Quote:
Originally Posted by Beau2
No official source I'm afraid but I have read several accounts of people that have viewed Russel's data. The view seems to be that he broke 10m later than normal & was carrying 10kp/h more speed than previous laps in order to get a good exit.
|
Far enough. I can believe that, but would like to see actual reports vs. gossip. I could paraphrase Alonso's comment in that drivers should not be expected to drive exactly the same lap after lap. So if Russell wanted to attack on the corner and carry more speed into it, that would be allowable. Was that speed excessive and caused (or would have caused) the crash when viewed in isolation of other facts? More thoughts below...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike Harte
It's certainly not in the Stewards' report which I would have thought they would have mentioned as it may well have been a contributing element. Oh, I should add that the Stewards also had all the data and telemetry for Mercedes as well as from Aston Martin.
|
I think the overall wording of the Steward's decision is important. They don't try to address "why" Alonso was doing what he was doing. Just that the action was dangerous. They also don't delve into the cause of the accident other than listing Russell's comment that the unexpected closing of distanced resulted in loss of front end aero mid-corner.
I leave room for the potential for George to have screwed it up all on his own, but that is a hypothetical that would have to remove Alonso and his actions from the situation. That can't really be done. But if you tried, the only potential way is if Russell's telemetry shows he had no chance of making the corner at his entry speed. Meaning that regardless of what Alonso did Russell was going to crash. And I am assuming (as you say Mike) that the stewards looked at this data and felt that this was not the case, or was a lesser factor than Alonso's actions. I think if Russell's telemetry showed he had no chance to make the corner Alonso's team would have used that information to fight back during the stewards discussion or part of an appeal.
I don't have super strong feelings on this. What I am more passionate about is the statements from others as to cause that are more about "feelings" and in which it seems the information that is available is ignored. Or... that the level of games Alonso was playing in that corner is acceptable.
The stewards can clearly get things wrong. But I think this likely ended up being a very "evidence" or objective based ruling vs. a more subjective call such as something like "who owned a corner when there was contact" or that type of judgement call.
Richard