David Coulthard explained it nicely after the race: when they were entering the corner, Max was ahead (they looked level to me, but Max was on the side of the track nearest the corner), so Max was allowed to take any line thru the corner he wanted, and Charles had to put up with that and make his own decision about what to do in response to the line Max was taking. As Max's line was pretty obvious and he didn't deviate from it at all, the fact Charles got hit was his own choice - and he wouldn't have taken the chance if it had been a street circuit, because there would be no run-off area for him to use to escape.

If Max had altered his line to make it happen then he would have been at fault, like Vettel was in Canada due to turning after getting back on track.

As it apparently took 3 hours for the stewards to make a decision this time, it wasn't a clear-cut situation, and probably wouldn't have been biased by Max's "Orange Army" as they would have gone already.


It was a good race to watch, and the fact Mercedes didn't do very well made it feel even better - it feels like there is a chance the championship could go on to the end of the season (or at least closer to it than we expected before this race).

As Charles will be hungrier for it now (and has a good enough car to at least be close to the Merc's), he might get a few wins this season.