F1 2021 – spoilers here

Yes Inkster I thought the same.

I’d got so sick of the hype decided not to watch the race, then its been relativley warm and had to work on the van so caught the fist lap, the 20th then didnt get back in until i’d finsihed by which time the race had ended.
By the sounds of it glad i didnt waste the day light watching it to only fall apart at the last minute.

This afternoon has made me realise how much the races just take out of your day and to be honest after this season i think i’m done with trying to catch every race. Will catch a few key races, the most interesting thing for me is the engineering behind it, so F1 technical at the stat of testing will get some traffic.

Had he won today I thought he would have stayed on. And having won 8 he would have been prepared to work on a more equal basis with Russell.

Sometimes a match is a 0-0 draw in the rain. It happens. Not every race can be a classic.

Sometimes it rains in Spa, but rather than abandon they ran the ‘race’ anyway. Max got 5 extra points over Lewis there.

I don’t begrudge Max winning a WDC with a well executed overtake, but the race director’s effort to spice up the final lap and to prevent lapped cars from overtaking wasn’t the manner in which I’d hoped to see the title settled.

It’s done and dusted, I daresay that Mercedes’ protests would be even more unpopular in the extremely unlikely event that they manage to overturn the race result.

And having won 8 he would have been prepared to work on a more equal basis with Russell.

I think you’re right, and that would have been/be great to see.

overtaking under yellow rejected. That would have been a very easy fact based way to admit they got the other decision wrong without admitting it.

FIA just tweeted out Max as world champion

https://mobile.twitter.com/fia/status/1470098425865723914?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet

Just watched the highlights, 2 cars (ric and leclerc I think?) between max and sainz at the restart.

I think the stewards will kick the can down the road and say “yes the rules weren’t followed but we can’t change the result….appeal it”

Yeah, I suspect they will now try and protect themselves.

Up until the ruling just now on the passing under SC I would have bet that MV would get a 5 second penalty for that but the stewards would relook into LH earlier move and apply a retrospective 5 second penalty for that too.

The more I think about it, I’ve actually changed my mind and think Mercedes are right to challenge this.

1) If it was the other way round, RB 100% would (and rightly so).

2) Teams make strategy decisions on the basis of the regulations. Chucking the regulations out part way through a race is not acceptable, and that’s essentially what Masi has done.

Imagine if Max had dived in for those softs under the SC, and halfway down the pit lane Masi decided it was no longer allowed to change tyres under the SC. More extreme but the same principle.

looks like an announcement shortly with Merc and Rb told together.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/live/formula1/54911288

They HAD to protest – not sure anyone comes out of this looking good, but there’s no way the last race can be this badly mismanaged and either team just go “meh – that’s racing.”

Rejected…

Merc out first….RB stayed behind protesting the decision?

Anyone for joint WDCs?

Teams make strategy decisions on the basis of the regulations. Chucking the regulations out part way through a race is not acceptable

It’s simply that.

Merc would have banked on the regulation procedure, which is what we normally see unless overtaking is deemed unsafe (which surely wasn’t the case here).

Not only did the race director fail, it seems, to follow the procedure once (five of) the lapped cars were released, but he also chose not to release the cars behind Max.

That’s a clear and huge advantage to Max: free pit stop, fresh tyres, no-one on his tail, and Mercedes and Hamilton having no strategic option to defend.

It was as guaranteed a race win for Verstappen as ensuing under SC would have been for Hamilton. The difference is that ending under SC would have been an unexciting conclusion by the book, whereas this was a box office finish achieved by way of dubious intervention.

max is the grande champignon

Will Merc appeal?

I don’t understand how a sport which applies the rules where an 0.2mm increase at one end of the rear wing DRS slot disqualifies someone from qualifying but then changes the rules on the fly to make a spectacle.

I’ve seen this before….playing games with my 4 year old daughter where the rules of the game are changed to suit if she was losing 🙂

Challenges rejected, result stands (unless they go to the sport arbitration court i guess)

F1 just died a little. This is going to go through the courts all winter.

Such a sad way to end a bloody good season, dubious moves and decisions aside.

Masi must go.

I actually hope that Mercedes “be the bigger man” here, and Lewis comes out and says “we’re not going to appeal”

Tbh I think today’s race was fairly fought….between the drivers. Shame the race director screwed it up so badly.

This really. Obviously Max didn’t watch the Vettel-Button clip as expected but otherwise the driving was all good, highlight probably being Perez giving Hamilton all kinds of trouble (even if ultimately that led to nothing)

What I haven’t seen yet (not had a chance to read much) is why that call to not let lapped traffic through was made? Merc and RB seemed to be expecting that they would be, possibly race direction expecting to finish behind the safety car? In which case bonkers that they weren’t able to judge properly and if it was such a close call they should’ve just made the call and stuck with it. Think everyone would’ve been reasonably satisfied with the way things ran in that case

Massi is definitely on a shoogly peg for next season. DC made a fair point that the team bosses hounding race control needs knocked on the head right away. 4 buttons for pre-set responses would definitely be preferable

Oh what a surprise. The FIA investigate themselves and find they did nothing wrong.

So Hamilton was 12 seconds up on max with 6 laps to go, another car crashes and max is allowed to Nip into the pits, change tyres comeback right behind Lewis then breeze past him for the win.

That’s the bit that I find strange.

One thing, for sure, that needs to be fixed is to ban changing tyres under the safety car…all the other post-race bullshit which happened today would have been irrelevant if Max hadn’t been able to switch to new tyres…

The official stewards really does nothing to clarify. Yes rule 48.12 want followed but once the RD says the safety is ending that’s what happens.

Ah well. Max did nothing wrong (for once), its the FIA that look a complete shambles. Biggest GP in years and they just cooked it right up!

I wonder what kind of detail will go into the rejection of the appeal. I expect obfuscation rather than reasoning.

As I suspected, essentially they said that what happens under the safety car is up to the race director

It will end at the court of arbitration in sport. Seldom has a sporting event promised so much and then gone onto to disappoint.

Had the circumstances been reversed, I’d have felt exactly the same. Recall the lead was 12 seconds, no slower on older tyres and one team able to do anything they wanted with nothing to loose.

Imagine nullifying the breakaway in Paris Roubaix and then telling the leader you have to let half the air out of your tyres before you enter the velodrome.

Ruling here

The reasons for the decision will make interesting reading.

Wonder what algorithm the teams will use to factor random rule changes into their pit strategies next year.

So Hamilton was 12 seconds up on max with 6 laps to go, another car crashes and max is allowed to Nip into the pits, change tyres comeback right behind Lewis then breeze past him for the win.

That’s the bit that I find strange.

I think thats how racing works in F1 nowadays.

Finally a F1 result.

Stewards decision is explained here. @MercedesAMGF1 protest is dismissed. #skyf1 #AbuDhabiGP pic.twitter.com/zEYSd9Z5y3

— Rachel Brookes (@RachelBrookesTV) December 12, 2021

How much is the protest deposit?

If RB did underfuel Perez togive him a chance agaist Hamilton , then maybe that was the reason for the urgent ‘retire the car now’ message
Didnt want to run the risk of him running out of fuel at an inoportune place, bringing out a VSC or full safety and potentialy gifting Hamilton a ‘free’ or less costly pit stop depending on where he was on track when the VSC was initiated .
Hence run the car down to the last litre , then retire the car.

Massi is definitely on a shoogly peg for next season.

I would be surprised if he was allowed to organise a stag do after this cock up.