished in the podium.

Shame about Kimi, not fast enough. Vettel again used a great strategy and hard compounds do work no long tracks.

Even though Monza is a classic, my favorite track Singapore isn't far away

 

[Scott Webber]

heres the verdicts.

Stewards verdict on Schumacher... No further action..
Stewards verdict on Webber... No further action
Stewards verdict on Kovalainen... 10,000 Euro fine...
Romain Grosjean 1 Race Ban (Monza) + 50,000 euros penalty fine

 

[Diego Lopez]

Good old Ferrari International Assistance. Nothing changed

Hope your just trolling with that, Ferrari wasn't the only car and driver involved, about 2 others were at risk, irrelevant sir!

P.S. I'm an electrical engineer.

I'm a recent Software Engineer graduate, and either title is not relevant here, they will always argue against knowledge, so no reason to even bring it up, let him be.