George Russell onboard + team radio. First Q3 lap. Aquaplanes and calls for red flag before he heard about Norris crash.

F1TV pit lane channel showed it several times too, did it really not get shown in the main broadcast?

Was on ESPN2 and not once was this shown. They kept showing either lando crash or vettel making sure he’s okay. They also specifically noted that it was his mistake regardless of the miserable track conditions.

Lando takes slightly more. George doesn’t take the inside curb going up Raidillon but otherwise the difference is pretty minor. I would agree that Lando probably loses it because he takes the inside curb but George doesn’t lift until he has to saw at the wheel when he comes out of Eau Rouge. George was just as balls to the walls he just got a bit luckier.

First lap’s gonna be fucking intense if it’s a wet race tomorrow.

I wonder if that is where that bump is that Lewis mentioned in interviews

Yes that is in fact how puddles work

Saw that too

Absolutely, and when they aquaplane on the straight, it's a dice roll whether someone goes off or not. Even if no one had binned it up Eau Rouge and Raidillon (highly unlikely), someone would've flown off on the Kemmel straight.

I agree that he possibly pushed too much but I think the chance is high that someone else would have too and I think that it definitely happened because the track was too wet. BUT what I originally meant is that many people said that the track was safe because Landos' crash was just a mistake and that George proofed that by not crashing when in reality he could have crashed several times himself due to the aquaplaning. So maybe that particular crash was to some extent on the driver but that doesn't change that the track was too wet and other accidents were to be expected. And of course we can continue to race in wet conditions but at that moment it was not just a bit wet we had standing water and aquaplaning on several places of the track.

You can still get a layer of flowing water on steep downhills, this happens on the street next to my house during heavy rain.

The flow is definitely deep enough to cause aquaplaning.

the Baku one still boils my blood. tyres blowing out unexpectedly, debris everywhere and Max left stranded on the fastest straight with everyone passing at full speed. it took minutes, whole MINUTES before anything was done.

I wouldn't call this 100% FIA just because Lando crashed in one of the most difficult corners on the calendar.

Did you not watch this video? The Kemmel straight was flooded. It is 100% on FIA.

They could have easily sent the SC to test the track again and it would delay q3 a few minutes if everything was fine

I think calling the decision easy or obvious is way over-simplifying things. I’m not saying they were right or wrong, I think people should just be honest about the realities of the situation for the stewards.

For starters, let’s say two drivers complain on radio. Drivers complain about all kinds of stuff to get an advantage, they know the radios are open and the teams use them to make a point and help themselves. Ex: They complain about track limits and it works. It’s not because they deeply care about the rules, they want every advantage they can get (or prevent others from getting advantage). My point is, you can’t just listen to one or two drivers and make a decision for everyone else. If I sucked at driving in the wet, I’d complain like hell on the radio to try to get a drier track.

Without sending them out, honestly how do you really know the right decision by looking at things from the stewards box? They can see a small part of the track from far away. That’s it. There’s no measurement device (I know of) for water on track across the circuit. Maybe only the risky parts? Who cares about a bunch of water in the middle of a hair pin?

It’s not a simple decision with simple rules, it suffers from HORRIBLE data inputs (they also only get a few rainy races a year to learn from). Many have been doing this for years and years, it’s not easy.

Also, who is to say that he wouldn’t have pushed too hard in slightly drier conditions and ended up in the wall there? Would that have been more acceptable to us? I mean, VER put it into the wall last year on the parade lap. I’m not a fan of his, but he’s obviously a fantastic driver.

Depends on the circuit. 99% of the tarmac could be perfect for inters, and wets would be slower, but if a small section has a lot of standing water on it then it would be too dangerous like we saw today.

Wets are good if there's continuous rain which isn't too severe to rain in.

If there's a wet track but not raining anymore it will go from wets to inters quite quickly because how much water they move.

Track just evolved that quickly between q2 & 3 that it went past the stage for wets.

Wet tyres need to be revisited, bring back mosnoon tires the wets are pointless

No fairness fairness to be given, they're in charge of determining if conditions are safe or not to race in. They failed

In my language we just say the equivalent of "waterplaning". Why fuss about with Greek and Latin when you can just say it plain and simple!

.....corners?

I thought the delay would be the case. He still seems to be reacting to the red light rather than calling for a flag though.

The kerb isn’t why he crashed it was the oversteer, the rear tires are under massive load you switch from Eau Rouge to Radillon and they didn’t have the grip to take it.

He means that the track conditions at the corner where Norris crashed were not red flag worthy. I.e. there wasn't so much standing water that Norris aquaplaned and crashed, he just dropped it. He doesn't mean that it shouldn't have been red flagged after the crash (I don't think there's any argument about that). Admittedly the comment wasn't totally clear though and I can see why it could be read differently.