Driving behaviour after the court hearing of Jerez 1997

[ljakse]

Originally posted by Mr V
... both Prost and Senna did the same without being banned.

That can not be an excuse, and as long as it is, I will be 'pro death penalty'

[Knowlesy]

Yes, Prost and Senna did the same without any action.....but does that mean nobody can be punished for discrepancies, just because they weren't? Somebody has to take a stand somewhere along the line and say "from now on, if this happens, this will be the action taken...."

[NiceGuyEddie]

Originally posted by Mr V
had he been under a suspended ban and his collision with DC at Argentina, or HH-F in Canada still happened?

That one is his biggest mistake to date imo. MS was to blame for quite a serious accident. I always wondered why this incident never stands out like Adelaide 1994, Jerez 1997 and Spa 1998. Is it possible that it is all perception?

In general:

The FIA shouldn't do anything. In racing it will always be this way. This has got nothing to do with modernday racing or anything, this has to do with character. You'll always have those drivers who are more determined to win than others. Usually it's a good characteristic to actually become succesful, but it could also mean this driver is ready and commited to take it close to the edge of what is actually allowed and sometimes even over it. When that happens, the FIA is able to hand out punishments, and that's exactly what they did.

There's just no way that controversy will be banned from racing, but than again, who'd want to? Surely controversy is the thing that racingforums are built on.

[ralf fan]

Yes, Prost and Senna did the same without any action.....but does that mean nobody can be punished for discrepancies, just because they weren't? Somebody has to take a stand somewhere along the line and say "from now on, if this happens, this will be the action taken...."

yes the FIA must take a stand against cheating like that... i just mentioned the Senna,Prost situatuion because MS had been singled out of all the others and it seems the general view is that MS must be given the severiest punishments..

(god im beginning to sound like a Ferrari fan.... HEY Inigo and RED whatve you been giving me? )

[ljakse]

It's not that MS stands out - it's just that he is the only active driver wiht 'such' past.

[Sodemo]

One has to remember that just as in Australia 94' in Jerez 97' Schu's car was wounded and would not have completed the race, he had a terminal problem, and resolved both races the same way, by bashing into his competitor.
He also did the same thing in F3 I remember, though cannot recall the exact circumstances.

[Gt_R]

And i believe that reckless driving is as dangerous as unfair driving, if not more.

[F1Pete]

Personally, I don't mind seeing racing incidents. When something is blatantly intentional like Jerez '97 then something should be done about it. I thought MS's punishment was light. I was expecting something more, but at least it was something.

It is true, if you don't punish then these incidents will continue to happen. I guess MS was thinking since Prost/Senna did it, he could do it too without incident. Has his tactics changed??? If you are out there to race you are out there to win. Chopping moves, forcing people off track is racing. Check out the bump and grind in NASCAR...some of those cars are pretty beat up at the end of each and every race. Ramming or forcing someone into wall when you have no chance to hold them back is cheating.

The National Hockey League is going through some stuff with the Bertuzzi incident (he knocked a guy unconscious and broke his opponents neck). Bertuzzi was suspended for the rest of the year and the playoffs and the rest of his penalty depends on the other guy's recovery. The players think twice before some taking some serious retaliation against other players. Punishment works in the short term.

Originally posted by Gt_R
Anyway, just curious..but how do you think MS should be punished???

The best way to punish Michael Schumacher is to bring back Jacques Villeneuve in the Williams for 2005!

[Slippy Diff]

I can't help but wonder what punishment I would receive for deliberately ramming my rival off the track in a ten lap clubbie at Oulton. No doubt my licence would be taken off me for a very long time by the MSA. If we were to be honest the TV ratings going down must have been a consideration for the FIA. Look at the driving standards in the BTCC, pretty atrocious at times, and just the odd licence endorsement given out, the stewards and observers must sit with their backs to the track.............makes for good TV though. Not sure how long a club driver would lose his/her National'B' for if they were to practice those sorts of manoeuvres on a regular basis.

[fog_shadow]

Originally posted by knowlesy
I'm sorry if this is garbage to you all.....

nope sounds more like trolling to me, but hey this is a forum and if it promotes a discussion then i suppose it's welcome :P

Originally posted by knowlesy
Now, what did it matter to be stripped of a 2nd place in the title race when it was so obvious that 1st was all that mattered on this occasion? And the FIA service thing hardly counts as punishment.

hehe, in hindsight mate it could be argued that since MS didn't win the title in 98, a one year ban could not have been adequate even if it was implemented. again in hindsight a 2 year ban would not suffice. however if i were to look through the brown tinted glasses of a MS hater, i'd say we get us a fortune teller and have him/her gaze into a crystal ball and accordingly ban MS in the year that he would win the WDC.

of course if we were to ban him for that year then he could not win the WDC in the first place. ahhh the intricacies of time warp and worm holes :confused:

stripping him of his 2nd place was tantamount to nullifying all the work that he did that year. no one but MS will know just how much that had to hurt. but if i had to have all my acheivements for one year taken away from me, i'd be gutted.

now to a more relevent point that being the "missed oppurtunity"
i feel that the FIA acknowledging the move as illegal and showing the intent and the will to punish such a move should serve as a suitable deterrent.

ask yourself this:
would a driver in a sound state of mind and who is challenging for a WDC, commit such a move knowing that his/her points earned in all the previous races for that year will be docked? surely the knowledge that such a move will automatically void his/her chance to win the WDC would deter a driver from making the same mistake that MS did.

As such, the FIA did not miss an opportunity at all. i do hope you can sleep better now.

shadow

[ljakse]

Originally posted by fog_shadow

stripping him of his 2nd place was tantamount to nullifying all the work that he did that year. no one but MS will know just how much that had to hurt. but if i had to have all my acheivements for one year taken away from me, i'd be gutted.

NOTHING was taken away from him. All of his achievements from that year still count. He is not classified second in FIA's book for 1997, and that's it.

[fog_shadow]

more importantly ijakse, a driver today knows that to punt some one off the track will not i repeat not win him/her the wdc. on the contrary it will eliminate any chance that the driver ever had of winning the wdc that year.

[Gt_R]

Ijakse, you realise that we lost nothing, and it's easy to say that "nothing was taken" because we are not MS. More importantly, FIA chose a move which send a firm warning that they DO NOT ENDORSE what MS had done, and that is basically the message they wanted to get through to the fellow competitors. And hence, the opportunity was not missed - merely people don't agree with the punishment.

As i've said, would we want something that happen in 97 drag and affect the next season, or would we rather just start afresh? Maybe a suspended ban is a viable option, but anything more? FIA needs to be just in their decision/punishment... and in the case, they did fine.

We can take the license away, ban Ferrari, ban MS, and send him to jail for attempted murder, but by then, does the punishment still fit the "crime"?

[ljakse]

Originally posted by Gt_R
We can take the license away, ban Ferrari, ban MS, and send him to jail for attempted murder, but by then, does the punishment still fit the "crime"?

This is mostly the question of personal opinion, and that is something I have pointed out many times when we are disscusing about MS - it allways goes down to personal opinion. We agree that he was guilty of Jerez - there is basically nothing to be agreed, it's a fact, but as soon as there are no pure facts proving mine or yours point, it goes back to just opinion.
You brought up one thing that has absolutely nothing with F1 - attempted murder (I understand why, I'm not taking it out of context) - and that might help - I personaly think that in law, in general, punishment for murder and attempted murder should be the same - giving somebody lesser punishmenet 'just because the other guy survived' is rewarding bad intention, and that is 'punishment not fitting' the crime.
All of that is, of course, just my opinion...

[fog_shadow]

i think the real issue of this thread was:

does the allegedly light sentence handed down to Schumacher encourage bad driving today?

logic says that it does not, infact a driver stands to lose everything and by that i mean whatever chance he/her had of winning the WDC for that year.

shadow

[Adam43]

Originally posted by fog_shadow

nope sounds more like trolling to me, but hey this is a forum and if it promotes a discussion then i suppose it's welcome :P

Admin note. Trolling is where someone posts a single view point/topic repeatedly. Either starting several threads or mentioning it in every thread - disrupting normal discussion. knowlesy is not guilty of this.

[fog_shadow]

[krt917]

Right, I've read through the three pages, but forgive me if I repeat what others have said.

First:

Originally posted by NiceGuyEddie
I would say: back off from determining who´s fault it is. Just accept that in racing overtaking is an act of war.
I

No, motor racing isn't war. It's a sport and should therefore have sportsmanlike behaviour. (In any case, even wars are supposed to have rules.

Originally posted by NiceGuyEddie
I can´t believe that people on one hand want to see ontrack duelling, yet on the other hand fail to accept that duelling and damage can go hand in hand, thus obsessively try to determin who to blame for the occured damage.

My problem isn't with damage. I take each incident on its own merits. It's the attitude and approach which CAN result in accidents which is the problem.

[krt917]

I think that Jerez 1997 was a missed opportunity but the main missed 'one' was probably Senna's career. Prost's '89 move wasn't pretty, but I don't think that it was deliberate in the way that Suzuka '90 and Jerez '97 was. As Adam has said, Alain was a very clean driver.

I think we are talking about two slightly different, though related issues. The first is deliberate take-outs to win a title. These are unacceptable and should see the guilty party stripped of his title or banned from races.

The second is general racing. The reason both these have become more of a problem is because cars are so much safer than they were - self-preservation is less of a factor. I believe the FIA have to crack down on this too. Moves such as Schuey's on Alonso (Silverstone) or Webber's on Alonso (Bahrain) ought to be punished or else drivers will keep on doing it because they can. I would hope that decency would stop drivers doing this, but if it becomes part of the game, then they probably feel it is acceptable. That is why the FIA should crack down on this sort of thing.

One final note, I don't mean ANY racing incident. As I said above, each move has to be taken on its merits. There is still room for racing in F1, but there is ALSO room for fair play.

[Woolley]

Phew, what a lot of discussion. I'll put my view on the matter in a very simple short statement. We all bemoan the lack of overtaking, but because of intimidatory defensive tactics, it's virtualy impossible most of the time. So I think the guideline should be this:

If a car is sufficiently alongside you that to take your normal line leaves him with no alternative but to lift or leave the track, then you are not entitled to that line. Simple, really.

It's exactly the same as when you're going round an island on the public highway and the twonk alongside you cuts you up by leaving you insufficient space. It's wrong, it's unsporting and it ruins the racing.

[johnw]

Interesting topic, just a shame that this forum generally seems to get embroiled in defending/attacking personalities which becomes extremely boring.

Woolley, I like your guideline.

Knowlesy
I agree with your basic premise that unpunished poor driving standards at the top level only serve to dumb down the standards throughout motorsport.

You only have to look at the last BTCC round to see the effect of this.

In our club series we have progressively tried to stamp out sh*te driving. We have a yellow and red card system which allows us to ban drivers who default on the required standards.
This year, we have anumber of drivers new to racing, alongside seasoned campaigners. So, with help from Roberto Giordinelli (Race driving instructor), we have framed the following in our regs.

MSA BLUE BOOK REGULATION E 5.1.8
A Driver at all times must drive in a manner compatible with general safety.

The BMWRDC Driving Standards Advisor’s interpretation will be that this precludes competitors from blocking, weaving, squeezing, making unnecessary contact and generally driving in a manner which causes avoidable damage. This will include deliberately driving outside the limits of the track (tarmac and kerbs).

We aim to rid this series of desperate ‘diving-up-the-inside’ overtaking manoeuvres that are normally dismissed as ‘racing accidents’.

To Avoid "The Racing Accident"
Car 1:
1. Think about a conventional or defensive approach to the next corner as soon as you BEGIN the straight. Do not take this line at the last moment.
2. Check your mirrors and what is around you, before every turn-in manoeuvre.
3. Do not "slam the door" unless you are totally in front of Car-2. If it then hits the rear panel of your car, Car-2 is 100% to blame. If Car-2 hits your rear wing, you are about 20% at fault. In most cases, the impact will probably cause you to spin, and Car-2 to continue with light damage, so it is obviously worth making room if Car-2 is anything other than entirely behind you.

Car-2:
1. Do not dive up the inside unless you can be fully alongside before the apex.
2. If you can't quite get alongside, slow down enough to let the door be slammed in your face without contact. Better still, hang back slightly before the corner so that you can attack the corner with a greater exit speed than Car-1. Coincide your faster exit with catching Car-1 as the straight begins.

Deciding the amount of blame apportioned is not an exact science. Much depends on Car-2’s ‘sudden lunge factor’. Contact arising from a side-by-side-battle for a corner is not the same as an over-optimistic and sudden lunge from way-back that does not pay off. There is no recognised apportionment of blame for ‘A Racing Accident’ but the DSA’s will start 2004 with this view;
Car-1 between zero and 50% to blame. Car-2 between 50% and 100% to blame.

So far, so good!

[Stephenw]

I don't personally have a problem with Jerez 1997, because it didn't affect the outcome. Had MS taken out JV and won the title; that I would have a problem with.

The more disgusting thing at Jerez for me is what happened at the final corner. THAT is disgusting. Two teams colluding like that is the blackest scar on F1 by FAR.

[Gt_R]

Didn't you realise it doesnt matter because it's not MS/Ferrari *just kiddin*

Sadly FIA missed the opportunity to send the correct message by stiff punishments of the teams and drivers involved

I agree with you that "Two teams colluding like that is the blackest scar on F1 by FAR.", but i think it's another matter of discussion..

BTT, whether or not MS win resulting from the clash doesn't make it correct or wrong, better or worse.. it's wrong..just punishment given.. and end of story.

[fog_shadow]

did the punishment handed down to Schumacher in 1997 encourage subsequent bad driving? if so please explain how

[johnw]

F_S
The lack of effective punishment, not just in the 97 Jerez incident, has allowed people at all levels to drive in an ever more reckless or even dangerous manner without fear of retribution.
So maybe it hasn't encouraged bad driving, just condoned it.