Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsManor

Stevens wants more respect when being lapped

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Will Stevens says drivers need to show more respect when lapping the Manor cars following a collision with Romain Grosjean in the Canadian Grand Prix.

Grosjean was lapping Stevens approaching the final chicane, and had moved to the inside to complete the overtake. However, the Lotus driver tried to move back on to the racing line before turning in to the corner, hitting Stevens and damaging both cars.

Grosjean was subsequently given a five second time penalty and two penalty points for the incident, but Stevens says there have been a number of other close calls with numerous drivers this season.

"We are told to stay online and the guy coming past, it’s their job to get by cleanly," Stevens said. "I had let a load of cars past in that position because it is the best place to do it. I was completely on the white line on the left and he tried to come across on the racing line when I was there.

"There was absolutely nowhere I could go. I don’t know what more I could have done and the fact he got a penalty proves there was nothing I could do.

"I totally understand, we get blue flags and we need to let the guys past and I feel like I am fair with it, so in return it would also be nice to be fair and give us a car’s width room to turn into the corner because it ruins their race and our race.

"There are a few who do that, they come into the braking zone and they cut in front of you. Once they go in front of you and we lose all our downforce, then we lock fronts and we are close to hitting them. It is a situation that we felt would be a problem in the last few races and it needs to be talked about because it will keep happening, what happened [in Canada].

"We give them respect because we have to let them past. If they can’t come past cleanly, then we have a big problem."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.