Formula One Emilia Romagna Grand Prix | Driver of the Day: Vote Now

Jan Larsen said:

That just makes it even more lucky.

I just watched the replay. Verstappen managed to get back on track and into position before Leclerc got by. Had Leclerc overtaken it'd have been a deliberate overtake under yellow and punishable regardless of start. In my book.

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Can you share where you saw the replay? I didn't see it just heard Leclerc saying it after the race I think

Also: Leclerc's own take on the situation.

In summary - he peobably could have overtaken, but would face a stewards investigation, possibly risking a 10 sec stop and go. Not worth it.

Ricoow said:

The only 2 times the Sporting Regulations mention the word reverse are 'No reverse engineering' (the Racing Point rule) and a car may not be reversed in the pitlane under its own power (28.3).
Lewis didnt create a dangerous situation with his reversing either, so there should be no penalty.

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Exactly, from what I could see he reversed onto the shoulder of Tosa, which is far from the line any driver would take through there, plus there were yellow flags waving so drivers approaching should see him and give him a wide berth regardless.

Mazepin for miracouly not crashing the car for once, he did spin though

ZuneGuy said:

Hamilton skids off a wet track and finds a way to get his car out of a situation from which few could while finishing second and these fools calls it luck. Moral of the story is that Lewis always brings that car across the line and back home. He could have easily given up, but that's not the character of a 7 time WDC who holds nearly every driving record that exists.

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I can't argue with that he brought the car home. What people define as him being lucky though is finishing second after allmost crashing the car into the wall like an impatient rookie. Wouldn't it be for Russel and Bottas colliding he would have finished somewhere around place 9 or 10 if even that high, without a free repair, a gifted lap and getting rid of lapped traffic, something that he would have had to deal with if there wouldn't have been a red flag.

This my friend, has nothing to do with people being foolish and Hamilton being a 7 time WDC who get's the car out of the gravel. All of this was out of his hands besides finishing the race and I have no idea how people would vote him for the driver of the day. There are certainly other drivers who had to work more in comparison, Verstappen included. There is a rule in Nascar that is called The lucky dog for a reason. As the name indicates, it has nothing to do with skill.

The one thing that never changes with modern F1 - fans on the internet will always find something to get salty about, after every single race.

Now the driver of the day has to be Verstappen, he won the race, and had limited mistakes compared to the rest of the field. It is clear Max is maturing as a driver.

A close second though was Hamilton. Watching Lewis today just showed how he is truly the great one. Learning from a mistake, putting his head down, and passing half the field before the end of the race. It seems like very single week he finds new ways to cement his legacy as the greatest of all time.

I voted for Lando, great drive!

to those who say Hamilton isn't lucky, do you think he would still be P2 if it wasn't for a red flag ? and similar thing many times before where safety car came in just at the right time for him, how is that not a luck ?

being lucky is of course not his fault , so I don't see that as a bad thing

at least looks like there might finally be some battles this year, and not just Hamilton/Bottas - 1/2

niclas lafiti...He started it all.

Lewis ain't in the best car anymore. If he hadn't smacked the front end in turn 1, I doubt he would have caught Max. But Sir Dude Lewis gotz madskillz. He worked today. He said he wanted a challenge and he got it. Be careful what you ask for. Max seems to have really matured as a driver, consistent and fast.

Badwheels said:

Lewis ain't in the best car anymore. If he hadn't smacked the front end in turn 1, I doubt he would have caught Max. But Sir Dude Lewis gotz madskillz. He worked today. He said he wanted a challenge and he got it. Be careful what you ask for. Max seems to have really matured as a driver, consistent and fast.

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maybe not the best car, but not worse then second best car, so that's still pretty good car that everyone from the driver lineup would take without hesitation

Badwheels said:

Lewis ain't in the best car anymore. If he hadn't smacked the front end in turn 1, I doubt he would have caught Max. But Sir Dude Lewis gotz madskillz. He worked today. He said he wanted a challenge and he got it. Be careful what you ask for. Max seems to have really matured as a driver, consistent and fast.

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Agree with you but I am not so sure if, Lewis ain,t in the best car anymore.... I think after the Bahrein balance problems the Merc is back on track . The future is bright for Formula 1 Leclerc, Norris, Russel, very talent drivers and maybe Tjunoda or Sainz, Gasly? Just about time when they fight for P1
Realy enjoy this two first races in 2021 hope more to come

muzikant said:

Agree with you but I am not so sure if, Lewis ain,t in the best car anymore.... I think after the Bahrein balance problems the Merc is back on track . The future is bright for Formula 1 Leclerc, Norris, Russel, very talent drivers and maybe Tjunoda or Sainz, Gasly? Just about time when they fight for P1
Realy enjoy this two first races in 2021 hope more to come

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The one thing I took away from this race is that................................................................THEY ALL DROVE JUST LIKE ME!!!!
Skidding off track, running into each other, cursing, giving the finger. My kindred spirits.

PickABetterUsername01 said:

What a race by Norris, if he had been 100% perfect, maybe he would have managed to hold second position against the fastest car. Verstappen had a great race as well, with just a minor mistake.

Hamilton is just way too lucky, it's unbelievable.

They need to rethink this rule about letting lapped cars unlap themselves, it's a joke.

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yes a Joke but if it was Verstappen lapping himself, wouldn't be Stupid would it?

Some people don't seem to understand that every rule is the same for everybody

Jan Larsen said:

@Keetchyboy @Ricoow Both of the arguments you two present are just unlucky situations from a stradegy point of view, there're millions of ways a race incident can screw your race up. But they still boil down to either pure luck or unluck.

Giving people their laps back because its 'inconvenient' to have them mix it up with the front runners is still just a gift and I'll stand by that opinion. Leave the backmarkers where they are and tell them to piss off the racing line as soon as the can, like in the old days. It'd also get the racing going again faster.

Hamilton earned his -1 lap from a sheer noobie mistake that everyone but him called out before he had even crashed, giving it back is unfair to the drivers who actually managed to keep their carbon fiber heap on the track.

And stop fixing cars and fitting new tires under red flags! Again, free gifts.

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I think you're focusing too much on the concept of a lap,

if a Lap is 1:20.00 you think somebody should be treated differently if they are 1:19.9 behind the leader than someone 1:20.1. Also the '-1 lap' is a lap down to the leader only, someone in 10th can be a lap behind the lead car but somebody 3 secs ahead in 9th can be still on the lead lap. When the restart happens there is suddenly a lap difference between 9th and 10th places, is that fair?

Imagine the scenario:

Russell gets spooked by a falling leaf and takes out one of his future teams car. Red Flag.
at the end of the previous lap Perez is in 11th and trying to regain some ground after driving off the track for the 20th time, vettel is 2 secs ahead in a miraculous 10th. Verstappen in the lead is behind Perez, just about to lap him, as they cross the line Verstappen gets ahead of Perez by 1s and is 1s behind Vettel.

Whilst Russell is making an arse of himself on television and ruining his future career, the race is restarted from the grid with Verstappen on pole, Vettel in 10th and just behind him is Perez in 11th (as they were in the race). Yet now Perez is a full lap behind Vettel, even though he was only 2s behind Vettel when Bottas decided to test his steering (I'm giving neither driver the benefit of the doubt). Is that Fair?

What's clear here is that some people just don't like or choose not to understand the basics of the rules when it doesn't favour them.

ZuneGuy said:

Hamilton skids off a wet track and finds a way to get his car out of a situation from which few could while finishing second and these fools calls it luck. Moral of the story is that Lewis always brings that car across the line and back home. He could have easily given up, but that's not the character of a 7 time WDC who holds nearly every driving record that exists.

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He really turned a what should have been a total disaster race into the smallest possible points loss, to the fastest car. If Merc manage to catch up in terms of pace and the season is even, it's races like this one that will decide the championship. The biggest luck Lewis had was that the only cars that should have finished ahead of him hand even more disastrous races, Sergio and Valteri were irrelevant.

Also nice that Lewis has learned from 2007, and now has even mastered gravel trap recovery.

This being my first time watching F1 at Imola, I wasn't sure what to expect. This one made me thank God I have DVR.

Mercedes is in turmoil. One is on podium two for two, but mainly due to controversy, the other is still dealing with challenges of one kind or another. Looking at videos of the crash, both Bottas and Russell bear some degree of responsibility for this. Russell for trying to blitz past Bottas and seemingly forgetting how close the grass is to the track, and Bottas for trying to close the door when he did. Boss Wolff is not happy with both, creating an angry triangle of sorts. This mess has at least begun making it official who is in the second Merc next season. Hint: it's not Bottas.

Mad Max hasn't forgotten what happened at Bahrain and all the lessons that went with it. He did not wait to deal with Hamilton, nor should he have. He's also the only one today that did not screw up hardly today, unlike Perez. Last episode, Perez started badly and finished well in spite of his car. This time it's the reverse. He had a good car but screwed up in spite of the good car.

Ferrari did better overall, in spite of the track trying to get both wrecked. Both red horses finishing fourth and fifth in front of a home crowd? Italy is happy today, guaranteed.

Norris got my vote today because he proved why he still belongs at Mclaren, buzzing past Ricciardo after he got told to move over. Thought for a moment Ricciardo wasn't going to have that, having flashbacks to his Red Bull nightmares. Might sound like a killjoy here, but if this sort of thing continues, might be an indication Ricciardo's F1 days are numbered. Norris had a near perfect race until the end when dealing with Hamilton. Why he got my vote instead of Max was because Norris gained more positions than Max. Plus, we expect that thing now with Max.

Gasly on full wets much longer than nearly everyone else and losing spots over it left me confused and disappointed. Imagine how he felt. Tsunoda it seems still has much to learn.

Alpine was a non-topic except for when both spun and/or nearly wrecked. Stroll finished in points, Vettel hates his car again and it doesn't have a bit of red.

Haas and Williams have displayed new levels of stupid today. Russell for his role in the crash mentioned earlier, and Latifi for getting wrecked by Mayspin, who in turn spun sometime later. We officially have a next-gen Maldonado on the grid. Mick spun like the rest but lost his front wing and had to run a lap because of the closed pit lane probably feeling embarrassed like most rookies.

Now for the big question: how long do we have to wait before the next time F1 returns here? Not long I hope. This was a fun one.

Catiorro F1 said:

Mazepin for miracouly not crashing the car for once, he did spin though

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I'm with you on this one - it's a complete miracle every time he manages to complete a lap without crashing, let alone complete a race. And he's the bravest man on the grid - to stand next to real F1 drivers and pretend he's one of them takes balls.

A Casual Sim Racer said:

Now the driver of the day has to be Verstappen, he won the race, and had limited mistakes compared to the rest of the field. It is clear Max is maturing as a driver.

A close second though was Hamilton. Watching Lewis today just showed how he is truly the great one. Learning from a mistake, putting his head down, and passing half the field before the end of the race. It seems like very single week he finds new ways to cement his legacy as the greatest of all time.

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Now, the driver of the day has ti be Lando Norris...blablabla