F1 Belgian Grand Prix (Spa-Francorchamps) Aug 27-29, 2021

Robert Cox46 said:The penalty was well-deserved 😁

They penalized him, plain and simple. He was already outside the points and stayed outside the points. It wasn't like he gained anything from it anyway, ha.

Ten seconds for a wing... though he probably could've done it without it—and ten seconds just to toss Max off the track... pretty fair, I guess

When can we expect the poll for the upcoming race to be posted?

NASCAR drivers deal with rain all the time—when you're sliding all over the track, nobody’s really complaining about the delay.
Rallying is basically just driving through snow, rain, and mud... it's just part of the job.
Back in the day, NASCAR used to handle these kinds of messy situations—think 2003 US Grand Prix, Japan 2007, Korea 2010, or Japan 2014—by running about ten laps or more under the SC while the drivers waited for the water to clear, warmed up their tires, got the brakes up to temp, and just adjusted to the chaos.

But what happened yesterday? They just sat there parked for three hours, waiting to see if the sky would finally show some mercy. I get that visibility was trash, but they should have kept them moving under the SC to give everyone a real shot at racing. These conditions aren't exactly a once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon.
Maybe there's a comparison to be made with Bernie, like Tibi pointed out—it’s hard to imagine this kind of disorganized mess happening back in his era.

Richard Ross11 said:When is the poll for the race going up?

Are you actually kidding me right now? It was just posted yesterday.

Watching the race, I found myself drifting into a bit of nostalgia. I really missed having Mladen Jergović around, specifically those long, winding monologues he used to give back when we were in Canada.

Robert Cox46 said:NASCAR races on wet tracks where there's a much higher risk of spinning out, yet nobody complains about that.
Rallying involves driving through snow, rain, mud... and that’s just part of the job.
In similar situations in the past (Brazil 2003, Japan 2007, Korea 2010, Japan 2014), Formula 1 used to run about 10 laps or more under the SC while drivers cleared the standing water, warmed up their tires and brakes, and got used to the new conditions.

But what happened yesterday—they just sat parked for three hours waiting to see if the sky would clear up. I know visibility was poor, but they should have kept driving under the SC to give themselves a chance to actually race. These kinds of conditions aren't exactly unprecedented.
Maybe we can draw a parallel with Bernie; as Tibi noted, it's hard to imagine this kind of mess happening back in his era.

At first glance, the spray kicked up by a motorcycle is way less than what an F1 car produces.
That's why they can manage it. It isn't just because they are warriors who aren't afraid of anything.
The mist created by bikes is relatively small, whereas an F1 car creates a massive cloud behind it that makes it impossible to see anything.
Modern F1 cars just aren't built for heavy rain because they are so aerodynamically loaded with all sorts of tech that they end up spraying water everywhere.

I believe the drivers—they really couldn't see a thing. In those conditions, racing makes no sense; if you can't see the cars ahead of you, how are you supposed to compete?

They should have spent five or six laps trailing the safety car, just spraying some water and burning rubber to clear the track.

I am no genius, but that spray was massive, and everyone except Max was struggling immensely.

It felt like driving through thick fog; incredibly dangerous because visibility was essentially zero.

In my view, the race ought to have been canceled entirely without awarding any points—handing out points like this is madness.

For instance, based on these specific points, McLaren jumped ahead of Ferrari in the battle for third place, which involves millions of dollars. Such things shouldn't happen; awarding points after only two laps behind the safety car is absurd.

Both Vettel and Hamilton called it a farce, and they aren't the only ones, because it truly is a farce.

Bernie thinks they're cowards 😬

"I would have told the teams and the drivers at 3pm, ‘it is raining, we are prepared to put it off for an hour and hope the weather is going to change. But no matter what happens the race will start at 4pm and then it is up to you whether you take part or not.’

"If you want to take a risk, it is up to you, and if you don’t want to, don’t. If you think it is dangerous racing quickly, don’t race quickly.”

"But it is a different group of people now, and they didn’t have the courage and they don’t want to take risks."

Bernie Ecclestone accuses F1 bosses of lacking courage over Belgian GP decision

He's even drawing parallels to Afghanistan 😬

Ecclestone, 90, continued: “In a dangerous sport, things can happen and people can get killed.

“When people are cleaning windows in big office blocks, the cradle can fall and they can die. And they don’t get paid an awful lot of money for doing it.

"These poor people who were fighting in Afghanistan were told they had to go there and fight, and it wasn’t their choice. It was dangerous and a lot of them got killed.

“If we were in the army and we were told we have to go to Afghanistan, we might have said, ‘bloody hell, that doesn’t sound safe, but we have to go, we don’t have a choice.’

“In yesterday’s case, the drivers had a choice. If they wanted to take a risk to get points, then it was up to them."

😁

Bernie, come back! We made you some pasta...

cosmicridge5 said:Bernie claims they’re cowards 😬

Bernie Ecclestone accuses F1 bosses of lacking courage over Belgian GP decision

He even drew a parallel to Afghanistan 😬

😁

During the broadcast, there were plenty of reasons why continuing just wasn't an option.
Between the terrible visibility from inside the cockpit and the fact that helicopters couldn't get aerial shots due to those low clouds—if I understood that correctly—it was a mess. Plus, trackside marshals wouldn't have been able to see far enough down the line if an accident happened...

Safety comes first. Everything is scrutinized now; that's just how things work today.

And honestly, I don't see how you can justify overtaking in weather like that. If I heard someone gained ten spots purely through overtakes in those conditions, I’d personally strip them of those positions. 😁 How can you overtake when you can't even see what's in front of you? You're basically gambling—risking everyone else's safety along with your own.

cosmicridge5 said:Bernie claims they're cowards 😬

Bernie Ecclestone accuses F1 bosses of lacking courage over Belgian GP decision

He even drew a parallel to Afghanistan 😬

😁

MDA, comparing professional soldiers to racing drivers. 🙄 Naturally, they understand the risks involved, but that doesn't mean they should be out there trying to kill themselves. There's a reason we push for more safety every single year.

The poll is missing an option for "which race."😬

In my view, the race being halted isn't actually the issue; what’s truly debatable is the decision to award points based on an incomplete race.

Let’s set aside whether they should have raced at all. The real question is why we are even talking about points—what is the logic behind this ridiculous scoring system? Someone ought to be held accountable here, because even half a point can be the difference between finishing up or down a position in the final standings.

Are the Regulations actually written such that a race is considered fully valid if it doesn't feature a single lap under SC, even when points are being handed out? Is that really how it works?

graniteharbor502 said:Are you kidding me? It was just posted yesterday...

I honestly meant the post as a joke and didn't even realize there was a poll attached, since I'm typing this on my phone...
Otherwise, I wouldn't have...

mellowtiger83 said:For me, stopping the race isn't even the issue. The real problem is handing out points for a race that barely happened.

Forget whether they should have raced or not—what's the point of the scoring? This whole points system is nonsense, and someone needs to be held accountable. Even half a point can be the difference between finishing up or down a spot in the standings.

Pure naivety...
Points don't matter, not one bit...
They’re just a byproduct, not the cause.

The cause is MONEY...
If they hadn't run those two laps, the organizers would have had to refund the fans because, let's face it, there was no race.
If that happened, Liberty Media would have to pay back the organizers since there was no race, and if there was no race, then FOM would have to refund every single TV network.

But hey, you hand out points, and suddenly there *was* a race...
And nobody owes anyone a dime. Screw the points, it's all about the Euros. 🙂

stormybadger8 said:Naive...
Points don't matter, not even a little bit...
They are the consequence, not the cause.

The cause is MONEY...
If those two laps hadn't happened, the organizers would have had to refund the spectators because, let's face it, there was no race...
If that happened, Liberty Media would have had to refund the organizers because there was no race, and if there was no race, then FOM would have had to refund all the TV networks because there was no race...

But here you have points, therefore, there was a race...
And nobody is refunding anyone anything. Forget the points; what matters is the Euro. 🙂

There would still be money to be made even if they had just postponed the race until the next day. At least some of these same spectators would have come back, others would have shown up instead of those who were refunded, and the TV networks would have broadcast the race the following day, and so on. It might have been a minor administrative headache, but nothing that would create a massive problem for them. And it certainly would have been worth it, because there actually would have been a race, rather than just drivers taking a little joyride around the track.

It’s blindingly obvious why they split the points—money talks. What I don't get is why nobody bothered to move the race up when the forecast was actually looking decent. Every single weather report we checked back home was screaming Gilgamesh 2.0 for Sunday afternoon after 3 PM, and if us pathetic outsiders saw it coming, then Mass and his cronies definitely should have too. I mean, the Formula 3 race happened earlier—sure, there was a delay because of the rain, but it actually happened. Moving that would've been way easier (read: cheaper) to push to Monday, but that would require having an actual strategic brain, which was totally absent here.

Given that the weather was known days in advance, it's absolutely insane that they were just winging it on-site, playing games with the clock and debating what to do. If you see a literal deluge on the radar, you develop a worst-case scenario instead of making up stupid excuses on the fly. Since they already decided to split the points after that pathetic sprint behind the SC, they could've just run one more lap in the first session and saved us three hours of watching rain fall and everyone in the stands catching a cold or worse.

Total system failure. It rained. In America. Where it always rains. 🙏

Honestly, they should’ve just swapped F1 and Formula 3 around, because let’s be real, Formula 3 barely even shows up with only three races anyway.

swiftmaker12 said:I just feel for those fans who shelled out for expensive tickets. It seems like the FIA only pulled this move to technically cancel the race so they wouldn't have to issue any refunds.

Domenico explained it quite simply.

What we saw on Sunday was really the only way to handle it if you want to avoid extra headaches—mostly financial ones—for the FIA, the organizers, and the teams.