The great irony here being that all the drivers support the rule being changed to allow the inside driver to run the outside driver off track whether the inside driver is ahead at the apex or not.

The media is up in arms over Max’s tactics and it turns out all the drivers believe it’s acceptable.

“I think the stewards recognise that. If you're on the outside being overtaken, it's on you to yield.

“….there is a line in the regulations that says the inside driver needs to leave room to the guy on the outside from the apex to the exit. That’s going to be getting binned off…”
-George Russell

“…making swift work of Russell on the run down to Turn 1 by doing his signature ‘run him out of road’ move that will soon be banned under the updated racing guidelines.”

This quote is wrong twice:
1. Everybody stayed on track in Qatar turn 1
2. New regs say the inside car is entitled to the corner

The announcement was about as minimal as possible with several team principals continuing to make negative comments regarding the new team during the Vegas weekend. It’s clear FOM didn’t want this team with or without Andretti.

Not sure what he’s upset about - that is the punishment that has been set by precedent when this happens during a race.

It’s appropriate because it’s a difficult thing to monitor and police, but a potential 10s stop/go is a hell of a deterrent.

I mean…it is an awful precedent to set. In AD how many times are we going to hear “he’s driving slowly” between two cars on an outlap?

I don’t think the FIA were ever in anybody’s pocket. Masi made a set of decisions. He’s completely separate from the stewards. Stewards went back and forth all year penalizing both sides.

So I agree with you that there isn’t some untoward situation happening here. It was just a bad precedent imo.

There were two cars in front of him also going slowly so there was nowhere to go…which is exactly the same context as the Austria example so it wasn’t changed at all.

Max’s point was that this is racing…it happens…there was nothing else to do. Meanwhile George was in there demanding a penalty.

So what do they do next time we get a train of cars at the last corner in Austria waiting to start a flying lap? Everybody gets a penalty for driving slowly on the racing line?

Difference is that one was actually a penalty. The other was a terrible precedent that the FIA set because George tried to act like he should have been able to push while on a slow lap.

I guarantee a driver in AD qualifying will speed up and act like they’re being impeded on an out lap.

Stop-Go?!? Or just 10 seconds?

So many people quick to defend a literal billionaire and paint her as a victim. It blows my mind.