New chapter in the ‘final season’ of the 2021 Formula 1 World Cup. After Friday’s controversial qualifying session for today’s sprint race, as we discussed in this , Lewis Hamilton will start last in said sprint, while his greatest rival, Max Verstappen, has been fined 50,000 euros.
With just over two hours to go before the third sprint race of the season to establish the starting grid for the Brazilian GP tomorrow, Sunday, the sanctions after the ‘moved’ on Friday are already known. Hamilton will start last in the sprint race, while Verstappen has been heavily fined.
After the move that was set up on Friday, with the stewards investigating Hamilton’s Mercedes for allegedly using a wing opening up to 20% wider than allowed (8.5 mm), which would have given him the wide advantage with which he won the qualification to Verstappen; and after the second move, Mercedes’ complaint about Verstappen’s ‘touching’ the wing of Hamilton’s car with his hand once qualifying was over, the stewards acted harshly and penalized the Briton by sending him to the back of the grid the sprint race (20:30 Spanish time, DAZN). Verstappen will have to pay 50,000 euros per cretin.
For being a jerk, yes, because Max’s behavior has no other name, the FIA fined him 50,000 euros for touching the Mercedes’ wing, something, obviously, totally prohibited. So Verstappen will have to scratch his pocket, but he does not lose any place in the sprint race or on the grid in tomorrow’s race Sunday.
The Hamilton thing, being more serious, is more worrying. And not only for the action that he has deserved the sanction itself, because cheating is very ugly. And if it has been an oversight, the Mercedes team deserves everything that is happening to it. But the one that is going to be mounted is órdago, because Mercedes has been threatening all day that it would appeal any type of sanction against Hamilton. And because? Because in full delirium, the Germans blame that oversized wing… Verstappen!
Yes, as they read it. Taking into account that the wing of a Formula 1 car is designed to withstand hard blows and pressures of hundreds of kilos, Verstappen would have to be ‘Supermax’ to be able to widen, using only his fingers, the wing in just half a second.
So, in the absence of knowing what happens with the appeal, in the end Hamilton, something rare, is fairly sanctioned. And let’s remember that this is only his second penalty of the weekend, because whatever happens today in the sprint, he will lose five places on the grid for tomorrow’s race, after having changed the engine. So the reigning world champion will need to be at least fourteenth in the sprint race if he doesn’t want to start last tomorrow in the Brazilian GP race. And considering that there are 19 points that separate him from Verstappen, Hamilton’s dream of the eighth World Cup (and with it surpassing Schumacher in the F1 Olympus) seems more like a nightmare every day.
Have the popcorn ready, because both today and tomorrow sparks will fly from the Interlagos asphalt.
Facebook Comments
Disqus