• Formula 1
    •  September 5, 2016

    Sauber’s Boss Destroys Jolyon Palmer after Monza Crash with Nasr

    September 5, 2016
    Ryan Ashenhurst
    Ryan Ashenhurst
    Contributor
    Ryan Ashenhurst
    Ryan Ashenhurst
    Contributor

    The lap one incident between Sauber’s Felipe Nasr and Renault’s Jolyon Palmer has caused a finger-pointing word-war between Palmer and Sauber boss Monisha Kaltenborn.

    Here is the incident that caused both drivers to retire from the race:

    It doesn’t look like an aggressive squeeze by the Nasr in the Sauber, but Palmer’s frustration is definitely justified. Most drivers would have been aware of the brightly colored Renault. It isn’t a naughty move by Nasr, more a clumsy one.

    After Palmer’s rant in an adrenaline-induced interview just after the incident, Sauber’s boss has come out with some big criticism of the British driver, saying,

    “One should try to stick to the facts and not just see things you want to see. We didn’t even think we could get a penalty because it was so obvious. I cannot understand how they could penalize him because he was clearly in front.

    There’s no way he could have been looking at the back at what’s going on, and he didn’t push the guy out in any way whatsoever, but he gets penalized. I didn’t understand what the basis for that was, but fine, it’s happened.”

    – Monisha Kaltenborn

    denial....

    Sticking with the facts, neither Renault or Sauber were really on for points this weekend and Sauber seemed desperate to run a test session with Nasr after the incident so that they could get a large amount of data back from the new parts that they were running this weekend. That couldn’t happen because of the first-lap clumsiness. The penalty was given because the Brazilian driver inadvertently drove Palmer off the track.

     We’ve posted the F1 rulebook to Hinwil for some light reading too, simply being a nose-length in front of the car behind doesn’t give the right to do what you want! Another giveaway of Kaltenborn’s analysis is that “There’s no way he could have been looking at the back at what’s going on.” Nasr’s mirrors remain in-tact, and it’s precisely a lack of awareness that caused the collision.

     

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