FORUMula1.com - F1 Forum

[vlad]

Great post, killem2!

[f1boy]

Grosjean just isn't very good imo. A bit like Maldonaldo, he is seems ok when not around anyone else, but turns into Stevie Wonder when in traffic.

IMO, Bernie should show the pair of them the door. That crash yesterday was an embarassment tbh. Those pictures are going around the world and make F1 look like an amatures day out at the track.

Laughable tbh. First Maldonaldo doesn't even try and hide the fact that he jumped the start and then Grosjean turns the field into a scrapyard. (all joking aside, that could have been very bad indeed for Alonso.)

[Nin-Chin]

Great post, killem2!

Oi!

[vlad]

Not the part about you, of course! The rest is great!

[darwin dali]

Grosjean just isn't very good imo. A bit like Maldonaldo, he is seems ok when not around anyone else, but turns into Stevie Wonder when in traffic.

A bit harsh
(on Stevie that is)

[vaptin]

Remember Renault's ban for the loose tyre? The punishment in ths case wasn't to do with Alonso it was at least because of the severity of the incident(I.e the circumstances).

But it seems justified considering Grosjean's past record, and his reckless driving in this case (swerving right on the straight for a right handed hairpin when there was no driver to the left, but one to the right).

I think sometimes people automatically assume the FIA are biased towards Ferrari and don't bother to reason the merits of their judgement.

[LewEngBridewell]

Romain Grosjean has gone all quiet on twitter.................................................................................

[KingVee]

Who would people like to see replace Grosjean for Monza?

Jaime Alguersuari.

Totally agreed, it would be very cool!

I always thought he deserved to be racing. On the other hand, watching what d'Ambrosio could do with a much better car than the MVR-02 would also be of interest.

[LewEngBridewell]

Who would people like to see replace Grosjean for Monza?

Jaime Alguersuari.

Totally agreed, it would be very cool!

I always thought he deserved to be racing. On the other hand, watching what d'Ambrosio could do with a much better car than the MVR-02 would also be of interest.

D'Ambrosio hardly featured in F1 with Marussia... can't remember much of him at all. Same with Di Grassi in 2010.

[vaptin]

Bianchi.

[KingVee]

Who would people like to see replace Grosjean for Monza?

Jaime Alguersuari.

Totally agreed, it would be very cool!

I always thought he deserved to be racing. On the other hand, watching what d'Ambrosio could do with a much better car than the MVR-02 would also be of interest.

D'Ambrosio hardly featured in F1 with Marussia... can't remember much of him at all. Same with Di Grassi in 2010.

He could surprise everyone, who knows... If Lotus can see him having potential, enough to be their test driver, he must be worth something. He has everything to prove, in my opinion.

Something tells me he was hired as a backup plan for Grosjean anyway, but remained as such since GRO showed he is capable of wonderful things when he does not crash.

[racechick]

On twitter one of the Lotus mechanics, Ricardo Penteado, blamed Hamilton for the crash.After the angry responses he deleted it.
https://twitter.com/RicoF1
LOL If you read the conversation it looks like Nicole and some mates are giving him some stick.Good on them!!

[Big Azza]

Yeah... as always I'm far too late to come to the party, and you guys have all probably calmed down.

I like Grosjean. However, his accident definitely deserved a ban. I didn't expect it, but I'm pretty chuffed that he got it and the wording is perfect. Regardless of who he nearly decapitated, cutting from right to the far left of the track to cause a massive, dangerous pile-up really warranted that ban.

While Maldonado also deserves a ban at some point (I should imagine it will come very soon) his incidents have not been as grossly negligent as Grosjean's. Come on, Grosjean's incident is far worse (whilst accidental compared with some of Maldonado's intentional ones). His stupidity affected a minimum of 5 cars races, and he could've injured more than one of them.

5 cars, with 5 grid place penalties for each of them = equals a 25-place grid penalty, which is stupid, so a race ban of course is the most fitting punishment and should send a message to guys like Maldonado to pull their head in.

In other news, I am really stoked about the prospect of D'Ambrosio starting the race at Monza. I do really hope it happens - he was my second-favourite driver last year and I thought he did really well against Glock.

[myownalias]

Right, time for my two cents; I believe the ban to be completely OTT; when you consider that Maldonado has taking sideswipes at two different drivers in the past 12 months, Perez in Monaco 2012 and Hamilton in Spa 2011 and gotten off incredibly lightly for a 'red mist' retaliative offence; on top of several other incidents for which he was blamed for the stewards, where's his ban? Grosjean certainly didn't intend to cause his own retirement or the retirement of three others, an error of judgement at best.

[zurich_allan]

Right, time for my two cents; I believe the ban to be completely OTT; when you consider that Maldonado has taking sideswipes at two different drivers in the past 12 months, Perez in Monaco 2012 and Hamilton in Spa 2011 and gotten off incredibly lightly for a 'red mist' retaliative offence; on top of several other incidents for which he was blamed for the stewards, where's his ban? Grosjean certainly didn't intend to cause his own retirement or the retirement of three others, an error of judgement at best.

I'd agree that Maldonado should have been banned for both of the incidents you've cited, but also don't think that the punishment for Grosjean is over the top and can expain my resonaing very simply.

For any ordinary crime a court has to establish two vital ingredients - mens rea (the metal element or thought process) and actus reus (that the criminal act was completed, or that a serious attempt was made to complete the crime even if for whatever reason it wasn't followed through).

The actus reus is very simple to describe relating to these offences with Grosjean and Maldonado as in all scenarios there was contact resulting in either a serious or not so serious incident - either way there was some result meaning that it is more than 'attempt'.

The mens rea isn't actually that difficult to describe here either on thinking about it. This can be satisfied, in general, through two main possibilities - intention to cause the outcome, or reckless conduct that causes the outcome. In Maldonado's cases there was an intention to cause a collision - however minor and therefore both mens rea and actus reus are satisfied, the crime is complete and should be punished as a result. So in my mind he should have been banned - unfortunately we cannot go back in time and retrospectively do what should have been done then.

But that shouldn't prevent the right thing being done this time on its own merits.

Now, to decide if the recklessness of Grosjean's conduct was enough as to allow the 'crime' to be deemed complete, what a court would usually look to is foreseeability - i.e. is it foreseeable that by making a massive swing across the track when there are 24 cars in a 200m stretch that contact and therefore potential injury could be caused by making a reckless move of that nature. And the answer is very simple - yes. i.e. this is more than just an error of judgement.

So the Grosjean move also satisfies both elements and the 'crime' is complete in exactly the same way as Maldonado.

This is common practice as it is perfectly possible for someone to commit murder, or assault etc. 'recklessly', and not just through intentional acts, and can be compared like for like in a case like this.

So yes - the ban is fair and just and should stand.