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Originally Posted by chillibowl
i cant recall where i read this...i think it was an Alonso quote suggesting that had there been tarmac there instead of gravel, there would not have been any investigation.
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He said that on his Instragram post about the incident. I think the implication is... following car would have gone off and not crashed if there had been tarmac (and maybe plenty of run off). I see two ways to look at that.
(1) With tarmac and no crash, then it is a "No harm no foul" situation because no physical damage, no need to stop the race and so on. Of which, that is frankly ludicrous because clearly it impacts the following cars "race" and benefits the leading car by increasing the gap.
(2) Things like this are more likely to be investigated if there is a resulting accident. With tarmac, no accident, probably no investigation. Of which I think many here (myself included) would somewhat agree with, but maybe not the conclusion he is looking for. Such as.. it shouldn't have been investigated?
I "think" (hope) Alonso might have been referring to my second viewpoint?
Text below from the stewards decision...
Quote:
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In considering the matter the stewards focused solely on the wording of the regulation which states “At no time may a car be driven unnecessarily slowly, erratically or in a The Stewards manner which could be deemed potentially dangerous to other drivers or any other person.” (Art 33.4) Specifically, in this case, the stewards have not considered the consequences of the crash.
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I think there is VERY good reasons for why they called that out. The precedent that would be set if they had said the resulting consequences of the trigger was a factor would mean that if you were to do something like drive erratically but you DON'T create significant drama (accident, etc.) then it is OK. I think the stewards want to be clear that you can't drive erratically regardless of if it causes issues or not.
Do I think this sets a precedent that there will be more investigations and punishment for driver behavior? Probably not. If anything it might settle down some driver actions. I think if anything this sort of became a situation in which the stewards could use as an example of "beware drivers, if you play stupid games, you may win stupid prizes"
Richard