Quote:
Originally Posted by dfox
What I stated was fact, taken directly from the telemetry. Max carried more speed through turn one, while on cool medium tires, while carrying a whole race worth of fuel, than he did during qualifying on warmed up soft tires and low fuel. That's a divebomb, period.
Also, I never said Piastri didn't divebomb, in fact, I didn't address Piastri's approach to the corner at all. All I was addressing is that Max had no intention of making the corner, it didn't matter where Piastri was.
Stewards agreed. So yeah.  |
Verstappen started from pole position, not from P2. When the lights went out, he didn't intend to go park his car in Turn 1 to go get groceries. He raced towards Turn 1 on the outside. Piastri (P2) divebombed Turn 1 on the inside, making his car an obstacle for Verstappen (or for any other driver who would have started from P1, except maybe for the other fast McLaren car) to get through Turn 1 as P1. From hindsight, once the lights went out, Verstappen should have impeded Piastri more with more aggressively steering to the left, making his Red Bull car an obstacle for Piastri's McLaren to defend track position + by doing so, avoid Piastri to go full throttle. Russell (P3) could have benefited from the Verstappen/Piastri bickering, but would have also been on the outside upon negotiating Turn 1.
Piastri's car became an obstacle for Verstappen's car in Turn 1. Not the other way around. Don't invent stuff. And yes, Piastri was entitled to do what he did: he managed to keep the advantage of being on the inside with his fast McLaren upon approaching Turn 1 whilst getting alongside Verstappen - that's smart racing. I don't claim that Piastri "forced Verstappen off track", but rather that he managed to "lock (up) Verstappen in the outside corner", offering Verstappen the classic choice when getting divebombed: either slam the brakes (yield/back off), crash into each other or leave the track.
Anyways, let's all agree that it's a good thing for the sport to have Piastri doing the things he does. I said it before and say it again: Piastri is a future WDC winner.
I expect Verstappen to steer more aggressively into Piastri's direction if he's 1 track position ahead of Piastri on the same row of the start grid, forcing Piastri to lift the throttle or even brake. Just a matter of time.