[Official] Dutch Grand Prix 2022: Grand Prix Weekend Thread - Round 15 of 22

[TrapezeArtist]

Originally Posted by BTCC frog

Did anyone else think the Tsunoda incident was a bit dodgy, in terms of potentially being like Crashgate. I am obviously not going to label it as such with no evidence but think it is perhaps weird enough to be worth investigating.

Don't suspect a conspiracy until you have eliminated incompetence.

[TrapezeArtist]

The catalogue of Ferrari cock-ups just keeps on growing. At this rate they'll be on a second volume by the end of the year.

Getting a strategy call wrong is sort-of excusable when you're having to second-guess the strategy decisions of all the cars around you. Only bringing out 3 tyres for a tyre change is a hanging offence. And an unsafe release is really not much less, though plenty of other teams have done it at one time or another.

[Dixie Flatline]

Originally Posted by crmalcolm

That might be correct.

However - it was speculated on the BBC coverage that when he first slowed down, he might have loosened his harness thinking he was retiring the car. Then when he was back in the pits, his harness needed tightening again - but was not related to the issue. Beitske Visser said that she didn't see how a loose harness could be mistaken for a loose wheel by the driver.

From the BBC coverage:

'"I thought there was an issue, so I came back again," said Alpha Tauri man. "We fitted a different set of tyres and after that pit stop, we saw the issue in the data, so we stopped."

The Japanese driver added: "The tyre was not the issue in the end. Seatbelt was fine. We just re-tightened it."'

Button said pretty much the same thing on the Sky coverage of the race. I'm paraphrasing but Button said something along the lines that Tsunoda would have loosened the harness in the expectation that he was retiring the car, and then the team tightened the harness to send him back out again - only for him to retire the car a few corners later.

For mine, the Bottas retirement at the end of the main straight had more influence on the outcome of the race than the Tsunoda retirement. While I admire Hamilton and his record in the sport, surely he had to realise that, in the context of this season where Mercedes are nowhere near Red Bull, Mercedes would let the drivers race and if George thought it was best for his own personal race outcome to switch to softs, Mercedes weren't going to block him from doing so to act as a rear gunner for Lewis. And I daresay that George made the right choice. The medium tyres were not the right tyre to be on at the end of the race and George probably wouldn't have finished on the podium had he not switched to soft tyres under the safety car.

[Taxi645]

Hamilton also got royally screwed by Vettel and the Aston Martin team before all the Tsunoda and Bottas stuff. He lost more than 4s when Aston Martin failed to instruct Vetted to let Hamilton and Perez pass while still in the pit exit and then took way too long to let them by.


Mercedes were really making good use of the tire treatment of their car with their strategy. Hat's off to Russel though for having his thinking cap on again. It's the teams job mainly, but good of him to not leave it to them completely.

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by Richard Casto

Makes perfect sense and better than my speculation.

Richard

It seems that the BBC speculation was accurate:

"AlphaTauri driver Yuki Tsunoda has been reprimanded for driving his car without having his seatbelts fully fastened ahead of his unusual retirement from the Dutch Grand Prix. Tsunoda stopped on track on lap 45 of the race after believing a rear wheel was loose following his second pit stop. He started to undo his seatbelt to get out of the car but was then instructed to return to the pits by AlphaTauri. On his return to the pit lane, his mechanics fitted new tyres and tightened his belts before sending him back on track. At that point, an issue with the car's differential was spotted and Tsunoda was told to stop again.

The stewards issued Tsunoda with a non-racing reprimand for driving his car in an unsafe condition.

"After a pit stop of car 22 [Tsunoda], the driver stopped the car due to the fact that he felt a wheel being not properly fitted, the investigation by the Stewards led to the conclusion, that in fact there was a problem with the differential," an FIA stewards statement said. "Therefore the car was not in an unsafe condition when released from its pit stop position.

"However, during the hearing the driver admitted, that after stopping on track he was ready to abandon the car and started to loosen the safety belt, without unlocking it.


"After that he travelled back to the pits where the mechanics re-fastened the belts. It is not possible, to determine exactly to which degree the seatbelt had been loosened by the driver."

[crmalcolm]

Not a good image to photoshop by ESPN -

[PhilipR]

As a merc fan it has been great to see them race towards the front on merit. However even without the Safety Car or Hamilton change tyres I still think they would have finished 2 and 3 on pace, Ver in that Red Bull is too fast at the moment

However I am starting to think that on race pace the Merc is faster than the Ferraris and Perez . What they lack is one lap pace to qualify up and top speed to overtake easily on straights. Ham lost a lot of time behind Sainz at the beginning. Still good progress but for a win luck needs to be involved at this point

Also sort of ominous that Ver can mess up Friday FPs and then dominate the race. This feels like a season where the confidence is so high he can do no wrong ala Vettel 2011, Schumi 95, Senna 91 etc

[S griffin]

Yet another Max win, but at least we had some decent racing in this one. Mercedes certainly look ready to win a race on merit again. They are probably more likely to win than Ferrari atm.

Sainz really had a messy race. Really messed up that pitstop with that missing wheel. Todt and Brawn would never let of happened. Oh wait....

Really strange how Alpha Tauri let Tsunoda go back out despite having that problem. What were they thinking.

Still it was a good race and now we move onto Monza

[nobster]

Originally Posted by S griffin

Yet another Max win, but at least we had some decent racing in this one. Mercedes certainly look ready to win a race on merit again. They are probably more likely to win than Ferrari atm.

Sainz really had a messy race. Really messed up that pitstop with that missing wheel. Todt and Brawn would never let of happened. Oh wait....

Really strange how Alpha Tauri let Tsunoda go back out despite having that problem. What were they thinking.

Still it was a good race and now we move onto Monza

they let him back out because on the data it showed no problem, only after leaving the pits Yuki came on the radio that there might be something wrong with the dif and immediately he was told to stop the car as it showed on the data that something indeed was wrong. before the pitstop there were no signs!

[peebee2]

Originally Posted by S griffin

Really strange how Alpha Tauri let Tsunoda go back out despite having that problem. What were they thinking.

They were thinking the car was fine. That’s rather obvious.

[S griffin]

Really they should have listened to their driver who knew what was going on

[AndreasDavour]

I really can't decide it this race was a wash due to the interruptions, or fun for the chaos of it.

[AndreasDavour]

My first takeaway was that it looks like 4th in the constructors championship is all but gone now for McLaren. DR looks like he has given up. Some dirt on the track during quali, sure, but the showing on Sunday was just embarrassing. They could probably not get a worse result just putting their reserve driver in the seat... wait a second...


Well. *ahem*

[peebee2]

Originally Posted by S griffin

Really they should have listened to their driver who knew what was going on

And what did he tell them in his usual chaotic excitement? (Something they could see wasn’t correct.)

[Lancsbreaker]

I note that Vettel was given a 5-second penalty and a point on his licence for failing to move over under blues for Hamilton and Perez......


Timing of the VSC and SC obviously ruined Hamilton's race strategy, and I doubt the team could have done much to reclaim the situation. I thought he erred in going early at the restart, although it probably only delayed Verstappen's pass for a lap or so.

[Greem]

It also turns out that Hamilton had set a switch incorrectly for the full SC restart which left his PU unable to deliver all the power, hence Verstappen's ability to simply stroll (no pun intended) past him before getting to Tarzan.

[AndreasDavour]

I didn't think it was such a bad behaviour from Vettel when I saw it in the race, him coming out with cold tires and all. But, in a replay it was amazing how blind he acted!

[TrapezeArtist]

Originally Posted by Greem

It also turns out that Hamilton had set a switch incorrectly for the full SC restart which left his PU unable to deliver all the power, hence Verstappen's ability to simply stroll (no pun intended) past him before getting to Tarzan.

Bit of an elementary mistake for a 7.5x world champion.

[AndreasDavour]

Originally Posted by Greem

It also turns out that Hamilton had set a switch incorrectly for the full SC restart which left his PU unable to deliver all the power, hence Verstappen's ability to simply stroll (no pun intended) past him before getting to Tarzan.

Yeah, I heard that as well. That felt almost Ferrari level of wrong.

[TrapezeArtist]

Originally Posted by AndreasDavour

My first takeaway was that it looks like 4th in the constructors championship is all but gone now for McLaren. DR looks like he has given up. Some dirt on the track during quali, sure, but the showing on Sunday was just embarrassing. They could probably not get a worse result just putting their reserve driver in the seat... wait a second...


Well. *ahem*

I think that was probably Dan's worst performance to date. A bit hard to tell as we didn't see him on the box, but he seemed to make no progress whatsoever while his team-mate was fighting it out at the from of Division 2. That's the final nail in the coffin. I can't imagine any other team taking a chance on him now.

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by AndreasDavour

I really can't decide it this race was a wash due to the interruptions, or fun for the chaos of it.

For me, this somewhat speaks as to why endurance racing can be so good. It is a team effort to operate over a long period of time. Pick any two laps of a race and on average most teams are doing a good job. Drivers are driving, pit crew is ready, etc. But extend that time out, then you have more opportunity for things to go wrong. Someone (be it a driver, mechanic, strategist, etc.) makes a mistake. So it if it is a true team sport, then that drama and chaos is all part of it. I personally enjoy it all. The driving, the technology and the good and bad of the inevitable drama and chaos.

Richard

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by TrapezeArtist

I think that was probably Dan's worst performance to date. A bit hard to tell as we didn't see him on the box, but he seemed to make no progress whatsoever while his team-mate was fighting it out at the from of Division 2. That's the final nail in the coffin. I can't imagine any other team taking a chance on him now.

He is a nice guy and has put in some great drives. But he is currently doing himself no favors at the worst possible time and and is creating a narrative of being beyond his expiration date.

Richard

[S griffin]

Yes, he really looked even more out of sorts than usual. He’s always been a favourite of mine, so it’s painful to see Danny struggle so much this year. I hope he continues in F1 though, as I don’t want to see him go out with a whimper

Anyway it was nice to see Russell get his first ‘proper’ 2nd place

[AndreasDavour]

Originally Posted by Richard Casto

For me, this somewhat speaks as to why endurance racing can be so good. It is a team effort to operate over a long period of time. Pick any two laps of a race and on average most teams are doing a good job. Drivers are driving, pit crew is ready, etc. But extend that time out, then you have more opportunity for things to go wrong. Someone (be it a driver, mechanic, strategist, etc.) makes a mistake. So it if it is a true team sport, then that drama and chaos is all part of it. I personally enjoy it all. The driving, the technology and the good and bad of the inevitable drama and chaos.

Richard

Yeah, in endurance racing I can enjoy it, mostly because it's an ebb and flow. In a short F1 race it just feels like a small thing ruin the race.

[AndreasDavour]

Originally Posted by TrapezeArtist

I think that was probably Dan's worst performance to date. A bit hard to tell as we didn't see him on the box, but he seemed to make no progress whatsoever while his team-mate was fighting it out at the from of Division 2. That's the final nail in the coffin. I can't imagine any other team taking a chance on him now.

I just saw Ted's Notebook about McLaren, and I feel for Danny. Like him, let's go to Monza and think happy thoughts.