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

[dans79]

This is the year where pushing someone off the race track wasn't acceptable unlike in the past, which resulted in penalties now. What's there to complain about.

Seems you weren't watching very closely!

I did. Someone who lost position, cut the corner and gained a lasting advantage.

Sure seems like you changed your argument because in the post I responded to you were talking about people getting punished for pushing people off track this season. If you had actually watched the season closely, you Would have seen many instances of a driver not being punished for pushing someone off the track.

[NathanOlder]

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.

Honestly not worth explaining this. I understand that we get a flow of trolls passing through that will not understand how the rules and strategies work.
But the regulars around here really should know better. Don't waste your time trying to explain, its clear they don't want to understand. I replied to this user but reading on, I have realised its a waste of time.

[ArcticWolfie]

If Mercedes had pitted and Verstappen hadn't the chances would've been reversed... 'would've could've should've'

both teams gambled and Verstappen won this time.

[AriaanGert]

It was a bizar but fitting ending of a bizar and exhausting F1 season. So I guess the number of posts will go up. And I might have missed them, but how about the Lap1 incident? I have never seen that they should give back the extra advantage, but can keep position. Is this an existing rule? And did Lewis do that?
And can they come back to this as well and still give Lewis 5 seconds?

[radosav]

As Alonso fan i had terrible 2007, 2010 and 2012 ends of seasons, it took really long time to accept the result, so i understand Hamilton fans.
They have to be satisfied with eight years of Merc domination , Toto too has to admit that things went they way more during this era, especially with such a dominant engine, Merc had a such a huge input on creating engine rules of this era and already having ready engine that had to be run in idle mode whole first season.

[radosav]

If Mercedes had pitted and Verstappen hadn't the chances would've been reversed... 'would've could've should've'

both teams gambled and Verstappen won this time.

yes, leaving Hamilton on 40 laps old hards isn't very smart , he couldn't do much, but with new tires that Merc would be beast on track

[Mattyw]

Having slept on it, feel no different.

The guy who dominated the race lost out to a decision for 'the show' which ironically has resulted in many people saying they won't watch it again.

As Horner has said 'we just want consistency' - where was the consistency in the way the SC was handled? I've never seen such a decision in all my years watching.

There's no good that can come now - Lewis wouldn't want to win in the courts and so we move on. Certainly one for the history books!

How long until pre season testing? Did I see someone say 79 days?!

[Ryar]

Seems you weren't watching very closely!

I did. Someone who lost position, cut the corner and gained a lasting advantage.

Sure seems like you changed your argument because in the post I responded to you were talking about people getting punished for pushing people off track this season. If you had actually watched the season closely, you Would have seen many instances of a driver not being punished for pushing someone off the track.

Oh I did. So many instances from Austria to Saudi. I also saw some getting unpunished or under punished, like in Austin and Silverstone. Yet, I think, the race director team has managed a competitive season better than any other season in a decade.

[mzivtins]

If Mercedes had pitted and Verstappen hadn't the chances would've been reversed... 'would've could've should've'

both teams gambled and Verstappen won this time.

It is not gambling when someone causes an act of randomness that very clearly gifts benefit to one driver over another.

How do you explain max having the bonus of the cars removed infront of him whilst leaving them behind him insulating him from a fast Sainz?

How is that a strategy call? This was artificial as the scenario was manufactured by someone in the fia with power.

Calling it strategy is completely incorrect.

[Ryar]

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.

Honestly not worth explaining this. I understand that we get a flow of trolls passing through that will not understand how the rules and strategies work.
But the regulars around here really should know better. Don't waste your time trying to explain, its clear they don't want to understand. I replied to this user but reading on, I have realised its a waste of time.

That made me chuckle.

[ArcticWolfie]

If Mercedes had pitted and Verstappen hadn't the chances would've been reversed... 'would've could've should've'

both teams gambled and Verstappen won this time.

It is not gambling when someone causes an act of randomness that very clearly gifts benefit to one driver over another.

How do you explain max having the bonus of the cars removed infront of him whilst leaving them behind him insulating him from a fast Sainz?

How is that a strategy call? This was artificial as the scenario was manufactured by someone in the fia with power.

Calling it strategy is completely incorrect.

If they didn't remove the lapped cars, it would still be a SC finish (just without SC)... nobody seems to understand that.

The only "issue" I have is, why wait that long to remove the lapped cars.

[basti313]

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.

Honestly not worth explaining this. I understand that we get a flow of trolls passing through that will not understand how the rules and strategies work.
But the regulars around here really should know better. Don't waste your time trying to explain, its clear they don't want to understand. I replied to this user but reading on, I have realised its a waste of time.

I would not speak about Trolls if I have no clue...

On the VSC Merc did not pit. That was the error. It was a 50% free stop in the middle of the stint and they had to to 45 laps on the hards.
It is just plain stupid not to pit under that VSC. It was pure luck with the heavy traffic, the midfield also stayed out (the error that killed Landos race)

Now why did they not pit:
When the VSC was called it was super close. I guess they did not have time to make the decisions. Still with a stop losing track position they would have been 5sec behind on new tires vs. Ver on ~20 laps old tires.
On the second lap they were expecting the VSC to end. Still 20sec ahead of Ver it would have been possible to stop and come out ahead. I think they were just anxious to do this, but this was the big gamble they lost.

[Starscreamer]

The guy who dominated the race lost out to a decision for 'the show' which ironically has resulted in many people saying they won't watch it again.

Fake fans we don't miss them

[mzivtins]

If Mercedes had pitted and Verstappen hadn't the chances would've been reversed... 'would've could've should've'

both teams gambled and Verstappen won this time.

It is not gambling when someone causes an act of randomness that very clearly gifts benefit to one driver over another.

How do you explain max having the bonus of the cars removed infront of him whilst leaving them behind him insulating him from a fast Sainz?

How is that a strategy call? This was artificial as the scenario was manufactured by someone in the fia with power.

Calling it strategy is completely incorrect.

If they didn't remove the lapped cars, it would still be a SC finish (just without SC)... nobody seems to understand that.

Everyone understands that. That is the way the cards fall, not some human with bias causing a result. Any scenario is better than a man made freak decision gifting a win, that's the point which ruins f1.

[DChemTech]

If Mercedes had pitted and Verstappen hadn't the chances would've been reversed... 'would've could've should've'

both teams gambled and Verstappen won this time.

It is not gambling when someone causes an act of randomness that very clearly gifts benefit to one driver over another.

How do you explain max having the bonus of the cars removed infront of him whilst leaving them behind him insulating him from a fast Sainz?

How is that a strategy call? This was artificial as the scenario was manufactured by someone in the fia with power.

Calling it strategy is completely incorrect.

If they didn't remove the lapped cars, it would still be a SC finish (just without SC)... nobody seems to understand that.

The only "issue" I have is, why wait that long to remove the lapped cars.

Fully agree. So far, any SC situation in recent and not-so-recent memory has included the point where lapped cars were allowed to unlap. Deviating from that all of a sudden was the problem. It is true that this eventually resulted in a half-baked weird as hell solution of letting some cars pass, but not others. But the real issue was the first decision, not the second - so it's a bit of a stretch to say that Max got a bonus here. If anything, Max was the one that was about to be harmed by an unprecedented FIA decision, until they suddenly changed their mind. As for MB, based on precedent, they should have expected either an SC finish, or a last-lap sprint without any lapped cars in between.

edit: as for those that argue that there was not enough time to unlap lapped cars, I disagree there. They only needed to be a few seconds loose because there was only one lap to be raced anyway, and with the typical slow-driving antics prior to an SC restart, they'd be far enough out of sight.