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This thread is dedicated to discuss the legality of the overtake that Kimi did over his teammate in Hungary after he exited the pit-lane

Opinions:

- Some think its fair
- Some think he pushed his teammate out of the circuit by going deliberately straight instead of turning and taking the normal racing line


Discuss

Was it investigated?

Was he punished?

I've been wondering about this sort of maneuovre for the past few races now. There is a clear rule against crowding beyond the confines of the track; yet it seems it is acceptable to do so as long as a driver is following the racing line, no matter if the other driver is alongside or not. Fernando Alonso expressed my views on the subject perfectly back in Bahrain.

"All the time you have to leave a space!"

Leen26 wrote:This thread is dedicated to discuss the legality of the overtake that Kimi did over his teammate in Hungary after he exited the pit-lane

Opinions:

- Some think its fair
- Some think he pushed his teammate out of the circuit by going deliberately straight instead of turning and taking the normal racing line


Discuss

Leen, there is a third opinion: - Some think he pushed his teammate off the track by sticking to the normal racing line (which winds up on outside kerb), regardless of someone being alongside on the outside.
I am one of them.

j man wrote:I've been wondering about this sort of maneuovre for the past few races now. There is a clear rule against crowding beyond the confines of the track; yet it seems it is acceptable to do so as long as a driver is following the racing line, no matter if the other driver is alongside or not. Fernando Alonso expressed my views on the subject perfectly back in Bahrain.

"All the time you have to leave a space!"

I'm guessing it's because it's the driver being overtaken who has the responsibility to get out of the way. When Michael Schumacher passed a Force India (Hulkenberg?) in the German Grand Prix, Michael didn't leave any space. Hulkenberg didn't run off the track, but he had to lift or he would have collided with Michael.

There is an inherent problem with rules stipulating that drivers have to leave room for other cars to do things like overtake - which is totally anethema to any decent racing driver.

The only way to make it work is to have two different racetracks for cars which are overtaking and those which are not (i.e. the ones being overtaken) and this can be done!!!

There need to be markings/lines on the track which set out the absolute limit a driver is allowed to go to at the edge of the circuit - and then there need to be another set of markings which can be used by those who are overtaking.

This way, if the rules do indeed say (like Alonso was shouting) that a driver must leave a space, there can be a clearly marked space for the driver to leave - at the edge of a straight or on the outside of a bend.

THey can do it for the pit exit. it's easy to do it for the rest of the circuit.

Well given the clarification by the FIA about what constitutes "being alongside" and the point at which the driver being overtaken has to leave space, it would seem that what Kimi (and a fair few other drivers) did was illegal. Actually, even without the clarification, in my view, this falls into the "crowding off the track" regulation.

Nowhere in the regs or the subsequent clarifications does it say that you don't have to leave space for a driver who is overtaking if you're following the racing line. I suppose you could imply that it's not necessary to leave space if you're *on* the racing line, given the clarification that you have to leave room when moving *back* to the racing line.

Personally I think it makes a difference whether we're talking about chopping someone off on a high speed corner, or trying to squeeze someone out the way on the exit of a low speed corner, or the Rosberg / Hamilton / Alonso "blocking" incidents. I don't think it's right just to say "if any part of the front wing is alongside, regardless of the circumstances, you have to leave a car-width of space" because it's too prescriptive and gets in the way of natural racing instinct.

On the other hand, I believe that what Rosberg did to Hamilton / Alonso was downright dangerous, Rosberg came off the racing line to "deliberately crowd" the other drivers at high speed. What Raikonnen did to Grosjean was relatively low speed, corner exit stuff, which any driver would expect.

Maldonado versus Kovaleinen (?) he definitely deserved a penalty.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that there is NOTHING in the rules to punish a move like that unless it resulted in a collision.

So if both of them had collided, the rules would have allowed the stewards to punish Kimi. If they didn't collide, it's a bad move but nothing exists in the rules to punish it.

domdonald wrote:On the other hand, I believe that what Rosberg did to Hamilton / Alonso was downright dangerous, Rosberg came off the racing line to "deliberately crowd" the other drivers at high speed.

You can only crowd somebody off when that somebody is alongside. Neither Hamilton nor Alonso even got to that position (Hamilton was only able to get alongside by going off-track himself), so where is the danger in what Rosberg did? Nowhere. Any danger that existed came from the following drivers trying to stick to their plans, despite having been caught out by Rosberg who outwitted them.

The rule has the word deliberate in it, 'deliberate crowding'. If a driver is just taking his line and as a consequence runs another driver off track, its not deliberate.

Fiki wrote:

domdonald wrote:On the other hand, I believe that what Rosberg did to Hamilton / Alonso was downright dangerous, Rosberg came off the racing line to "deliberately crowd" the other drivers at high speed.

You can only crowd somebody off when that somebody is alongside. Neither Hamilton nor Alonso even got to that position (Hamilton was only able to get alongside by going off-track himself), so where is the danger in what Rosberg did? Nowhere. Any danger that existed came from the following drivers trying to stick to their plans, despite having been caught out by Rosberg who outwitted them.

They both HAD to stick to their plan of overtaking on the right as they had no time to do anything else; due to the speed differential I'm fairly sure that any attempt to move to the other side once they'd realised Rosberg wasn't going to leave any space would have resulted in contact. If swerving across the track like Rosberg did is acceptable, then no one would ever overtake anybody as the defending driver could just move across at the right time to block any potential move.

Also on Sky they showed that Hamilton's front wing was actually alongside Rosberg's rear wheel before he was forced off the track.

j man wrote:

Fiki wrote:

domdonald wrote:On the other hand, I believe that what Rosberg did to Hamilton / Alonso was downright dangerous, Rosberg came off the racing line to "deliberately crowd" the other drivers at high speed.

You can only crowd somebody off when that somebody is alongside. Neither Hamilton nor Alonso even got to that position (Hamilton was only able to get alongside by going off-track himself), so where is the danger in what Rosberg did? Nowhere. Any danger that existed came from the following drivers trying to stick to their plans, despite having been caught out by Rosberg who outwitted them.

They both HAD to stick to their plan of overtaking on the right as they had no time to do anything else; due to the speed differential I'm fairly sure that any attempt to move to the other side once they'd realised Rosberg wasn't going to leave any space would have resulted in contact. If swerving across the track like Rosberg did is acceptable, then no one would ever overtake anybody as the defending driver could just move across at the right time to block any potential move.

Moving at the right time is the basis of every manoeuvre, defensive or offensive.
Are you suggesting that the defensive driver should be forbidden to move first? Because that is what Rosberg did. Which meant that in both cases the driver behind was left with the decision to choose between going left (the outside side for the next corner), or stay behind and try next time. If the situation as it turns out becomes dangerous, then the responsibility for that is with the driver behind, who goes for the inside regardless of the fact that he can't get there in time.
What Rosberg did, was force those attacking him to try to go round the outside, resulting in a situation much like the one we are discussing: Räikkönen versus Grosjean.

j man wrote:Also on Sky they showed that Hamilton's front wing was actually alongside Rosberg's rear wheel before he was forced off the track.

The best images available at the time we discussed it on this forum, didn't show that. If better footage was available, then would you please post a link?

Hamilton got penalised for weaving a couple of years ago, when he was moving before the attacking driver and arguably he wasn't even strictly defending at that point. On Sky they did indeed show that Hamilton was more alongside than Alonso was. For me, this was comparable in danger to Schumacher's squeezing of Barrichello and in my view this kind of radical defending should be outlawed because it could result in a really really serious accident. To make an overtake work you have to commit to a move and you have to be able to trust the defending driver. If that trust is broken by seemingly random acts of defence, you're gonna get problems. Hamilton and Alonso may have been behind, but they had committed to an overtake on a large unused portion of the track by getting a slingshot of the preceding corner and starting the manoeuvre. What if Rosberg had just taken his foot off the gas at that point? Would that have been the responsibility of the attacking driver for going too fast and not pulling out of the manoeuvre? Rosberg may have moved his steering wheel a fraction of a second sooner than Hamilton, but Hamilton was already committed and Rosberg knew it.

I've been watching F1 for more than 30 years and this kind of defending happens very rarely and we haven't seen it again since. Why not? If it's perfectly ok and is simply the essence of defending?

You say that if you're on the racing line then you can't possibly be "deliberately" crowding someone off the track, well that's just not true is it? The word deliberate refers to the intent. If you don't know the other person is there, or you run them off the road by accident for some other reason, then there can be no intent. But you can't say that you're simply "running them off the road unintentionally" just because that's the line you usually take, even if you know they are there and you know the most likely consequences of your actions ... The logic in your argument seems rather odd.

domdonald wrote:If that trust is broken by seemingly random acts of defence, you're gonna get problems. Hamilton and Alonso may have been behind, but they had committed to an overtake on a large unused portion of the track by getting a slingshot of the preceding corner and starting the manoeuvre. What if Rosberg had just taken his foot off the gas at that point?

He would have been guilty of causing an avoidable accident, what else?

domdonald wrote: Rosberg may have moved his steering wheel a fraction of a second sooner than Hamilton, but Hamilton was already committed and Rosberg knew it.

That is not correct; it isn't because Rosberg knows that the best attack is on the inside for the next corner, that he therefore is forbidden to choose that inside as the leading driver. Hamilton can simply not have been committed to the manoeuvre, because he was behind Rosberg and came out of the corner later...
Add to that the fact that not following Rosberg would have shortened his distance to the braking area for the next corner, and he might well have made an outside overtaking manoeuvre stick. There's no guarantee, but that is racing.

For the sake of clarity, the difference between these incidents and the one where Schumacher squeezed Barrichello is that Barrichello did get alongside before leaving the track - in fact, he had his front wheel alongside Schumacher's rear wheel. (Also, the fact that Schumacher never denied his intention proved he was doing it deliberately - which means his conditional apology at the time isn't worth very much.

domdonald wrote:You say that if you're on the racing line then you can't possibly be "deliberately" crowding someone off the track, well that's just not true is it? The word deliberate refers to the intent. If you don't know the other person is there, or you run them off the road by accident for some other reason, then there can be no intent. But you can't say that you're simply "running them off the road unintentionally" just because that's the line you usually take, even if you know they are there and you know the most likely consequences of your actions ... The logic in your argument seems rather odd.

I hope this wasn't directed at me, domdonald. Because I agree with your explanation. The best illustration would be Montoya being run off the track at Imola 2004. There too, the stewards did nothing.

domdonald wrote:Hamilton got penalised for weaving a couple of years ago, when he was moving before the attacking driver and arguably he wasn't even strictly defending at that point. On Sky they did indeed show that Hamilton was more alongside than Alonso was. For me, this was comparable in danger to Schumacher's squeezing of Barrichello and in my view this kind of radical defending should be outlawed because it could result in a really really serious accident. To make an overtake work you have to commit to a move and you have to be able to trust the defending driver. If that trust is broken by seemingly random acts of defence, you're gonna get problems. Hamilton and Alonso may have been behind, but they had committed to an overtake on a large unused portion of the track by getting a slingshot of the preceding corner and starting the manoeuvre. What if Rosberg had just taken his foot off the gas at that point? Would that have been the responsibility of the attacking driver for going too fast and not pulling out of the manoeuvre? Rosberg may have moved his steering wheel a fraction of a second sooner than Hamilton, but Hamilton was already committed and Rosberg knew it.

I've been watching F1 for more than 30 years and this kind of defending happens very rarely and we haven't seen it again since. Why not? If it's perfectly ok and is simply the essence of defending?

You say that if you're on the racing line then you can't possibly be "deliberately" crowding someone off the track, well that's just not true is it? The word deliberate refers to the intent. If you don't know the other person is there, or you run them off the road by accident for some other reason, then there can be no intent. But you can't say that you're simply "running them off the road unintentionally" just because that's the line you usually take, even if you know they are there and you know the most likely consequences of your actions ... The logic in your argument seems rather odd.

Rosberg made one defensive move in a straight line. In the Hamilton weaving incident, he was weaving.
Rosberg started his move before Ham moved, so it wasn't a block, it was a defensive move. It was nothing like MS on RB, because MS waited until RB was alongside and then pushed him off with an 'abnormal change of direction'. Please read the steward's decision on the LH NR incident in its entirety, it explains everything really well.
Fiki's logic may seem odd, but that is how the rules are interpreted. I know Fiki doesn't like that sort of manouvre, and neither do I, but it is entirely within the rules.

Fiki wrote:

j man wrote:

Fiki wrote:

domdonald wrote:On the other hand, I believe that what Rosberg did to Hamilton / Alonso was downright dangerous, Rosberg came off the racing line to "deliberately crowd" the other drivers at high speed.

You can only crowd somebody off when that somebody is alongside. Neither Hamilton nor Alonso even got to that position (Hamilton was only able to get alongside by going off-track himself), so where is the danger in what Rosberg did? Nowhere. Any danger that existed came from the following drivers trying to stick to their plans, despite having been caught out by Rosberg who outwitted them.

They both HAD to stick to their plan of overtaking on the right as they had no time to do anything else; due to the speed differential I'm fairly sure that any attempt to move to the other side once they'd realised Rosberg wasn't going to leave any space would have resulted in contact. If swerving across the track like Rosberg did is acceptable, then no one would ever overtake anybody as the defending driver could just move across at the right time to block any potential move.

Moving at the right time is the basis of every manoeuvre, defensive or offensive.
Are you suggesting that the defensive driver should be forbidden to move first? Because that is what Rosberg did. Which meant that in both cases the driver behind was left with the decision to choose between going left (the outside side for the next corner), or stay behind and try next time. If the situation as it turns out becomes dangerous, then the responsibility for that is with the driver behind, who goes for the inside regardless of the fact that he can't get there in time.
What Rosberg did, was force those attacking him to try to go round the outside, resulting in a situation much like the one we are discussing: Räikkönen versus Grosjean.

j man wrote:Also on Sky they showed that Hamilton's front wing was actually alongside Rosberg's rear wheel before he was forced off the track.

The best images available at the time we discussed it on this forum, didn't show that. If better footage was available, then would you please post a link?

I remember we debated this at the time and had to agree to disagree, so I feel we'd only be repeating ourselves here. However I will re-iterate my point that the objective of a defensive move is to move early to deter the attacking driver from taking the inside line into a corner and force him to the outside, which often leaves little room to get past as the defending driver will have the apex in the corner. All perfectly acceptable, and this will work if the attacking driver doesn't have too much of a speed advantage down the straight. Defensive moves like Rosberg's in Bahrain in which defend the position by simply driving directly in the attacking driver's way when he's already committed to the move are dangerous and can cause serious accidents; I'm sure I don't need to remind you of Webber's crash in Valencia as is a perfect demonstration of what can happen when one car runs into the back of another at speed.

Just because the defensive driver has moved first, in my mind it doesn't mean that he hasn't moved too late. The speed differential was so large that Rosberg should have made his intentions clear earlier. Just because Alonso and Hamilton hadn't made a decisive move to the right it doesn't mean that they hadn't already decided to, and neither would have realised that Rosberg was going to move right to the edge of the track as it is simply not what is commonly done in that situation.

The speed differential in this case was as large as what we see with DRS-assisted passes, and Rosberg should have treated it as such and just let them past as there was no way he could have defended his position safely in that situation.

The footage from Sky was a computer-generated 'snapshot' based on the footage so I'm not going to declare it as irrefutable evidence that Hamilton was alongside, but it was enough to convince me personally. Unfortunately I can't find a link for it.

j man wrote:Just because the defensive driver has moved first, in my mind it doesn't mean that he hasn't moved too late. The speed differential was so large that Rosberg should have made his intentions clear earlier.

How on earth is he going to do that?

j man wrote:Just because Alonso and Hamilton hadn't made a decisive move to the right it doesn't mean that they hadn't already decided to, and neither would have realised that Rosberg was going to move right to the edge of the track as it is simply not what is commonly done in that situation.

All three of them knew that the next corner was to the right, so all three of them knew that going to the right was the defensive and the offensive thing to do. What all three also knew, is that in order to be able to overtake, the speed difference had to be so large, that the attacker's car got alongside the defender's, so that the defender had to leave room. Therefore, since both drivers failed to do that, the speed differential wasn't sufficient.

j man wrote:The speed differential in this case was as large as what we see with DRS-assisted passes, and Rosberg should have treated it as such and just let them past as there was no way he could have defended his position safely in that situation.

What you're saying is no less than that a DRS-pass should not be resisted. I could never agree with that; a driver is allowed to defend himself, provided he does so according the rules. That is what Rosberg did.

j man wrote:The footage from Sky was a computer-generated 'snapshot' based on the footage so I'm not going to declare it as irrefutable evidence that Hamilton was alongside, but it was enough to convince me personally. Unfortunately I can't find a link for it.

Thanks for that. Did the Sky commentators say whether they thought Hamilton had moved alongside before going off-track?

Locked as the thread below is almost identical.