F1 British GP 2021: Memorable for the wrong reasons
I used to write race reports for all races, but stopped in 2020, as F1 was dull as dishwater with Hamilton and Mercedes dominating, but today is different, as there are some actual talking points other than Hamilton or Verstappen winning, but the Copse controversy is still regarding the same two protagonists.
I guess your opinion of what happened is based upon whether you fall into the Hamilton camp, or the Verstappen camp, personally, I don’t fall into either camp, I fall into the good, exciting racing camp.
After a punchy first half lap with Hamilton and Verstappen going wheel to wheel for the lead, the two drivers collided going into Copse corner at the end of the old start/finish straight at Silverstone, sending Verstappen spinning into the gravel and on into the tire barrier, ending the Dutchman’s race.
As a neutral, my take is it was a racing incident, both Hamilton and Verstappen could have done more to avoid a collision. Hamilton could have hugged the inside of the apex better, and Verstappen could have kept his foot in on the outside before cutting across the Mercedes, so I would say it was 50/50 blame.
The stewards, however, decided it was Hamilton’s fault and handed down a 10-second penalty, which he served during his pitstop. I have been very vocal about these penalties, for what I see as hard racing, even more so when it’s on the first lap where everyone is challenging for position up and down the field.
decided it was Hamilton’s faultOf course, both respective team principles, Christian Horner and Toto Wolff were instantly on the radio to race director Michael Masi, Horner pushing for a penalty for Hamilton, Wolff defending his driver, which, we get to hear in 2021 after the radio messages between the race director and teams were opened up.
Max himself posted to his Facebook profile labeling Hamilton’s podium celebrations “disrespectful and unsportsmanlike” while he was in the hospital for precautionary reasons. It later turned out that Lewis did not know that Max was in the hospital, the Englishman showed concern for Verstappen after the incident, asking if Max was OK over team radio, this is pure sour grapes from Verstappen, and Red Bull.
Red Bull advisor Dr. Helmut Marko, being who he is, controversially stated that Hamilton should be given a race ban, which of course, is ridiculous, it should never have been a penalty, let alone severe enough for a race ban. If the argument is that Max could have gotten hurt, GTFO of the sport, F1 is inherently dangerous, even with all the safety measures, it’s time to put on their big boy pants and race.
In my opinion, there is too much (formerly) behind the scenes politicking going on, we, the fans want hard racing, deciding the result on the track, not in courtrooms and hearings. Since the FIA opened up team to FIA radio messages to the broadcasters, Masi said that the number of radio messages from teams has dropped significantly, now that the world can hear what whiny bitches team principles can be.
I’m happy that Hamilton won the race, I feel it would have been unfair if Hamilton had failed to win the race because of an unjust penalty. That said, I kinda wanted Leclerc to win the race, or at least put up a fight for the win, I guess that Leclerc thought better of defending into Copse, given what happened earlier, second place is better than a DNF, especially as Ferrari are rarely on the podium in recent years.