From: lms@rle-vlsi.mit.edu (Luis Miguel Silveira)
Newsgroups: rec.autos.sport
Subject: Re: F1 Portugal: Patrese incident
Date: 30 Sep 92 04:09:34 GMT
	<1992Sep29.215625.4101@igor.tamri.com>
Reply-To: lms@rle-vlsi.mit.edu
Organization: Research Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of
	Technology


   In article <1992Sep29.215625.4101@igor.tamri.com>
   salil@igor.tamri.com (Salil Saxena) writes:

   In article martin@inferenzsysteme.informatik.th-darmstadt.de
   (Martin Protzen) writes:
   >
   >I for my part think that Berger should have been blackflagged as he
   >purposely played tricks on Patrese. I'm not saying that Berger's
   >intention was this accident but he slowed down without a reason.
   > [...]
   > So although slowing down (and
   >being pushed by Patrese) he went for a pit stop but actually didn't
   >stop there. German TV showed Berger on the track again before Patrese
   >had left his car. That means his only intentions were to keep Patrese
   >behind.

   Berger didn't come in and pit.  Instead went through the pit lane and
   back on to the race track, probably at full steam.  It was also
   mentioned that maybe the McLaren pit crew was not ready for Berger,
   who then had to pit a bit latter.
   [...]
   I find this last statment a bit hard to believe.  If Berger was
   trying to pit, the McLaren pit crew would have definetly known and
   would have been ready.  If Berger was not ready to pit, then maybe
   Berger was slightly pushed into the pit lane, when Patrese hit
   Bergers wheel.


It seems from the info we have that the following is clear:
- Berger was not going to pit (his crew was not ready; he did not pit
  even though he drove through the pit area)
- Berger suffered no mechanical problem (he would have mentioned it).

Therefore one of the two must be true:
a) Berger simply did not accelerate (or even braked slightly)
b) Patrese was little too anxious and just ran into Berger

So...  b) is extremely unlikely unless a) would have happened, so it
is clear that a) must be true.  Now the question is why Berger
braked/not_accelerated.  I have a hard time believing Berger would
have done something on purpose.  He would have no way of knowing what
would happen and there was a high risk that Patrese just ran into the
back of him and take both cars out.  So I cannot see Berger doing any
of this on purpose (what would he be assured of gaining ?  nothing, he
had no assurances).

So, IMHO, this was a simple race accident and I cannot see any
penalties being assessed on Berger.

Can anyone confirm that after the race Patrese came to terms with
Berger and accepted Berger's explanations ?  That would put this
matter to rest!

-Miguel


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Luis Miguel Silveira                            e-mail : lms@rle-vlsi.mit.edu
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