Great race by Sainz and Ferrari, great race by Norris and fuck you Red Bull.
If you discount the penalties, Verstappen was 40 seconds behind the leader. Perez was last amongst the cars still running. Red Bull drop to 3rd in the constructors’ championship and Norris gained 11 points on Verstappen in the drivers’ championship.
Ten Hag sacked by Man Utd.
Verstappen given 2 penalty points in addition to his time penalties for his Mexico GP shenanigans.
For a less line green with envy take:
Because Horner - when he’s not sending dick pics - is a neutral arbiter of Max’s driving?
Here’s the bottom line: the positions at Turn 4
Sainz, ahead in the Ferrari, is on the racing line because from here there is a very short run to a sharp right-hand turn, which means the drivers all hug the left hand side of the track. Verstappen is heading towards Cancun and - most importantly - Norris is ahead at the apex.
It wasn’t Max’s right to the racing line, it was Norris’. Max drove him off the track and so earned the first of the two time penalties. Now, the stewards have the option of assessing a 5 second or 10 second penalty for that offense, and they chose 10. They had their reasons.
So here at Turn 4, Max made no attempt to make the corner. He did exactly what he did last week in Austin, but this time was not able to get his nose in front at the apex, so he was penalized for forcing Norris off the track. He’d earned at least a 5 second penalty and, given what happened next, 5 or 10 seconds here is moot.
Three corners later, Max targeted Norris with an absolutely insane dive bomb from far too far back. Norris had to bail out way off the track yet Max still chased him so far out that they made contact when both carts were in the run off area. It was dangerous and reckless beyond belief. Given that Norris not finishing is a win for Max, it’s hard to believe that he wasn’t actively trying to take Norris out of the race. That was easily worthy of a 10 second penalty.
Max finished 55 seconds behind Norris. Had the first penalty been 5 seconds, not 10, he would’ve been 50 seconds - about half a lap - behind Norris. Had both penalties been 5 seconds, he would’ve finished 45 seconds behind. Meanwhile, Norris finished 5 seconds behind the winner Sainz, having easily lost 5 seconds or more during Max’s twin attacks.
Trying to sane-wash Max’s driving here is a fool’s errand.
Note also that Norris braked way too late also and was headed off the track regardless of what Max did. The British press always reports that Sir Lewis can do no wrong — whether he is going up against Vettel, Rosberg, Alonzo, or Max. And now soon-to-be-Sir Lando has taken up the mantel.
There’s a prominent link near the top of the article you posted to an explanation of the stewards’ decision. In that article is this report on the turn 4 incident:
They believed the move was done in a “safe and controlled manner and that Norris would have been able to make the” pass on track had he not been forced off by Verstappen.
Norris had less speed and more turn-in at the apex than Verstappen. The stewards deemed it possible that Norris could have maintained the track.
Verstappen had more speed and less turn-in, and failed to allow Norris the track space the rules dictate. Hence penalty.
Matt Turner starting for Palace tonight in their Carabao Cup clash with Aston Villa (Paramount+, 2:45pm).
Palace take an early lead through Eze. Then Eze goes down with a serious-looking injury and is replaced by Kamada. Then Kamada and Turner fuck up between them and Villa equalize. Then Wharton goes down with an injury.
fml
For those interested, Matt Turner has sorted his shit out and had a good game since letting a pea-roller go under his arm.
The Carabao Cup now advances to the quarter-final stage, which is typically where the “big boys” actually get interested rather than use it as a B Team training exercise. Winning the cup comes with guaranteed entry into one of the non-Champions League European competitions, so there is a benefit beyond the silverware.
No lower division teams survived this far, so it is an all-Premier League affair from now on. Notably, Man City, Villa and Brighton (
) were all eliminated this evening.
The draw came out as follows:
Arsenal - Crystal Palace
Newcastle - Brentford
Southampton - Liverpool
Tottenham - Man Utd
Matches to be played the week of December 16.
Back in the day. This was the Charity Shield.
If you ever wondered where the nickname “Dirty Leeds” came from, it was this bunch.
It’s a sprint weekend in F1. Currently in sprint qualifying, Norris is blowing everyone’s doors off (not that they have doors). Verstappen closest at 1/2 second behind.
Meanwhile, K-Mag has cried off the weekend sick so Ollie Bearman has taken his ride. Currently running 6th in sprint qualifying.
To the shock of no one, Perez is sucking shit. He dumped out in SQ2 because he failed to make the line in time for a second run, and may have a penalty for impeding coming his way.
ETA: McLaren 1 & 2 from Leclerc and Verstappen 2 and 3 tenths slower respectively.
Sprint race tomorrow at 9am, with GP qualifying at 1pm tomorrow.
I cannot believe how stupid the McLaren race strategists are.
McLaren somehow survived their own stupidity and got Piastri and Norris swapped before a Virtual Safety Car locked down the track. There were half-a-dozen moments that were far better to have made the swap, but they picked the worst time that put Verstappen right on Pastri’s tail.
However, Max tried to cheat/spook Piastri at the end of the VSC, and got himself a 5-second penalty, dropping him to 4th. That cost him and his team an extra point in the respective championships.
GP Quali to come, and Max has a 5-spot grid penalty coming for swapping out his engine. Unless he gets a miracle, he’s going to be 8th on the grid at best in the main race tomorrow.
A huge opportunity for Norris to take a massive chunk out of Verstappen’s lead in the driver’s championship. Let’s see how McLaren manages to fuck this up…
Torrential rain yesterday nixed F1 qualifying, which was pushed to this morning. It was still raining so we had 5 red flags and ended up with a “rainbow” grid.
The big news is that Norris is P1 and Verstappen is P17. Not a typo…P17. Max got caught by a red flag in Q2, ended up 12th and then had to take his grid penalty for the engine change.
With a wet race coming, though, anything can happen. No one is guaranteed to even finish.
I miss torrential rain
Thanks for the summary. I woke up early to watch but could not find it on Direct TV. There was some kind of co-ed adult kickball on. Or maybe I drank too much Calvados last night.
This morning’s chaos:
With the time change and the rain-disturbed schedule, the GP is about to start. It’s on ESPN-U.
