Firstly, to be clear, this is all speculation, and I have no evidence that any of this is definitely true because it is all so subtle and difficult to judge. But it is my opinion.
Around thirty years ago occurred one of the most fascinating crashes of all time, as Ayrton Senna ran into the back of Nigel Mansell in Adelaide, taking both out of the race. At first glance, it may appear to be simply a misjudged braking point from Senna, while some accused him of deliberately hitting Mansell for no reason. But I believe the accident was far more complicated than that.
In my opinion, Nigel Mansell brake-tested Senna in Adelaide. This was not like the stupid brake-testing on the road where one car pulls in front of another and slams on the brakes, trying to claim insurance, or, in motor racing, to ‘teach someone a lesson,’ but a version of brake-testing common in lower-level racing but only really brought to Formula 1 by Ayrton Senna.
This is where the driver ahead brakes mid-corner in order to put off the driver behind, and gain time on the exit. It is a dirty and dangerous trick, but also very intelligent and tactical, and to do it properly requires real skill and ruthlessness. Ayrton Senna appeared to be the driver who introduced it into Formula 1, although it is such a subtle manoeuvre that it may have been used beforehand as well. The move is also not uncommon in racing today, with Tom Ingram accusing Gordon Shedden of brake-testing him in Donington last year in the BTCC, and Adam Morgan saying ‘it is a dirty trick, but you can usually get away with it.’
Mansell’s brake-test in Adelaide was not quite the same, as it was more about braking early into the corner, but just gaining time wasn’t entirely the point. It was a way of standing up to Senna, who had pulled the same move on him many times in the past. For example, it is likely that Senna used the trick to defend from Mansell in Monaco 1992, when he held off the much faster Williams in the last few laps of the race.
So in my opinion, Nigel Mansell brake-tested Ayrton Senna in order to get even with him, and show Senna that he couldn’t walk all over him. But Senna was willing to go one step further. He could see that Mansell had brake-tested him but decided to ‘fail’ the brake-test and crash into the back of Mansell. He felt he was better off sacrificing the points on that day to send a statement to the entire grid and make sure nobody pulled that trick on him ever again. The whole thing was a power-play, and Mansell may have initiated it, but Senna was still responsible for the accident and it was an example of when his ruthlessness in racing went too far.
While this is perhaps an extreme example, I don’t think this kind of thing is too uncommon in racing. If you are racing, and the driver behind tries a ridiculous lunge that leaves you two options: back off or you both crash (and this can be done by a driver defending as well), the decision depends on the situation. If you are in a championship battle, or if you are on for your best ever result, you will probably back off. It is sometimes surprising that drivers don’t take advantage of those in these situations more often, but if the other driver is not concentrating and they collide, the driver making the move would be hated by the media and fans for ruining the championship or someone’s best result, and they perhaps don’t want to risk that.
But in a less important situation sometimes it might be preferable to accept the crash. Otherwise, they may be seen as a target in the future of someone who can be taken advantage of. If they crash, other drivers won’t try the same move in the future. Again, it may be worth sacrificing the points on one occasion to win more battles in the future. The accident may be considered a racing incident, or either driver may be penalised, but that is not the most important thing. I really don’t know how common this is.
An example of this came in Suzuka 1989, when Ayrton Senna dived down the inside of Alain Prost, and Prost felt he had to turn in and hit Senna to stop his rival taking advantage of him. When Senna made the same move on Alessandro Nannini later in the race, James Hunt, who had blamed Senna for the incident, said, ‘the difference is that Nannini wants to finish second. Prost did not want to finish second.’ However, the slight difference with this situation is that I actually think Senna’s move was fine, and Prost would not have been forced off had he tried to stick around the outside. Prost was responsible for the incident because he turned in and hit Senna. But perhaps he felt he had to do it for the good of the future, and he probably did.
I consider this era to be the height of dirty tactics of Formula 1 because, while Senna was perhaps the driver who introduced them to the sport, Prost and Mansell were also clearly willing to dish it out back to him. Michael Schumacher was similarly dirty but the difference is that none of his rivals, with the possible exception of Juan Pablo Montoya, were willing to do it back to him, and this was partly a reason why Schumacher was so dominant during this time.
Maybe if, when Schumacher put his rivals in a ‘back off or we crash’ situation, they had chosen the second option on occasion, Schumacher would not have been able to take advantage of them in the same way. But this is not a criticism of the likes of Damon Hill, Mika Hakkinen and David Coulthard. Formula 1 may have been less dangerous in the 1990s than in the past, but the reason they didn’t do it is the same as why Juan Manuel Fangio and Stirling Moss would never have pulled those kinds of tactics on each other. Crashing in Formula 1 always comes with the risk of serious injury or even death. Maybe they would have had to be more ruthless to be as good as Schumacher, but they also didn’t consider it worth the risk, and really the onus should be on the Schumachers and Sennas of this world not to use these kinds of tactics in the first place. It is very difficult for stewards to police this kind of driving.
But is this kind of thing becoming relevant again in the rivalry between Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen? Last year, Karun Chandhok did an excellent analysis of some of Verstappen’s overtaking moves on Hamilton, which unfortunately I cannot find. He explained how, on many occasions during the season, Verstappen would lunge down the inside of Hamilton, giving Hamilton no opportunity to make the corner, and Hamilton would back off and let him through. One example came in Spain, and there were a few others which I don’t remember when they occurred, but at the end of the season the move in Brazil was more extreme and Verstappen too went off the track, while in Abu Dhabi he pulled the move on lap one, and Hamilton was fortunate that it was a chicane he could cut and regain the lead.
This move is sort of legal, but it is not great because it requires co-operation from the other driver, and when Hamilton attempted a similar thing in Silverstone, Verstappen did not back off and they collided. Hamilton was lucky to be able to continue and win the race, but did get a penalty. Similarly, in Monza, Hamilton put Verstappen in a ‘back off or we both crash’ situation, and Verstappen chose the latter. It appears to me that there was a power struggle between the two throughout the season, and Verstappen really got the upper hand over Hamilton, who knew he needed to back off in key situations or he would be taken out, while Verstappen wouldn’t stand for it when Hamilton tried to do the same back to him.
And the rivalry between these two drivers returned in Brazil yesterday. Max Verstappen sailed around the outside of Hamilton at turn one, giving him the inside for turn two. He went for a gap, Hamilton turned in and they collided. It was a racing incident in my opinion, but also I wonder if they both, in a way, did it deliberately. Verstappen later admitted that he had expected Hamilton to turn in but went for the gap anyway, but Hamilton maybe felt he had to turn in to stop Verstappen pulling the moves that he used in 2021 again in 2023, when they may be battling for the championship.
I consider the Hamilton-Verstappen rivalry to be a lot like that of Prost and Senna, and fear that next year could involve far more incidents between the two if they are involved in another title battle, (as should be the case as Mercedes are clearly improving and you would hope that Red Bull will be negatively affected by the punishment for exceeding the budget cap), especially if Hamilton is now going to be more aggressive than he was last year.
Max Verstappen is perhaps like Senna, ruthlessly prepared to be extremely aggressive in order to win the title, although I can’t imagine him ever pulling the equivalent of a Suzuka 1990 stunt. Hamilton is more like Prost, naturally a less aggressive driver but prepared to dish it out to his rival if it has already been done to him. It would be extremely exciting, but I fear even more toxic than 2021 and hope they can keep it clean. Maybe Charles Leclerc or George Russell will be close enough that they can’t afford to get involved in too many incidents.
Maybe the only way to stamp it out would be to have harsher penalties for aggressive moves, but for many that would ruin the racing, because it can be done fairly, and hard but fair racing can be the most exciting part of Formula 1. So it really is almost impossible to police.
But I am no racing driver. This is all speculation and it is possible that this entire article has been complete nonsense!
The F1 Frog Blog 