Max Verstappen became the 100th driver to win a pole position in Formula One history but Lewis Hamilton picked up his 81st career victory in the Hungarian Grand Prixafter chasing down Verstappen on fresher tires after an audible to a two-stop strategy and taking the lead with four laps to go. A.J. Allmendinger was disqualified for the second time in as many starts this season in NASCAR's second division. There was a hat-trick completed in IMSA. Fuji has had nothing but wet races this year and the rain caused a red flag this weekend. A famous last name picked up a popular victory, actually, a few popular names were victorious this weekend. Here is a run down of what got me thinking.
We Need Rules
Rules have been a key topic of 2019. A lot of the standout moments of this year around the motorsports world have come down to rules and there has been some pushback when rules have been enforced and how they are enforced in some circumstances.
We need rules. A race cannot take place without rules and I am not only talking about inspections, pit lane speed limits, additives in the fuel, drug test, and so on but I am talking about what happens on the racetrack as well and that is where it seems like some people have become perturbed.
The most notable situation this year was the Canadian Grand Prix when Sebastian Vettel was leading the race. It seemed like the German had the race in the bag and on lap 48, Vettel went off in turn three, he rejoined the circuit in front of second place Lewis Hamilton and Vettel continued in the lead.
Vettel was handed a five-second penalty for unsafely rejoining the circuit, Hamilton finished within five seconds of Vettel on the road, Vettel was relegated to second, Hamilton claimed the victory, it allowed for great scenes with Vettel stomping off to the Ferrari hospitality before heading to the podium and removing the #1 markers from in front of Hamilton's car. Many were angry with the decision.
For starters, there was the camp that felt the race was being over-regulated and that drivers were not allowed to be drivers. The feeling was a race was not being allowed to take place. Many felt a battle was taken away from them because there was no incentive for Hamilton to pass Vettel once the penalty had become public. All Hamilton had to do was stay within five seconds. On the reverse, many felt the race was stolen from Vettel and there was nothing he could do once given the penalty, except you know, increase his lead to greater than five seconds, easier said than done but still an option.
Vettel didn't get a penalty for nothing. Vettel did go off track and he did rejoin the circuit at a slower rate of speed ahead of Hamilton. Mistakes happen but that doesn't mean mistakes are immune from penalties. In soccer, if a player jumps to head the ball and inadvertently an elbow of the jumping player catches an opponent in the face the jumping player is going to get a card, at least yellow if not red and there would be a convincing argument that it would be a red. It might not have occurred on purpose but it still happened, the rules have to be enforced and the punishment might be harsh even if there was no intended malice.
Montreal is a tight circuit and the turn three and turn four section has no run-off on the exit of turn four. Vettel returned to the racetrack and immediately rejoined the racing line. Hamilton could not have gone wide because of the barrier on the outside of turn four and he could not cut back to his left or he would have made contact with Vettel.
It cannot be a free-for-all on the racetrack. There has to be some policing of what occurs. Drivers cannot leave the racing surface and return without someone taking notice, otherwise, why not allow drivers to cut every chicane and corner out there? If Vettel had missed the final chicane, cut through and done the same thing to Hamilton, it would have unquestionably been a penalty, mostly because the stewards force drivers to go around a bollard if that right-hander is missed but because the course was cut.
Speaking of what happens on the racetrack, one week later in Iowa, there was another on-track innocent but unlike Vettel and Hamilton, this occurred under caution conditions. In the NASCAR Truck race, Austin Hill spun Johnny Sauter. Sauter rushed down Hill and hit him under caution. Sauter's race was over and Sauter would be suspended for the next race.
Many were upset Sauter was suspended. It is more a NASCAR thing. There is definitely a feeling that anything that happens on the racetrack should be off limits to punishment in the NASCAR world, even if it under yellow. It is the "boys have it" state of mind.
However, you cannot have drivers disobeying caution speed and spinning other drivers under yellow. In layman's terms, using an automobile as a weapon.
There are too many things that can go wrong. You have safety trucks on the track and possibly track workers out there. If someone cannot control himself and maintain a level head he could put innocent people in danger when they otherwise should not be.
It is no different in other sports when a whistle is blown. You cannot blindside a quarterback after the whistle, in hockey, only so much is allowed after the whistle and same is true in basketball, soccer and any other sport. At some point a higher authority has to step in and motorsports, NASCAR, Formula One, IndyCar and the lot is no different. If a competitor gets out of line, the officials have to discipline him or her.
We need rules. People cannot tune into a race and see nothing but chaos. If people don't understand what is going on or do not see any level of fairness they are not going to continue to watch. In any competition, people want to see the best go at but it within limits. Nobody wants to see someone come out on top because someone overstepped the boundary.
NASCAR has come around to disqualifying drivers when a car fails post-race inspection and that has not been a drastic shock to the system. Ross Chastain lost a victory after that Iowa Truck race in June. Christopher Bell lost a top five finish. A.J. Allmendinger has been disqualified twice in two starts! There hasn't been mass outrage over disqualifications... yet... but it is the rules being enforced. If NASCAR had found any of those drivers to have failed technical inspection but allowed those drivers to keep the results or keep the results and lose only 25 points or just be fined $100,000 people would be upset about that. Why? Because the rules were not enforced.
It is not just needing rules but making sure the rules are correctly enforced and consistently being enforced. Rules are necessary and must be used, not ignored.
Winners From the Weekend
You know about Lewis Hamilton but did you know...
Marc Márquez won the Czech motorcycle Grand Prix, his second consecutive victory, his sixth victory of the season, his 50th premier class victory and his 76th grand prix victory, putting him in a tie for fourth all-time with Mike Hailwood. Álex Márquez won the Moto2 race, his second consecutive victory and his fifth of the season and all five victories have come in the last six races. Arón Canet won the Moto3 race, his second victory of the season and it give Canet the Moto3 championship lead.
Nicholas Latifi won the Formula Two feature race from Hungaroring and Mick Schumacher picked up his first Formula Two victory in the sprint race. Christian Lundgaard and Marcus Armstrong split the Formula Three races.
Chase Elliott won the NASCAR Cup race from Watkins Glen, his second victory of the season and his second consecutive Watkins Glen victory. Austin Cindric won the Grand National Series race, his first career Grand National Series victory. Stewart Freisen won the Truck race from Eldora, his first career Truck Series victory.
The #55 Mazda Team Joest Mazda of Harry Tincknell and Jonathan Bomarito won the IMSA race from Road America. The #52 PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports Oreca-Gibson of Matt McMurry and Patrick Kelly won in the LMP2 class, McMurry and PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports' fourth consecutive victory. The #67 Ford GT of Richard Westbrook and Ryan Briscoe won in the GTLM class, their second consecutive victory. The #9 Pfaff Motorsports Porsche of Matt Campbell and Zacharie Robichon won in the GTD class, Pfaff's and Robichon's second consecutive victories and Campbell's first IMSA victory in his third career start.
The #39 Lexus Team LeMans Wako's Lexus of Kazuya Oshima and Kenta Yamashita won the Super GT race from Fuji. The #87 JLOC Lamborghini of Tsubasa Takahashi, André Couto and Kyoto Fujinami won in GT300.
Ott Tänak won Rally Finland, his fourth victory of the season.
Coming Up This Weekend
NASCAR returns to Michigan.
Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters gives Aston Martin its first home race at Brands Hatch and the inaugural W Series season concludes.
MotoGP will be in Austria at Red Bull Ring.
Covering All Motorsports. From Indianapolis to Le Mans, Daytona to Monaco.
