James1978 wrote:If that incident had been between two drivers from different teams, I doubt anyone would have hardly raised an eyebrow!
Well, we did have a second clash between two drivers at the back of the field when Bianchi, having run wide at La Source, was clipped by Grosjean as he tried to return to the racing line, and few people seem to give much of a damn about that incident.
I do agree that perhaps the nature of the two drivers involved has perhaps coloured the interpretation of events. If, for example, we'd seen a similar incident between Maldonado and Grosjean, I would wager that certain sectors of the media would use such an incident would be used to continue berating Maldonado - no doubt claiming that it showed a lack of spatial awareness on track - irrespective of whether he was tagging the car ahead or the one being tagged.
More_Blue_Flags wrote:Ferrari. For that nonsense with Alonso's car just before and during the start of the warmup lap. I really thought I was going to see somebody get killed.
Perhaps I might seem like I'm banging this drum rather hard, but the more that I think back to this incident, the more and more disgusted that I am by what happened there.
The situation at Mercedes is a childish farce created by their own foolishness, but ultimately the worst that is going to happen there is that a few people will be nursing hurt egos - what happened with Alonso on the grid is a lot more cynical and nasty. Somebody there deliberately placed mechanics in a dangerous situation by ordering them back onto the racetrack and where it could have been much more than just a few egos that were hurt, and that to my mind is far worse.
The worst part is that you suspect that the person who made the call probably knew that any penalty that might be imposed on the team would have been very light and therefore didn't care less about racking up a penalty, not to mention showing a negligent attitude towards the welfare of his mechanics. A five second penalty is too light in the circumstances - perhaps some might think it harsh, but honestly I would have wanted to have seen Alonso black flagged for that.
Yes, I know that it is harsh on Alonso given he had no control over the situation (and some of his hand gestures seem to suggest he was trying to send the mechanics away), but given the danger of the situation, they should have penalised the team more harshly - and hitting the team hard by preventing them taking points from the race and publicly shaming them for their actions would be, to my mind, a far stronger deterrent.
