Today I watched the Monza Grand Prix and was throughly enjoying the fight between Jenson Button and Sergio Perez until afterwards we hear a radio message from Perez which states "Did you see what he did too me?" Which, I have to admitt, slightly tainted the whole thing for me.
This is not the first time this has happened this season. The mighty Alonso/Vettel duel at Silverstone was also spoiled for me by both drivers constantly complaining about the other. This in something that is increasingly been creeping in to F1 for a while now and I'm not especially happy about it.
The problem is that all the drivers are now fully aware that race control are listening to the radio broadcasts and so are using it to try and influence any sort of steward decision and in this day and age where every track incident has to have a good guy and a bad guy its highly effective way of gaining and advantage on the track.
Whether its the cry of "look at him on track limits" or "you can't race like that" it seems the reactions are increasingly more calculated to gainer a racing advantage. Thats without even bringing in to play the 'double bluff' radio call of pretending to be shocked about something when you've actually done something wrong (Buttons classic "whats he doing" at Canada 2011 springs to mind).
For me this trend is becoming an annoying spread of gamesmanship and I'm linking it to the phenomenon of diving in Football. Every one does it and its now seen as part of the game. Do we want that from F1? I ceratinly don't and would hope other fans share my view.
How do we stop it? Well we could isolate the stewards from the radio calls so they are of no influence but that might be a safety issue or we could start penalising drivers if they make an appeal that is mot judged to be correct. It all might seem harsh but they'd certainly stop doing them.
I can't say I'm 100% keen on either of those ideas but the 'tactical' radio messages trying to get other drivers penalties annoys me more.
Am I alone in this irritation? Does anyone have any ideas on how to stop it?
This is not the first time this has happened this season. The mighty Alonso/Vettel duel at Silverstone was also spoiled for me by both drivers constantly complaining about the other. This in something that is increasingly been creeping in to F1 for a while now and I'm not especially happy about it.
The problem is that all the drivers are now fully aware that race control are listening to the radio broadcasts and so are using it to try and influence any sort of steward decision and in this day and age where every track incident has to have a good guy and a bad guy its highly effective way of gaining and advantage on the track.
Whether its the cry of "look at him on track limits" or "you can't race like that" it seems the reactions are increasingly more calculated to gainer a racing advantage. Thats without even bringing in to play the 'double bluff' radio call of pretending to be shocked about something when you've actually done something wrong (Buttons classic "whats he doing" at Canada 2011 springs to mind).
For me this trend is becoming an annoying spread of gamesmanship and I'm linking it to the phenomenon of diving in Football. Every one does it and its now seen as part of the game. Do we want that from F1? I ceratinly don't and would hope other fans share my view.
How do we stop it? Well we could isolate the stewards from the radio calls so they are of no influence but that might be a safety issue or we could start penalising drivers if they make an appeal that is mot judged to be correct. It all might seem harsh but they'd certainly stop doing them.
I can't say I'm 100% keen on either of those ideas but the 'tactical' radio messages trying to get other drivers penalties annoys me more.
Am I alone in this irritation? Does anyone have any ideas on how to stop it?
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