2025 Spanish Grand Prix - [POST RACE] discussion thread 🏁
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What was the problem with RedBull communication? (Plain real question
)From what I understand from the turn 1 incident on that lap with Russel, the team told Max to give the position back as he could have been deemed to gain a lasting advantage by going off track and keeping ahead. Max didn’t like the call and decided to show his team what George did to him. However it was clear that Max did it intentionally and in a what could have been dangerous manner. Completely against the code of racing really. There was no need for it and it seems in many peo0,e views he should have been/should be penalised more harshly.
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Yeah, now I see why people hated Schumacher.
Honestly, now I've grown up a bit and watched Max, I'm really glad that I was young enough to just cheer on Schumacher and either not notice or forget all his bad behaviour. I even got to have a day off school and sit in his car once when it visited a Shell near me!
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Race was alright until that safety car made it spicy. Wonder why it took so long to pull into the pits - we could've had at least 1 extra lap of racing.
Mega 10 points for Hulk and Sauber. Watching him overtake a Ferrari was surreal.
Leclerc's risky tire strategy yesterday worked out well today.
Hadjar with another strong points finish.
Alonso finally with points on board.
10s penalty for Verstappen seems lenient. He got 3 penalty points for it apparently and with 11 penalty points is 1 point away from a race ban.
Another engine failure for Antonelli is bizarre.
It's a shame that Lawson wasn't able to get a point after all that brawling.
They were waiting for the backmarkers to catch up to the rest of the field before restarting the race, is why it took so long
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ROUND 9:
Spain
FORMULA 1 ARAMCO GRAN PREMIO DE ESPAÑA 2025
Circuit stats
- First Grand Prix: 1991
- Number of laps: 66
- Circuit Length: 4.657 km
- Race Distance: 307.236 km
- Lap record: 1:16.330 Max Verstappen (2023)
- 2024 winner: Max Verstappen
Track Map
I had to miss the race today and so I just watched the YouTube 8min video - it looks like it was a great race and the 8minutes really didn't do it justice. Did Max pit four times in total??
Alonso looked really racy which is nice. Hulkenburg seemed to come out of nowhere. Last I saw him he was fighting Alonso for 10th, then cut to the end of the race and he stormed past a Ferrari!
Seems like Max got off lightly for what looked like a deliberate crash. Should've been a DQ from what I saw. No-one knows what was in his head of course, but it certainly looked like he crashed on purpose into Russell
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They were waiting for the backmarkers to catch up to the rest of the field before restarting the race, is why it took so long
The F1TV commentators were saying it's not mandatory for backmarkers to catch up in order to resume racing.
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The F1TV commentators were saying it's not mandatory for backmarkers to catch up in order to resume racing.
Maybe so but that is why it took so long. When they were all bunched up the safety car was ending
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I had to miss the race today and so I just watched the YouTube 8min video - it looks like it was a great race and the 8minutes really didn't do it justice. Did Max pit four times in total??
Alonso looked really racy which is nice. Hulkenburg seemed to come out of nowhere. Last I saw him he was fighting Alonso for 10th, then cut to the end of the race and he stormed past a Ferrari!
Seems like Max got off lightly for what looked like a deliberate crash. Should've been a DQ from what I saw. No-one knows what was in his head of course, but it certainly looked like he crashed on purpose into Russell
Yeah Max did 4 stops. Which sounds pretty crazy. Lots of pitstops all around, which kinda was most of the action although there were some on track overtakes as well.
I think Hulk profited off his tire choices – in the end the fact that he did not qualify well yesterday gave him more tire options for the race, and that enabled him to do a unique strategy.
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All the drivers clearly have been advised by their teams to not comment on the Max situation. Oscar basically said "didn't have context on what happened, only saw they collided, can't comment", Lando ignored the question entirely and just started talking about his own race, George was pretty non committal despite being involved in the incident and also flat out refused to comment in his role as a GPDA director (says he was "too close to comment").
Clearly they don't want any sound bites out there about it.
I mean, he definitely should not comment on that in his GDPA role since he is personally too close to that situation. Full agree on that.
Why the teams all had their drivers not comment on it however is interesting.
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I mean, he definitely should not comment on that in his GDPA role since he is personally too close to that situation. Full agree on that.
Why the teams all had their drivers not comment on it however is interesting.
Agree on the GDPA role, but they did explicitly ask him about it during the interview so figured it was at least worth mentioning.
Best theory I have is all the teams are expecting some sort of sanction over the incident and they all want to be able to be arms length and say "that was the FIA's decision" and not have sound bites where they were suggesting that something should happen.
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Feels like on the final year of a car, those types of issues should be down to a science. Ah well.
Not when you are down on aero performance. In that case, you will push the limit of the cooling to extract better aero performance.
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From what I understand from the turn 1 incident on that lap with Russel, the team told Max to give the position back as he could have been deemed to gain a lasting advantage by going off track and keeping ahead. Max didn’t like the call and decided to show his team what George did to him. However it was clear that Max did it intentionally and in a what could have been dangerous manner. Completely against the code of racing really. There was no need for it and it seems in many peo0,e views he should have been/should be penalised more harshly.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]Ok but I don’t get what was wrong with the communication. They thought it would have been better to give the position back and they told him so.
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ROUND 9:
Spain
FORMULA 1 ARAMCO GRAN PREMIO DE ESPAÑA 2025
Circuit stats
- First Grand Prix: 1991
- Number of laps: 66
- Circuit Length: 4.657 km
- Race Distance: 307.236 km
- Lap record: 1:16.330 Max Verstappen (2023)
- 2024 winner: Max Verstappen
Track Map
Max, you stupid child. Fuck off.
Top 5 for Hulk!
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ROUND 9:
Spain
FORMULA 1 ARAMCO GRAN PREMIO DE ESPAÑA 2025
Circuit stats
- First Grand Prix: 1991
- Number of laps: 66
- Circuit Length: 4.657 km
- Race Distance: 307.236 km
- Lap record: 1:16.330 Max Verstappen (2023)
- 2024 winner: Max Verstappen
Track Map
Liam went full torpedo this race, was interesting to see.
Max should've gotten longer than 10s for that, it was stupid.
Happy that team papaya is doing so well
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Shocked Max only got a 10 second for that..
The real punishment is that he is now on 11 penalty points for the next two races, even a reasonably minor infraction could result in a race ban.
If he did get a race ban what would be interesting is how RB would fill that seat, would Liam get recalled for a race as he has recent experience of car? Isack can a crack at it? Who would replace either of them in the Racing Bull?
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The real punishment is that he is now on 11 penalty points for the next two races, even a reasonably minor infraction could result in a race ban.
If he did get a race ban what would be interesting is how RB would fill that seat, would Liam get recalled for a race as he has recent experience of car? Isack can a crack at it? Who would replace either of them in the Racing Bull?
This is why I hate penalty points. No, minor incidents shouldn’t add up to a ban, but something like this, deliberately ramming your car into someone else’s, should be a race ban.
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This is why I hate penalty points. No, minor incidents shouldn’t add up to a ban, but something like this, deliberately ramming your car into someone else’s, should be a race ban.
I agree that Max should have had a much bigger punishment yesterday, a drive through would have been the absolute min that I would have expected and a stop and go would really be what I was expecting. The FIA always maintain that the damage to the victims race does not play a part, but they are full of shit when they say that. If Max had taken George out of the race rather than banged wheels I would then expect the DSQ, but not for what actually happened.
I suspect he wasn't given it as they would have had more pressure to give him more penalty points so he would have been banned for the next race as well, losing two races worth of point and ending the title race to other teams far too early for the FIA.
On the penalty points it depends for me, someone consistently making mistakes no matter how minor should be getting a ban as they are not learning their lesson. You would have to get six two point offenses within 12 months to qualify for it, that's a hell of a lot. Second in the list is Lawson with five points, that's a massive gap to Max. Max is where he is because of his behavior last year.
Fines are pretty meaningless for F1 teams, bans actually work as a deterrent for bad behavior. If you started giving penalty points for things like speeding in the pit lane or unsafe releases then it would stop pretty quickly. I know unsafe releases are the teams faults but its not like fines have actually reduced their occurrence.
I also believe that multiple bans within x years should result in a super license being pulled and that person having to re-qualify for it.
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I agree that Max should have had a much bigger punishment yesterday, a drive through would have been the absolute min that I would have expected and a stop and go would really be what I was expecting. The FIA always maintain that the damage to the victims race does not play a part, but they are full of shit when they say that. If Max had taken George out of the race rather than banged wheels I would then expect the DSQ, but not for what actually happened.
I suspect he wasn't given it as they would have had more pressure to give him more penalty points so he would have been banned for the next race as well, losing two races worth of point and ending the title race to other teams far too early for the FIA.
On the penalty points it depends for me, someone consistently making mistakes no matter how minor should be getting a ban as they are not learning their lesson. You would have to get six two point offenses within 12 months to qualify for it, that's a hell of a lot. Second in the list is Lawson with five points, that's a massive gap to Max. Max is where he is because of his behavior last year.
Fines are pretty meaningless for F1 teams, bans actually work as a deterrent for bad behavior. If you started giving penalty points for things like speeding in the pit lane or unsafe releases then it would stop pretty quickly. I know unsafe releases are the teams faults but its not like fines have actually reduced their occurrence.
I also believe that multiple bans within x years should result in a super license being pulled and that person having to re-qualify for it.
consistently making mistakes no matter how minor should be getting a ban
We can find equivalents of this in other sports too. E.g. in football, when you're cautioned twice, you're sent off. And if you keep committing normal/non-cautionable foul play, you'll be cautioned. But: Just like you can't get cautioned for being off-side all the time, there's a certain level of breaching the rules in F1 as well, that leads to penalty points in the first place.
I know unsafe releases are the teams faults but its not like fines have actually reduced their occurrence
During races unsafe releases are penalized with time penalties. So there's a clear deterrent there, even if there aren't any penalty points. I'm not sure about qualifying. The fines are certainly levied during free practice sessions.
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Ok but I don’t get what was wrong with the communication. They thought it would have been better to give the position back and they told him so.
Yeah. If he didn’t give the position back and the stewards found Max at fault he would then have gotten a penalty or told to give the position back. In that case he may have been 3 or 4 seconds ahead and would either had to lose that time to give the position, or try to gain a lead of whatever the penalty would be.
So team decided in that moment to give the position back as to then say look we didn’t gain an advantage. They made the call before any decision. Max didn’t like it and the rest unfolded.
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consistently making mistakes no matter how minor should be getting a ban
We can find equivalents of this in other sports too. E.g. in football, when you're cautioned twice, you're sent off. And if you keep committing normal/non-cautionable foul play, you'll be cautioned. But: Just like you can't get cautioned for being off-side all the time, there's a certain level of breaching the rules in F1 as well, that leads to penalty points in the first place.
I know unsafe releases are the teams faults but its not like fines have actually reduced their occurrence
During races unsafe releases are penalized with time penalties. So there's a clear deterrent there, even if there aren't any penalty points. I'm not sure about qualifying. The fines are certainly levied during free practice sessions.
Time penalties aren't always consistently applied for unsafe releases, and that highlights the FIAs inconsistency over the offenses punishment being linked to the damage caused.
I think there is a argument to be made that anything that is worthy of a time penalty must rather than could, come with penalty points, otherwise the penalties have no real ongoing peril for the driver or team. There should be less grey area over what points you can expect for what penalty, may be it exists already but if it does then it really isn't clear.
Football you have clear boundaries for each offense with clear punishments to apply, they aren't always applied consistently, but they do exist. Offside is a strange one, as it only really impacts the team and the punishment is losing possession and a free kick for the opposition, so it is punished. It isn't always spotted but VAR has reduced that, not enough but significantly.
An unsafe release by its very definition negatively impacts at least one other driver, its a far more significant transgression than being offside. I would equate being offside to being outside the defined track limits on a qualy lap and having your qualy lap time deleted as thats an offensive and punishment that only impacts that driver. Being outside track limits to stay ahead during the race I see as something very different, that very much should result in a black flag for persistent offenses.
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The F1TV commentators were saying it's not mandatory for backmarkers to catch up in order to resume racing.
It's not mandatory but when you've got points on the line they probably didn't want to be seen to be making decisions that could cost midfield teams a chance at points, even if that meant an extra lap or two behind the safety car.
