Join Paul and me as we review the FIA Formula 1 Brazilian Grand Prix on this F1 podcast. We cover the race as it happened and each team and driver as they finished. We talk about the Mx Verstappen vs. Esteban Ocon incident and asses blame…yep, we reveal who’s to blame. We even talk about the Toro Rosso shouting match and wonder what will happen at Williams post-Smedley. In short, we cover a lot of ground.
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Negative Camber
Chief Opinion Officer, TPF
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Finally a racing expert to explain the Ocon/Verstappen incident… okay, I’ll buy that. But I do have a question… wasn’t Ocon in the lead after the previous corner and wasn’t he on the racing line? If I was Verstappen I would have thought discretion is the better part of valor.
Of course, your explanation makes sense, it’s Ocon’s fault, but I still blame Verstappen for not protecting himself.
Hi Peter, Well he was just ahead into turn 1 but not turn 2 where the incident happened, Verstappen was in fact on the proper line, Ocon was out wide by that point. At that point in the corner you have to trust the other driver has done the right thing (backed off to avoid contact), this is where drivers say in interviews that they can play fair with others
You’re the racer and not me, so I’ll defer to your experience, but Max knew that Ocon was coming, and was on the outside of him on Turn 1, surely he should have expected that he’d be there at Turn 2 as well?
Don’t get me wrong, it was a clunky move at best.
Don’t want to put words in Paul’s mouth but as we discussed on the cast, he knew he was there and out of position and not on the line going into T2 and expected him to lift, not tuck under him and fight for a position at the apex…being lapped and Mx leading.
Max confirmed this on dutch television. He didn’t not expect Ocon (as a backmarker) to just lunge it up the inside in T2 after failing to overtake him in T1. And letting him past wasn’t really an option eighter, Ocon was only 0.2 sec faster then Verstappen at that point. All of wich plus then some on the straits, he was much faster in the twisty bit. So with Hamilton only 2 seconds behind getting stuck behind Ocon was never a good idea. While i don’t subscribe to the Mercedes conspiracies, i’m 100% convinced the lunge was on purpose, eighter… Read more »
I think both things are correct. Yes it was reasonable to expect Ocon would lift and not be where he had been, but yes it was also prudent to worry that he might be there and be careful to go on and win the race you have in hand. That’s why people like Lewis Hamilton don’t seem to suffer bad luck as often as people like Max Verstappen. It’s like someone told me about the danger of car drivers who don’t see you, and the importance of accomodating them when I was a bicycle racer – how much would it… Read more »
You were making the point that Max shouldn’t be expected to see Ocon because he was “looking through the corner “. That is not entirely true. Yes you’re supposed to look through the corner but that doesn’t mean you don’t have awareness of where you are. The driver looks through the corner and looks at where he is: his eyes are constantly moving. You don’t stare off into the distance. Max hit Ocon because he was being too aggressive when he didn’t need to be and it didn’t pay off. He should have given Ocon a bit more room and… Read more »
We talked about that too. Max knew he was there for sure and he was most likely looking ahead through the corner and took the apex as he was on the racing line, Ocon was on the outside. I have to think that as the race leader, you would expect the lapped car to lift and not dive underneath for the position at the apex. he’s a lap down, not fighting Max for the win.
I get all that –and don’t disagree –but Max was the driver and he could have made it come out different. I’m not absolving Ocon, I just don’t think it was all him. And it was Verstappen’s race to lose. The resulting contact and 2nd position says more about Max than Ocon.
There is that notion that Max had more to lose and should have let him go by but in the end, it took both to collide. Stewards felt Ocon had the obligation to back out and not make the lunge on Max not that Max, the leader of the race, had the obligation to lift, go wide and let Ocon have the racing line and apex.
I think there is also the concept, which you may be alluding to, that suggests that Max hasn’t honed his skill of long-term big picture versus immediacy of the fight. If he had let Ocon go and then Esteban’s tires wore out and his speed waned, blue flags would have made him a sitting duck for Max to re-pass. I think that’s the long-game thinking and probably what Lewis was suggesting in the cool-down room when he said Max had more to lose and he’s right. Max and Ocon have a history and as Paul mentioned on the cast, that… Read more »
Well your eyes shouldn’t be constantly moving from mirrors to track in a corner, especially a triple like the Senna esses, for sure you have awareness, and use peripheral vision, but at no point is this staring off into the distance, its targeting your eyes to the next marker point. Think playing a high level game of tetris, if your not looking up and ahead your done for. You cannot go about racing giving room like that in every circumstance, you have to sometimes rely on your competitor to do the right thing which in my view Ocon did not.
Not sure why there is so much love of Ocon on various sites. I think what is bugging Ocon is that for a second season he has been outscored by his team mate. Sure he is a better qualifier but that is like saying I prepared for the exams. It is not the quality of the preparation that counts it is how well you do in the exams. In the race itself Sergio is often faster. This might simply reflect more consistent speed. The other difference with Ocon and all the incidences there has never been a single apology. This… Read more »
I totally agree, the lack of respect Ocon is showing is just not done.
Okay is it NOW time to admit that Vettel is cracking up? That bs on the scales was idiotic, and then in the race, when they told him to speed up, I think he was crying. I think the dude is mentally unhinging, and you can see Lewis trying to do the same thing to Max. ‘I wasn’t surprised’ Lewis says about Max blowing it. You think that was an honest observation? Somewhere along the way Lewis met a sports shrink who convinced him to stop trying to mitigate his own childish fragilities and paranoia, and instead start exploiting the… Read more »
I just wanted to chime in and say that a Mark Hallam cameo would really be a really special treat!