2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix - Yas Marina, Dec 10 - 12

[nevill3]

Mercedes have lodged an intention to appeal the stewards decision

[amritc1]

So you are saying someone 10+ seconds in the lead, and led the race deserves to loose on that poor decision.


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[Just_a_fan]

It's unbelievable how some people think this win was gifted to Verstappen. I mean yeah he was lucky with the safety car and all, but Mercedes made a huge blunter by not pitting to fresh tyres. Mercedes had the better car, but Red Bull had Verstappen and the better strategy.

They couldn't pit Lewis during the last safety car because they would have given up track position and, in normal circumstances where the rules aren't made up on the fly, the race would have ended under the safety car.

At the end, Lewis had no chance against a car with fresh soft tyres on it. Even if he'd had a second a lap of pace advantage from the car alone, it wouldn't have been enough in that last lap.

Before that, Hamilton had driven the perfect race. Had the rules been followed as they normally are for safety cars, the race would have finished as it was for 99% of the time. That's what is annoying and why some might say it was a gifted result.

[Swifty]

Christian Horner promised Williams driver Nicholas Latifi a lifetime supply of Red Bull after his crash ultimately led to Max Verstappen winning the Formula One world championship with victory in Abu Dhabi.

https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/mot ... 74623.html

What a circus this has become, but it's expected from such a buffoon.

[mzivtins]

It's unbelievable how some people think this win was gifted to Verstappen. I mean yeah he was lucky with the safety car and all, but Mercedes made a huge blunter by not pitting to fresh tyres. Mercedes had the better car, but Red Bull had Verstappen and the better strategy.

Max had these bonuses in a safety situation:
1: 11 second gap neutralized
2: fresh soft tyres
3: cars infront removed to aid him
4: cars lapped behind kept there meaning Sainz had no chance to pass max on the restart.

That is incredible, given that points 3,4 were caused by a human, then I would say thats a gift.

Can you say why it wasn't a gift?

[jurinius]

"Better strategy" lol, Redbull and Verstappen had no strategical worries just risky decisions of course so better stop talkin this nonsense. And yes the WDC was gifted by Masi. I really hope he understands somewhere else how his decision can affect this sport. You can't just woke up and then decide who should win regardless all the competitors.

Lewis still has skills under the belt, how the hell he managed his race pace ! A broken wing in Jeddah and now 29 older tires ... See you next year.

[GrizzleBoy]

It's unbelievable how some people think this win was gifted to Verstappen. I mean yeah he was lucky with the safety car and all, but Mercedes made a huge blunter by not pitting to fresh tyres. Mercedes had the better car, but Red Bull had Verstappen and the better strategy.

No they didn't, because if the rules were followed the race would finish under SC and Max likely would've stayed out to get track position and probably won the race under SC.

The decision they made was the right one, because it would have given them the WDC and WCC under the rules as every single team and driver understands it.

The only thing that happened to make their strategy the wrong one, was that one single individual decided that the rules everyone understood would not apply, and they made that decision so late and so erratically that there was no way for Merc to respond.

If Merc knew that Masi would change the rules of racing on lap 57, then yes they would maybe have pit. But nobody knew that, not even RB. RB pit because the circumstances of the safety car gave them a free stop, not because they had a better strategy.

[west52keep64]

As Murray Walker said, F1 is 1F spelt backwards!

The result is what it is, I'm quite pleased with the result myself.

On that I totally agree. The result is the result. Max is the WDC and and has 100% earned that result.

I do think a couple of things need to happen though. Masi's position needs to be put under review. There needs to be a better way to deal with all the nonsense that's happened this year. We can't have races and championships being decided in court rooms, that's not what F1 is about.

TL;DR. Max is the WDC, Masi should be fired.

The logic that the ‘result is the result’ is not logical. By that ideal the best driver/car can be Intentionally penalised out of a race and you’re cool with it because we’re not allowed to question dodgy decisions?

Don’t want championships decided in courts? Don’t make dodgy decisions then……like today!

How in the blue hell has he 100% earned that result? He has just been gifted his championship win.

The best decision for F1 is for Max to be WDC and for Masi to be fired (or quietly removed). Swapping the result now would be insane. I would rather they re-run the race, that's probably the best thing to do, but it's not going to happen.

Lewis & Max did the best thing they could do given the conditions presented to them. Lewis really made no mistakes, he was just unluckly. Max was lucky this race, but he had done enough earlier in the season to put himself in this position. If you simply scrub this race from the result Max is still the WDC and I feel like that's enough to say Max is the true WDC.

Hamilton is an incredible driver, and today he showed his class. I'd say he's currently a more complete driver than Max, just look at how he absorbed everything Red Bull tried to throw at him today with Perez, it was incredible. Today, Max's raw talent and aggression through the whole season won him the WDC.

An interesting observation on Perez. He's effectively been "broken in" now and will only ever be a no. 2 driver. For all his noise around how McLaren ruined his career, he's effectively drawn a line under his own career this year. He will only ever be a no. 2 to Max now. Don't get me wrong, it's exactly what Red Bull need, but it's an interesting psychological defeat for Perez.

[wesley123]

It's unbelievable how some people think this win was gifted to Verstappen. I mean yeah he was lucky with the safety car and all, but Mercedes made a huge blunter by not pitting to fresh tyres. Mercedes had the better car, but Red Bull had Verstappen and the better strategy.

If Mercedes had pitted for tires Verstappen could stay out, Lewis would rejoin behind and they'll just let the safety car run to the flag.

[Shrieker]

Christian Horner promised Williams driver Nicholas Latifi a lifetime supply of Red Bull after his crash ultimately led to Max Verstappen winning the Formula One world championship with victory in Abu Dhabi.

https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/mot ... 74623.html

What a circus this has become, but it's expected from such a buffoon.

What a stupid thing to say. The guy just crashed out of a damn F1 race. If I was Nicholas, I would tell him to shove'em up his a#$e.

[jknights]

IIRC, Max said that he will drive with #1 in 2022, if he wins this year

Hasnt he heard that Masi just changed the rules so cars witha 1 in the driver number cant win!
Little Spice Christian Horner will be even more cocky and strident.

[NathanOlder]

You can discuss for pages and pages about the SC and unlapping cars, but strategy wise Merc was too cautious to loose track position. Rb outsmarted them with an aggressive strategy that - with some luck, definitely- payed out heavily. Seeing the course of the season, most of the time they were unlucky (blown tyre in Baku comes in mind for instance).

I can feel for the Merc fans: it feels like with soccer you dominate heavily, but loose a match because of a debatable penalty. But this also belongs to the sport.

To me, strategy was fine. He couldn't pit under VSC or SC because the gap was not enough to find himself ahead of Max.

RB just did what any team would have done; throw everything at Mercedes because a) they were slower today, by quite some margin and b) the guy behind has always the opportunity to react to the guy ahead.

If Mercedes pitted and Hamilton was stuck behind MV, we would talk of an extreme blunder.

TBF I think they should have pit the lap after Max did as it was still under the VSC. The gap would have stayed the same, but then the whole kafuffle at the end might have been different with lapped cars

No, the VSC ended just as Lewis was through the final corner. conveniently ended, especially if Lewis had pitted, it would have cost him the lead.

[TimW]

Someone just pointed something out to me that was actually quite an interesting point.

Verstappen was given a clear run at Hamiltion as a result of Masi's decision to allow the lapped cars between car 33 and 44 to overtake the SC. Carlos Sainz was not given the same opportunity, I believe he still had lapped cars between himself and Verstappen.

I think that really just shows how badly Masi screwed this up. Ultimately, the result should stand, as I don't think any WDC should be decided in a court room. However, I do think Masi should be replaced. He has made too many errors this year, it's simply not good enough.

Lapped cars are allowed to unlap, not necessarily to catch up. So Carlos does not have a case.
The car behind Verstappen (who was that) does, because he was stuck behind Verstappen and lost the opportunity to attack the car in front of him

[Shrieker]

It's unbelievable how some people think this win was gifted to Verstappen. I mean yeah he was lucky with the safety car and all, but Mercedes made a huge blunter by not pitting to fresh tyres. Mercedes had the better car, but Red Bull had Verstappen and the better strategy.

If Mercedes had pitted for tires Verstappen could stay out, Lewis would rejoin behind and they'll just let the safety car run to the flag.

Yep, that's exactly what they would've done, and it would've been as per the rules.

No way they would've gone out of their way to let Lewis have a shot at MV on the final lap. Like they've done for MV. And that's the exact reason why Merc didn't pit him. They're not stupid, and they in their right minds couldn't have anticipated Masi and the rest of the guys at race control butchering the rules to manufacture a result.

[west52keep64]

Someone just pointed something out to me that was actually quite an interesting point.

Verstappen was given a clear run at Hamiltion as a result of Masi's decision to allow the lapped cars between car 33 and 44 to overtake the SC. Carlos Sainz was not given the same opportunity, I believe he still had lapped cars between himself and Verstappen.

I think that really just shows how badly Masi screwed this up. Ultimately, the result should stand, as I don't think any WDC should be decided in a court room. However, I do think Masi should be replaced. He has made too many errors this year, it's simply not good enough.

Lapped cars are allowed to unlap, not necessarily to catch up. So Carlos does not have a case.
The car behind Verstappen (who was that) does, because he was stuck behind Verstappen and lost the opportunity to attack the car in front of him

Carlos was the car behind Verstappen in terms of the result, he was literally standing in 3rd place on the podium, so I can only assume you have made a mistake here?