What is the difference between Sainz & Hamilton backing opponents up?

[davehenrie]

Way back in ancient history, when Nico beat Lewis for his one and only World Championship, there was a race near the end of the season where Lewis was deliberately slowing down in parts of the circuit to allow the 3rd place car(Vettle if I remember) a chance to catch Nico and possible steal some points from him.
Compare that with Carlos Sainz backing his pace down for much of the race and even backing up to help Lando Norris get DRS help.
Both tactics were done to help ensure either a race win or Driver's Championship. I remember I and others were outraged at Lewis(at the time) but now I seem to have flopped the other way with Carlos.
Is there a difference between the two tactics and should I have admired Lewis for doing everything he could to try and make up that narrow point gap for the DC?

 

[Antony Snook]

Forget track limits and grid drops for new Engines or Gearboxes that make the sport artificial. Make race leader run to a delta time like in vertual pace car. Backing the pack up for a advantage or to help another driver is dangerus. Remember Jarno Trulli at Silverstone making a crocodile named the "Trulli Train" This is a rule worth enforcing.

 

[Terry Rock]

The circumstances were a bit different.
Lewis and Nico were in the same team and Carlos and Lando are not.
They also had equal machinery.
It was always going to be more difficult in the first scenario.
It would need to be done strategically, so as not to tick off the team and team principal.

 

[Neilski]

Yeah it's an interesting question and I have pondered my own feelings about it.
I was very hacked off when Lewis did it (I was a Nico supporter) and rather less so when Carlos did it (even though I was really hoping George would get the win).
Maybe that's partly because Carlos is slightly more in the underdog mould right now, dunno. (That probably covers everyone but Max, lol!)

Also (as Terry says), Lewis was shafting his own team (and team-mate) which is kinda sucky. I remember that at the time it felt like a crappy and unsporting thing to do.

One aspect that is (a bit) qualitatively different: trying to prevent the driver behind you from being passed (cooperation, basically - slowing down just enough to keep him in DRS range) is a different animal from trying to push the driver behind you into the cars behind him. If I recall correctly, at times Lewis was going so slowly it was ridiculous (questionable from a safety point of view even).

 

[Durge Driven]

Backing cars up into traffic for various reasons has been apart of all sorts of Motosport as long as I can remember, I see it in BSB, AMA motocross and MotoGP let alone car series.
It's like bad steward desicions, you take it like a man, dust yourself off and go again. Rules are rules no one person likes them all, that's life with Sanyo.

What about Max in Qualifying blocking Yuki. imho that was a slam dunk if I've ever seen it. So I can sit here and bleed about it, what good does it do except give me heartburn.

 

[Pete Conway]

I remember doing this in Gran Turismo 3 or 4 years ago when I wanted my team mate (identical car) to finish in a one two, but, he was too slow and I held the field back like a bunch of hornets, the upshot was he hit me and we both went off and came home 5'th and 6th (last)
So I guess you've gotta be good for it to work, so probably both Lewis and Carlos are better than me.

 

[Fat-Alfie]

... so probably both Lewis and Carlos are better than me.

You have to admit, that is a distinct possibility

 

[Neilski]

What about Max in Qualifying blocking Yuki. imho that was a slam dunk if I've ever seen it.

Agreed. I must be missing something though, because not only did he not get penalised for it (just a reprimand I think?) but there don't then appear to have been howls of complaint from the affected team. Oh wait, who does Yuki drive for?

 

[Pete Conway]

Agreed. I must be missing something though, because not only did he not get penalised for it (just a reprimand I think?) but there don't then appear to have been howls of complaint from the affected team. Oh wait, who does Yuki drive for?

He drives for Toro Ro Alpha Tauri at the moment, but if he does as he's told he might be in a better chair in the future

 

[Ole Marius Myrvold]

Agreed. I must be missing something though, because not only did he not get penalised for it (just a reprimand I think?) but there don't then appear to have been howls of complaint from the affected team. Oh wait, who does Yuki drive for?

It's more interesting how the FIA decided, just for this race, to not summon the opposing team, but send a message on an informal Telegram-channel.
Which is why Aston Martin met the stewards after the Sargeant - Stroll hearing was over... They didn't get summoned, they just saw a message on Telegram...

EDIT: And also why AT said they didn't meet, even though the Stewards note said that they chose not to.

 

[Durge Driven]

He drives for Toro Ro Alpha Tauri at the moment, but if he does as he's told he might be in a better chair in the future

I not so sure he would be welcomed by other teams, he does a lot of whining at AT.
For mine he has shown no personal growth.
He still complains in fact worse now then he did when he joined them.
When something is wrong with car he seems to have no clue what the problem is.

 

[Antony Snook]

The circumstances were a bit different.
Lewis and Nico were in the same team and Carlos and Lando are not.
They also had equal machinery.
It was always going to be more difficult in the first scenario.
It would need to be done strategically, so as not to tick off the team and team principal.

Why do people say your team mate has equal machinery. If you look into it you will find a driver gets a part over another and the team mate has to wait for it. Sometimes a driver likes a part over the team mate. The people in the garage are split over driver A and B. Honda sent engines to McLaren with Senna's name on. This made Prost angry.

 

[Antony Snook]

I rad a book in Libruary about Alain Prost and it said he won every race in the slowest possable time. This has always messed with my head as i consider racing the persute of speed. How do you win 4 tittles going slowly. One thing about Alain is he was never hard on car and mechanical components. Gear crunching (Shifting up sooner) and tearing up gears was not how Prost drove. He was smooth and i gues dull to watch as fans prefered drivers like Senna and Shumacher who really wrestled with the car

 

[Fat-Alfie]

Not the slowest time, but rather the slowest time necessary to win. That makes more sense.

 

[Neilski]

Not the slowest time, but rather the slowest time necessary to win. That makes more sense.

Yeah. You could write a whole book about that of course

On occasions, a driver has regretted driving "slowly", either because they had an issue which cost them some time and in hindsight they feel they might have finished in a better place if they had kept it nailed the whole time, or simply because they lost concentration and crashed (IIRC, both Senna and Schumacher managed that and probably a few other world champions).

On balance though, I think that slow = good because you put less stress on the car (engine/tyres/etc) and improve your chances of finishing not just the race but the championship in the best place.
In any given race, a safety car will always zero out your advantage anyway of course, so in races where they are semi-routine there's even less reason to romp way out in front.

 

[davehenrie]

Back in the 80's and 90's, it became fairly common in Champcar for one team to gamble and go full tilt while the rest of the field was saving fuel. Made for some great races as the two strategies came back together.

 

[Durge Driven]

I think 3 levels for me.

1. Endurance racing with fuel and tyre saving second nature.

2. Irish Road Racing, Dirt Racing, Motocross, Supercross, Drag Racing, please add any others come to mind.
All these are hammer time every lap. Imagine saving fuel or tyres in a sprint car, how dumb it sounds. AMA limit is purely physical, only supreme fittest riders will ever get on a podium.

3. Most everything else has artificial limits introduced to make racing less boring.
What used to be my favourite series for decades are now all tyre limited.
Trans Am and Supercars

 

[Elderbrute]

Yeah it's an interesting question and I have pondered my own feelings about it.
I was very hacked off when Lewis did it (I was a Nico supporter) and rather less so when Carlos did it (even though I was really hoping George would get the win).
Maybe that's partly because Carlos is slightly more in the underdog mould right now, dunno. (That probably covers everyone but Max, lol!)

Also (as Terry says), Lewis was shafting his own team (and team-mate) which is kinda sucky. I remember that at the time it felt like a crappy and unsporting thing to do.

One aspect that is (a bit) qualitatively different: trying to prevent the driver behind you from being passed (cooperation, basically - slowing down just enough to keep him in DRS range) is a different animal from trying to push the driver behind you into the cars behind him. If I recall correctly, at times Lewis was going so slowly it was ridiculous (questionable from a safety point of view even).

The competitive landscape was so different, this year Max has been so insanely consistent that honestly any race where Max isn't on the top step is just a breath of fresh air, Singapore was a glimpse of what 2023 could have been if both red bulls were driven by Checo and it was glorious. 2016 was a different animal and the closeness between Nico and Lewis was what kept it intense.

What Carlos was doing was objectively really cool, and felt like it was in the spirit of racing, he had to help Lando in order to help himself, It was high risk high reward. Which made for an incredibly exciting race. In contrast while what Lewis was doing was no less difficult and clever it just didn't feel great, there was only 1 way for Lewis to win the title and it didn't matter if he won, he needed Nico to lose and that is never going to feel as good as someone pulling out every trick in the book to win a race. Objectively Lewis was doing that with the championship but that doesn't feel as fun.

To be clear I completely dissagree that Lewis was screwing his team, Merc were so far clear it was irrelevant from a team perspective. And team mates are irrelevent in the title fight, and a good thing too or the whole silver war would never have happened, and the point would be moot as Lewis would have been the lead driver and won in an incredibly boring fashion.

 

[bi11y]

Is there a difference between the two tactics and should I have admired Lewis for doing everything he could to try and make up that narrow point gap for the DC?

Good question and a tricky one.
I think a big difference is the more recent situation the 3rd car was the fastest, was pushing to move forward and could potentially have got the win if the risky DRS for defence didn't work. In the other situation the 3rd car was slower than the first two and could not easy attack, and they actually did not want to get involved - I remember it a little strangely that the train just backed up and they didn't want to mess with outcome.

Both drivers were just trying to maximise their results, but I reckon it's going to be a massive generalised double standard where the majority of viewers hate on Lewis's version and will love on Carlos's version.

Personally I'm a bit on the fence on both, am not upset by them but don't think they were the best display of driving.

 

[bi11y]

I rad a book in Libruary about Alain Prost and it said he won every race in the slowest possable time. This has always messed with my head as i consider racing the persute of speed. How do you win 4 tittles going slowly.

Perhaps there's context to the quote. A smart joke could be that every race he won by more than 0.001second he could have slowed down even more?

Did you know that in his second season in F1 Prost scored the same number wins (3) as the champion that year, and every classified finish Prost was on the podium... however that was only 6 of 15 races...

Had he learnt ?

In the next 3 seasons he scores more pole positions and more wins than the champion... in '83 missed the title by 2 points, and in '84 beaten to title by his team mate by 0.5 points!!!

Still learning ? have to be a student before you can be a Professor ?

The rest is history... how is it possible that a driver with 4 titles can be underrated?? I would suggest it is possible and many do not know that he was also runner up 4 other times, and some of those by the narrowest of margins.

The media, pundits and punters oft compare his far below Senna in raw speed, and there's probable real and anecdotal evidence - but also you wonder how much Prost was decidedly driving only as fast as he needed when he was battling Senna?

Sorry a bit off topic from backing up a rival.