2025 Formula 1 Season Thread

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by BagoPucks

I would imagine, that's Antonellis corner more than it was Piastri's with him being ahead.

There are so many problems with the racing guidelines, but using axles and mirrors to decide who 'owns' a corner has got to be near the top of the list.

But there's just so many logical fallacies at play.

A. Overtaking on the INSIDE of a corner:
To be entitled to be given room when overtaking on the INSIDE, the overtaking car must:
i) Have its front axle AT LEAST ALONGSIDE THE MIRROR of the other car PRIOR TO AND AT THE APEX
ii) Be driven in a fully controlled manner particularly from entry to apex, and not have “dived in”.
iii) In the Stewards’ estimation, have taken a reasonable racing line and been able to complete the move whilst remaining within track limits.

So "to be entitled to be given room" Oscar needs to meet these conditions (each of which leaves a lot of room for interpretation). I think there is reasonable debate on whether this is true, but let's accept for a moment that Oscar failed to meet them. Does that mean that any contact absolutely means he gets a penalty? (Plenty of cases this year where that was not the case). Or if he had met those conditions, does that mean Kimi absolutely gets a penalty?

Or put another way...if Oscar is not entitled to be given room, maybe that just means Kimi can initiate the contact with no fear of a penalty to himself. The rules say he did not have to give room so he did not give room. Fair enough. But it's a leap to say that Kimi's failure to give room because he probably technically didn't have to means that Oscar automatically gets a penalty.

So then from Oscar's standpoint, he was not entitled to 'get room'. Okay...but what is he supposed to do? Make his car disappear? Back out of the move before it even starts? I guess you can't stick a nose in at all unless you're 100% sure you can get your axle past the mirror. The best you can say is that he needed to start backing out at least 20 meters earlier...but that's still dumb because a lot of great moves/battles happen from exactly that situation.

Let's say this incident happened 50m earlier. Oscar had not yet gotten his axle past Kimi's mirror...can Kimi just cut across him creating contact and Oscar gets the penalty? Because Oscar hasn't earned his right to existence on the track? We're "prior to" the apex and arguably in the 'approach' to the corner in both cases

If the axle to mirror thing creates a black and white outcome that's just ####ing dumb and I don't want to watch any more.


The funny thing is, that the next page in the document gives 8 further considerations:

Racing is a dynamic process. Although these guidelines indicate specific relative positions of the cars at
various points, the Stewards will always look at how the situation played out in total when reviewing an
incident. For example:

1. How did the cars get to the incident? (E.g. late braking, diving in, moving under braking.)
2. Was the manoeuvre late or “optimistic”?
3. What could the drivers reasonably see, know, or anticipate?
4. Do we believe the manoeuvre could be completed on the track?
5. Was there understeer / oversteer / locking?
6. Did someone position / handle their car in a way that contributed to the incident?
7. Did the type of corner contribute to the incident? (e.g. camber, kerbs, curve, apexes)
8. What were the relative tyres / tyre age / grip

7 of these are in Oscar's favour IMO (3&4 most important):

1. No diving in
2. a little optimistic but not certainly not late
3. Kimi could absolutely anticipate Oscar was there
4. Seems pretty clear that Oscar could have made his line while leaving ample room for both Kimi and Charles
6. IMO Yes, Kimi did, considering Oscar was on the absolute inside limit of the track
7. Yes yes yes and yes
8. N/A

And 1 is weakly against him:
5. Yes Oscar locked up but he was still placing his car in the exact right spot


TLDR: IMO Kimi clearly drove into Oscar, not the other way around. And the rules are clear that Kimi should not get a penalty, which is fine. I think if we rewound to before these guidelines most everyone would agree that Oscar had established himself enough to deserve space, but it was still a racing incident (albeit mostly Kimi's fault)

[Fuzz]

I think that ignores the reality that if Piastri was under control he could have turned in sharper to avoid the collision. He wouldn't have had a car's worth of track width, but the room was there. Why is it up to Antonelli to make room for a charging Piastri, when Piastri chose to charge instead of take the loss on it?


We also don't want drivers to fear penalties for not making room all the time. That leaves it open to abuse. For that reason I think it usually makes sense to be a bit more critical of the overtaking driver.

[BagoPucks]

Interesting I saw the Piastri move as totally a dive in and too late for Kimi to do anything with a car on the outside. Does Piastri get the penalty if he doesn't lock up and the same collision occurs? For me it's a yes. Overall could they have made it 3 wide? Possibly but they didn't.

I might need to rewatch it a few times.

[DoubleK]

Yes you have to give a driver room, but that was full send by Piastri.

The penalty was appropriate for the action Piastri took.