Helped somewhat by the heated battles between Verstappen and Hamilton seen throughout the 2021 Formula One championship, criticism on race director Michael Masi has mounted. But what next after the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix?
How did Mercedes know the race would finish under safety car, but Red Bull didn't.
Because it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that, according to the rules, you let by cars out of order and then it starts the lap after. 2 laps to go minus 2 laps to go equals zero.
So Red Bull aren't clever enough to work that out, and their pitting was a waste of time?
I'm sorry but that really doesn't make sense IMO. Mercedes had every opportunity to also pit and to expect a restart.
No they didn’t. They’d have lost track position. Pitting would have been insane and as good as giving the title away regardless of whether the race ended under safety car or not.
Bringing this to a court would hurt the Mercedes-Benz brand too much. Why would they want to associate themselves as sore losers? Max has millions of fans worldwide. It would also hurt the F1 brand, who wants to watch a championship final if the results are not decided immediately, but months or years later?
First off, and if you quote me, take his part too. I’m a Hamilton supporter, ever since F3 and I believe the outcome of this championship was decided over 22 races, where RedBull and Verstappen did a better job then Mercedes and RedBull. I’m also believe that there is no conspiracy and the stewards/race director are fairly impartial.
But, this outcome is very good for Liberty. Their greatest worry since they bought F1 was the dependency on Hamilton as the only world champion and star at the front of the field. They already took control a little with helping Renault to be joined up with Alonso again. But now, whatever Hamilton decides to do, they have their next superstar that beat the big star while he was racing. Just imagine if Schumacher decided to retire after 2004. Alonso’s championships wouldn’t been that great. Or if Senna… you get my drift.
Now, even if Mercedes builds another rocketship, Hamilton takes two straight championships before he retires, the Leclerc, Verstappen and Russell fights will be lifted higher.
Apart from all the fuss around the Safety Car procedure, I think Lewis should have gone for the inside when racing Verstapen down to turn 8! It would have meant he went outside the track but that's also what Perez did to get passed Hamilton back! But he had nothing to lose...he was already losing the championship!
I think Lewis could have been more aggressive on that last lap! Maybe that would have meant that they crashed but at least he would have tried everything! It's a shame it ended this way...
"The only rule is there are no rules" - Aristotle Onassis
Bringing this to a court would hurt the Mercedes-Benz brand too much. Why would they want to associate themselves as sore losers? Max has millions of fans worldwide. It would also hurt the F1 brand, who wants to watch a championship final if the results are not decided immediately, but months or years later?
When Lewis fans say the sport is in disrepute’s , Max fans say, nnaaa only with Lewis fans.
Not sure why you they then do an about face with Mercedes’ brand?
Don’t you think have an illgotten WDC hurts the Redbull brand?
How did Mercedes know the race would finish under safety car,
They didn't.
However, one thing was certain. According to the rules, the race director can order the lapped cars to overtake, in which case the race would not have resumed. There was not enough laps to do it.
OR
The race would've been resumed, with lapped cars not allowed to overtake.
Simple really. Both scenarios (played out according to the rules) would've seen Lewis win. So, Mercedes did the sensible thing, and acted upon that information. No one in their right mind would hold them accountable for the race direction's fraud.
Again according to the rules, the only way race was gonna restart, was with the lapped cars not being allowed to overtake. They knew this. Red bull actually shot themselves in the foot by asking the lapped cars to overtake, cause according to the rules, the race would've ended under the SC. Their only legit chance of having a shot was asking the race to be restarted on the final lap, without the lapped cars being allowed to overtake. That was the only way that complied with the rules. They would've had a very slim chance that way, but of course they lobbied to get something completely in violation of the rules from race control, and got it.
Funny after all this, Lewis and Merc are being called the lobbyists
Last edited by Shrieker on 13 Dec 2021, 02:11, edited 2 times in total.
Education is that which allows a nation free, independent, reputable life, and function as a high society; or it condemns it to captivity and poverty.
-Atatürk
Maybe, the less controversial decision would be red flag.
100%. Of Masi wanted a race to the checkers, that’s what should have happened. It’s also how NASCAR would have rigged it. You also could have gotten a Max v Lewis crash, Max wins, Carlos wins his first race, a Ferrari wins. Liberty would have been like “man, that was crazy!” And laughed all the way to the bank with all those story lines.
Last edited by Hoffman900 on 13 Dec 2021, 02:12, edited 3 times in total.
Congratulations to Verstappen on finishing p1. Things fell his way this time, although I guess he would've preferred to win it without the controversy. He's probably not going to lose sleep over it.
There were fifty odd laps of racing, and a lap or so of one of two things in my opinion: a poorly thought out attempt to keep the show going, or (on some level) a deliberate attempt to manipulate/influence the racing outcome.
I think it's probably the first one, but that sort of relies on the presumption that F1 races can always have last lap / last corner climaxes. We've had a treat this year with so many races where the outcome is uncertain until late on, and it seems that there was probably a desire in some quarters for that to continue here. Hamilton had after all made it "boring" by being ahead of Verstappen for most of the race.
The way that the safety car period played out was a bit strange. Yes, Latifi crashes in an awkward place and spills carbon fibre everywhere. We've seen that that usually takes a few laps to clear up, and they had dumped extinguisher on the front brake fire which made a mess too. Masi presumably couldn't let lapped cars go past earlier because the clerk of the course hadn't deemed it safe to do so. Once notified that it was safe, presumably on lap 57, I guess he was in a bind because the timing meant letting all of the lapped cars through would likely have taken too long and the safety car would've entered the final lap. So, he tried to rush it all through for the sake of the show.
Who knows what kind of pressure Masi faces from the teams, the FIA, the owners of the sport, and any other parties. It can't be easy to make the right decision at the right time when things move at F1 speeds. But, have we ever seen the safety car signalled as being brought in at the same time as lapped cars are going past it?
The stewards' argument that 48.13 overrides 48.12 probably relates to the fact that 48.12 is in "optional" language. I.e. "if" the clerk of the course thinks lapped cars can safely overtake, versus the "when" it is safe to call the safety car in. However, the subsections of article 48 do seem to have been written in temporal sequence. That is, if article 48.12 is put into effect in some way, it seems arbitrary to give effect only to some portions and not others prior to giving effect to 48.13. Yes, laps were running out, but we've seen races finish under safety car before.
Perhaps it was a reluctance to have the show end before the last lap, having been handed the opportunity to showcase another wheel to wheel battle for the lead? 'Battle' seems like a stretch given the tyre offset. Then again, there has been the perpetuation of the idea in some circles that more overtakes gives better races.
One last thing I would mention purely on a hypothetical level, because I can't believe Masi would be in this situation. The apparent irregularity of how the safety car procedure was carried out does not necessarily mean anything fishy was happening. However, there was undoubtedly a lot of money riding on this race, and if there is even a sniff of a reason to delve into match fixing then some regulatory body usually looks into it. In the position he's in, the default route is to follow the procedure as it's laid out in the rules. Why did he feel he had to rush things through to get one more racing lap? I think it was apparent to most people that there was only ever going to be one outcome if they got one more racing lap with the 11s gap having been wiped out, and just as apparent that the result would be locked in the other way without that last racing lap. You would think that in scenarios where deviating from established procedure is highly likely to impact the race result that they would shy away from the potential controversy / negative impact on their reputation.
The upshot is Verstappen has been awarded the win and the championship, but legally speaking the stewards' decision has questionable reasoning and it's not surprising Mercedes is appealing that. The stewards rushed through a decision to try to avoid ambiguity for the result of the championship, but they've just kicked it down the road. In a way they probably couldn't do more because they aren't judges (to my knowledge) and probably didn't want the vilification that would accompany any adverse decision.
For me, it's a shame that the safety car influenced the outcome, but it often does. If it was my decision, I would make it so that race control operated independently of the teams moving forwards, and introduce a decision review system like other sports for the teams when they do actually want to challenge something rather than whispering sweet nothings to Masi.
Verstappen will keep the championship despite the appeal (assuming it's filed), and I think that's probably the right thing on balance because red bull simply took advantage of the situation presented to them by the race control decisions.
I hope that Masi learns how to tell the teams to pipe down for next year, because they are distracting him from the real job of managing race operations as opposed to being the middle man in their team politicking.
Last edited by the poster below on 13 Dec 2021, 02:18, edited 1 time in total.
