On the second page they mention that him being immediately apologetic was mitigating for his penalty. Still a shitshow, though.

And when people jump to “yeah but Democrats are to blame” I know we’re usually already in Bad Faithville. Both Sides and all that.

Just no. This is not about both sides in any shape way or form. This is about agency. Fact is: There were ways to do this and the last three Democratic presidents (including the sitting president) have campaigned and outlined plans to codify it into law and didn’t. Yes it may have taken people by surprise that the country and the world is regressing as early and fast as it is, but that doesn’t take away agency, especially when they didn’t even try to spring to action after mere lip service to garner votes.

The thing is: The conservative, religious right, openly formulated and has been following their plan of judicial activism for decades. The lower courts haven’t become this biased towards Republican policy over night. It was due to bad luck, bad faith acting of McConnel and the other Republican senators and stubberness of some involved people on the other side of the aisle that Trump was able to nominate this many people to the USSC. It would have happened at some point.

They didn’t fail. They didn’t even try. Not even with a super-majority.

I am sick of such important issues like health of people, let alone half the population, being used as mere strategic play. So please push them to do the right thing, after they’re elected. They don’t seem to respond without pressure.

Hate to be that guy, but it is also the present (hopefully not future) the Democrats have allowed Republicans to build:

Bill Clinton promised to codify Roe v. Wade into law. He didn’t.

Obama promised to codify Roe v. Wade into law. He didn’t despite having a super-majority in his first two years.

Biden promised to codify Roe v. Wade into law and didn’t. The Dobbs decision was taken in June 2022, so before the midterms when Democrats still had a simple majority in the house and a tie + VP in the senate. When there were rumors/leaks a month or so before the decision that the USSC would take that decision soon. Again: Inaction.

Yes he has. He wouldn’t have been able to, if the rules didn’t favor that style though.

I would be very surprised if Max hadn’t work shopped the rules with RB to understand exactly what he could and couldn’t do.

Of course.

Where I do think he differs is that hes the only one whose repeatedly gone for this grey area and that this grey boundary has been work shopped as an actual stratergy.

First: I don’t think that this is exactly a grey area, but just a big hole in the regulations. But even, if I grant you that, the questions then become: Why is he the only one? And what would happen if everybody started copying that behaviour? To answer the second question: We are beginning to see this up and down the field. And usually what ensues, is chaos and penalties, because it is impossible to judge the criteria correctly from the cockpit and you need Slow Motion or even Frame Freeze Analysis from different angles to correctly judge it. As for the first question, I offer the following thesis: There is this understanding between drivers even in the lower series (maybe not the very young karting; those are ruthless), an unwritten Gentlemen’s Agreement if you will. And the written rules have become more and more distanced to those principles.

Lando used Maxs own spells against him

Exactly the problem (and solution). It is normal that you have to somewhat adjust your driving to your opponent you’re racing. Here, Lando went more aggressive on the brakes. Important to note though: While still making the corner, albeit in a sub-optimal fashion for a chicane with a straight after it. The difference in braking points can be well explained by that line. Max on the other hand went less aggressive than he did before, mainly because Carlos was directly in front of him, before then accelerating and thereby widening his line. I do wonder if Carlos wasn’t there: Would Max have kept his nose in front of Lando at the apex and then maybe even ran wide himself like during the US GP and got away with it? Because them’s the rules? Remember: The penalty for turn 8 was because he overtook outside of track limits, not because he crowded Lando off almost causing a collision and the stewards explicitly note that he would have been entitled to racing room. And for the T12 incident at COTA they write:

Car 4 was overtaking Car 1 on the outside, but was not level with Car 1 at the apex. Therefore under the Driving Standards Guidelines, Car 4 had lost the “right” to the corner. (…) A 5 second penalty is imposed instead of the 10 second penalty recommended in the guidelines because having committed to the overtaking move on the outside the driver of Car 4 had little alternative other than to leave the track because of the proximity of Car 1 which had also left the track.

As you can see, the forcing off track is only mitigating for Lando’s lasting advantage penalty, but not in itself a breach of the rules for Max, who wasn’t investigated or even noted for it, although he was only first at the apex because he couldn’t keep it on track himself.

EDIT: Spelling

Agreed, the balance isn’t easy to find, but it’s not a law of nature either. How it has (had?) been handled though, it robs us all of great racing. If you think back to the great duels this year, they weren’t because the drivers all aggressively raced to the apex, forcing off of and risking collisions with other drivers. And then there’s the old story of: imagine if there was grass or gravel out there, I assure you, that they both would have behaved very differently.

Obviously there’s a difference between being forced off and putting yourself in a silly position where you run out of track

There’s already the notion, that when locking up for example, then you aren’t fully in control of your car anymore and at least for collisions, that assigns you blame. So one could generalize that.

Yes we’ve seen a lot of this. That’s exactly the point. These problems aren’t new and the calls for change aren’t either. In fact, Alonso warned of exactly this behavior and the problems that come with it years ago.

To the point of allowing a collision to happen, I’m reminded of a somewhat different situation of 2019, but one which should have been a slam dunk penalty: Leclerc forcing off Hamilton in the braking zone of the second chicane in Monza. The implication of the stewards’ reasoning was that because there was no contact, there wasn’t a time penalty. And there was only no contact, because Lewis took to the grass to avoid the collision. So yes, this problem has also existed for a long time and yes, inconsistent ruling makes it only worse. The fact remains though, that under the current regs, you can get away with throwing your car in somewhere and counting on the other driver to avoid a collision.

Basically waving by Sainz into T1 would tell us otherwise.

Huh, that looks suspiciously Musk related. If you know any Jewish people in your area, ask them whether they’ve received a message of being a Hamas defender.