Yes for sure I think I see what you mean.
I can´t see how blocking would endorse more side by side racing though. In that video it works because they do leave room for eachother. With some shunt here and there but had it been Nico or Lewis it would have ended in first corner had the other car not backed off
Well. You got me to thinking (these days no mean feat so thank you sir) and while all the critics have been hammering at Pirelli, the engine regs the aero regs et all (and rightly so in my opinion) we have lost the criticism for how the races themselves are being run. An F1 event today is of a far different complexion than it was even 10 years ago. While I am all for driver protection and aligning the rules and penalties to ensure the safety of the participants, I cannot help but think that after the Bianchi fiasco that the powers that be are perhaps focused on areas or problems that do not and will not occur. Take the blue flag mania out of the mix and at the very least Vettel's team radio would become conspicuously silent
true. A win is a win....but the crew blunder still doesn't mean Hamilton beat him fair and square.
The only fair and square dueling was when the race truly started after the safety car came in; Ricciardo immediately opened up a gap on the whole field. That's fair and square; everyone was pushing, including Mercedes, in moderately heavy wet conditions, and the only way they got him was because the team shafted him. Again. I liked Martin's words to him at the podium, "You drove phenomenally all weekend; your day will come."
....and then Mr. Tie-Die Bieber stands there after the race and goes "you crushed it man!" ...apparently he didn't watch the race.
You have inadvertently or inadvertently hit upon why I now watch F1 Avidly as opposed to my lackadaisical boycott of the 90's. It has become for better and usually for worse the microcosm of world politics and social strata. You have micro management, countries which are completely despotic vying for a race, old money races (bring back the French Grand Prix, dear god it was the founder of GP racing Monaco gets a free pass, give them the damn race for free), Multinational teams playing economic poker (anyone think that DeadBulls shennanigans against Renault last year were anything but a bluff of the grandest scale?) Governing bodies falling out of touch with the field, drivers finally starting to show some backbone. Teams being paid to participate, while others go starving.
While it may very well be the glam sport, it certainly manages to show the best and worst of human nature all at once. Rosberg who still manages to look like you just killed his puppy even when leading the WDC. Hamilton acting like a hip hop version of Dag Hammerskjold, Vettel like Angela Merkel sans boobs, Raikkonen weathering the storm in true Nordic manner, Alonso playing out the Spanish dream of once owning the known world and losing the empire,via some piss poor decisions, not co incidentally to Britain.
Harvard School of Business is missing out on one of the most pertinent examples of world economy played out in a controlled and microcosmic manner.
To the race itself. Take a step back and look at it from the teams and managements perspective. The driver is a
component of a race. We hire them because we believe they will make a rational choice in any given instance that will put our car in the best possible position when the race finishes. Fair and square took a backseat ages ago and ruthless capitalization lap by lap is now the rule. That means all the factors have to align and in Napoleanic terms you need a driver proven to be "lucky: (that alone is why Massa never got a WDC) We build the best car we can, we do everything in the race to give the driver the most opportunities possible and then we rely on him to execute the race about 10 percent ABOVE his known ability.
Ric has more than fulfilled his third of the equation. The Napoleanic luck factor is whats killing him right now. From a team perspective it is fixable. From a drivers point of view, luck is a quantity
manufactured by hard work and personal development, when it turns against you, the first thought is that an outside entity is involved and you need to fix it or kill it off pronto.These guys know they have a limited career span and need to get the most out of every second behind the wheel.
