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

[JordanMugen]

The whole flaw in the safety car system is that it does massively advantage/disadvantage competitors.

Motor races are supposed to be entertaining, it's the same for everybody. You win some, you lose some, "that's motor racing", it has an element of luck and randomness -- you can patch up that damaged car, catch a lucky safety car and get back in contention and we like that about motor racing!

"Some say, it's not the safety car, it's the entertainment control vehicle, all we know is that this is how we go motor racing since ~1985ish."

What next? Red flagged races are based on aggregate times?

[Raleigh]

Still torn on the result. Lewis himself seems reasonably willing to accept the outcome and move on, so who am I to protest on his behalf? Not to mention having the championship result decided in court would be hugely damaging to F1.

On the other hand, the FIA in the form of race director Masi very much interfered with the outcome of that race by breaking from all established precedent on that safety car restart. And if that restart turns out to breach the sporting code then the FIA is in a world of hurt, under the Concorde agreement Mercedes have every right to take their appeal to independent arbitration who will make the ultimate decision on whether the FIA followed their own rules.

So the FIA dismissing Mercedes appeal so far is largely meaningless, this matter will not end until either Mercedes accepts the result or the FIA proves to independent arbitrators that the restart was handled according to the established sporting code.

[ringo]

The safety car rules are fine. They just need to be followed as we have known them to be for decades.
Masi simply broke the rules to manipulate an outcome.

I do not consider Mercedes to be sore losers.
The sport they were playing got shifted right under them despite them performing and deserving to win that race.
Max did not deserve an equal go at Lewis in the end. he and checo got destroyed. Giving him a handicap on 4s a lap faster tyres to race a car that strategically gained his dominance through using his tyres for 40 laps is by no means a race between two rivals.
This championship will always be remembered as the day the FiA gave redbull a title.

Also on another note. I disagree with those who think Max had the best season.

Maybe there can be another thread for this. But looking on all the races, Max made more errors and bad decisions than hamilton over the season and lost more of the head to head.
He also yeiled less wins for all the laps lead.

But objectively Hamilton had the better season despite suffering long Covid.

Feel free to respond with data and not vitriol.

[Tom145145]

The SC lottery is entertaining and over the seasons it has advantaged and disadvantaged it equals out over time. The entertainment is fine because everyone has the same deal, or so we thought. In this instance it was not used for entertainment within the rules and the restart procedure change only advantaged one driver.

[ringo]

The whole flaw in the safety car system is that it does massively advantage/disadvantage competitors.

Motor races are supposed to be entertaining, it's the same for everybody. You win some, you lose some, "that's motor racing", it has an element of luck and randomness -- you can patch up that damaged car, catch a lucky safety car and get back in contention and we like that about motor racing!

"Some say, it's not the safety car, it's the entertainment control vehicle, all we know is that this is how we go motor racing since ~1985ish."

What next? Red flagged races are based on aggregate times?

The luck and randomness is usually within the rules and outside of manipulation. This is a different case.
Can you deny that there was manipulation by the regulator?

[ringo]

Still torn on the result. Lewis himself seems reasonably willing to accept the outcome and move on, so who am I to protest on his behalf? Not to mention having the championship result decided in court would be hugely damaging to F1.

On the other hand, the FIA in the form of race director Masi very much interfered with the outcome of that race by breaking from all established precedent on that safety car restart. And if that restart turns out to breach the sporting code then the FIA is in a world of hurt, under the Concorde agreement Mercedes have every right to take their appeal to independent arbitration who will make the ultimate decision on whether the FIA followed their own rules.

So the FIA dismissing Mercedes appeal so far is largely meaningless, this matter will not end until either Mercedes accepts the result or the FIA proves to independent arbitrators that the restart was handled according to the established sporting code.

F1 deserves to be damaged for its own good. Its going down a very bad road at the moment.

[DChemTech]

I see what you mean, but a decision at the beginning of the season has much less of an effect on the result because there is time to overcome the deficit. Indeed, after the first race of the season, who was leading the title standings? And did the other manage to overcome that deficit? Why, yes, he did.

The thing with this season is that the decisions and performances basically evened out and we had a tied points situation in the final race. Any decisions made then can not be overcome. There is no way that the arbitrary decision made by Masi can be overcome at a subsequent race because there is no subsequent race. And thus the season came down to one race, and that race came down to one decision that led to a single lap that was, effectively, impossible to win for one of the competitors.

It's the decision that's the problem for me. Max has won the title and I'm happy for him to have done so. I'm just unhappy with the way the race director - the referee of the competition - changed the rules as they have been applied to that point. That's just wrong on all levels, irrespective of who you do or don't support.

I see your point too, but I cannot fully agree with it. From a rule enforcement perspective, I hope that the stewards do not try to "balance" misjudgements in one direction in one race, with misjudgements towards the other direction in a next race. That will surely end up in a disputable mess. Misjudgements will happen, and they should ideally be corrected when they do with the means possible - and other than that, we should accept that they do happen in a referee sport, and that they can and occasionally will affect the outcome. And that is the case whether they happen in race 1, 11 or 21. "Accepting" does not mean we should stay silent by the way. We can, and will, call misjudgements out - and their influence on the outcome will always be connected to that particular season - but in the end that will not change things. In a sport like F1 we should also keep into account that the leading team may change throughout the season. For a team that has a good season start but poor end (be it due to technical regulation changes affecting them negatively compared to others, or due to a lack of development compared to others) a misjudgement in the early season may have a much bigger impact on the overall season, because they needed those points to build a margin. So I do not agree that misjudgements in final races weigh in more than misjudgements in early races

As to the second part, I am also unhappy with the way the referee acted, in this season in general. I do not see the misjudgements in the final race as 'balancing' earlier ones. All of them have an influence on the outcome of the season as a whole in a way that should be avoided, and even though misjudgments in themselves are not completely avoidable, there were too many and they had too much impact. That is wrong indeed, and needs to change. I do not know if I can blame Masi personally in the sense that it is very hard to say if anyone else would have done a substantially better job. The main issue, in my view, are the rules themselves. Replacing Masi without replacing the rules will not, I'm afraid, make things substantially better. Either the rules should change, or we should again have a season with a team that dominates such that misjudgements are inconsequential, and I sure don't hope for the latter.

[Brake Horse Power]

So if Masi asks before the race in a meeting: if team bosses would like to end the race actually racing or under yellow flag, and all say ‘racing’, then this what what you get. All is done to get back to racing. So all the teams more or less agreed that there could be a compromise to the rules in order to finish racing. Irrespective that is of the current standings, tires etc.

If they don’t agree to this suddenly, I suppose they must have said in that particular meeting. “Dear Masi, we don’t care how the race ends, just follow every line of the rule book and don’t make any alternations”.

[JordanMugen]

Feel free to respond with data and not vitriol.

Easy:

Verstappen [Red Bull Racing - Honda] 10 wins, 18 podiums, 10 poles, 6 fastest laps
Hamilton [Mercedes-Benz] 8 wins, 17 podiums, 5 poles, 6 fastest laps

Red Bull's lead driver matched or outperformed Mercedes' lead driver in all major statistics in the 2021 season. QED.

Can you deny that there was manipulation by the regulator?

Letting lapped cars overtake was the right thing to do. It was important that the different tyre strategies the teams had decided on could play out, and that the race finished under green flag. Ideally, all 8 lapped cars would've been allowed to overtake so as to not disadvantage Sainz & Ricciardo (etc), but the Race Director had to make a compromise.

[DChemTech]

The safety car rules are fine. They just need to be followed as we have known them to be for decades.
Masi simply broke the rules to manipulate an outcome.

I do not consider Mercedes to be sore losers.
The sport they were playing got shifted right under them despite them performing and deserving to win that race.
Max did not deserve an equal go at Lewis in the end. he and checo got destroyed. Giving him a handicap on 4s a lap faster tyres to race a car that strategically gained his dominance through using his tyres for 40 laps is by no means a race between two rivals.
This championship will always be remembered as the day the FiA gave redbull a title.

Also on another note. I disagree with those who think Max had the best season.

Maybe there can be another thread for this. But looking on all the races, Max made more errors and bad decisions than hamilton over the season and lost more of the head to head.
He also yeiled less wins for all the laps lead.

But objectively Hamilton had the better season despite suffering long Covid.

Feel free to respond with data and not vitriol.

Max has been on the podium every race in which he did not retire (by own means or due to actions out of his control) with the exception of the one race where he was hit by another driver but could continue in half a car (Hungary). The gap between Max and his teammate was larger than between Lewis and his teammate - which hints at Max being able to extract relatively more from his car (or at Bottas being a much better driver than Checo?). Max has been able to extract stellar pole-gaining or pole-worthy laps in the last races, while being in a much worse car in these last races (which is why Max and Checo were 'destroyed' in recent races - but a championship is not awarded for performance in the last race only). Both drivers excelled this season, but all in all Max managed to excel just a bit more. He had higher highs. But admittedly, lower lows, too.

[Raleigh]

Still torn on the result. Lewis himself seems reasonably willing to accept the outcome and move on, so who am I to protest on his behalf? Not to mention having the championship result decided in court would be hugely damaging to F1.

On the other hand, the FIA in the form of race director Masi very much interfered with the outcome of that race by breaking from all established precedent on that safety car restart. And if that restart turns out to breach the sporting code then the FIA is in a world of hurt, under the Concorde agreement Mercedes have every right to take their appeal to independent arbitration who will make the ultimate decision on whether the FIA followed their own rules.

So the FIA dismissing Mercedes appeal so far is largely meaningless, this matter will not end until either Mercedes accepts the result or the FIA proves to independent arbitrators that the restart was handled according to the established sporting code.

F1 deserves to be damaged for its own good. Its going down a very bad road at the moment.

Well, I'm certainly not going to argue that the FIA hasn't done this to themselves.

[Raleigh]

Can you deny that there was manipulation by the regulator?

Letting lapped cars overtake was the right thing to do. It was important that the different tyre strategies the teams had decided on could play out, and that the race finished under green flag. Ideally, all 8 lapped cars would've been allowed to overtake so as to not disadvantage Sainz & Ricciardo (etc), but the Race Director had to make a compromise.

That's well and good except that compromise may or may not have been legal under the sporting regulations.

FIA is not going to be allowed to decide whether they followed their own rules, Mercedes have every right to independent arbitration and that independent arbitration has the final say.

[diffuser]

If they really wanted to have a shootout for the tv, there was a simple solution: Red flag the session and do a standing start. That would have given Ham a fighting chance.

Succumbing to what Horner demanded handed RB the win.

But this also has to be made clear also before the race. Like SC in the final 10 laps, will always be a redflag and standing start. Otherwise teams would still gamble a pitstop and be disadvantaged if the redflag comes a lap after the SC. (Like in Jeddah)

I like the sound of that rule

You could also just say no unlapping after 70% of the race. But I'm ok with standing start. It would have to be a percentage cause of varying number of laps at different tracks.

[diffuser]

Still torn on the result. Lewis himself seems reasonably willing to accept the outcome and move on, so who am I to protest on his behalf? Not to mention having the championship result decided in court would be hugely damaging to F1.

On the other hand, the FIA in the form of race director Masi very much interfered with the outcome of that race by breaking from all established precedent on that safety car restart. And if that restart turns out to breach the sporting code then the FIA is in a world of hurt, under the Concorde agreement Mercedes have every right to take their appeal to independent arbitration who will make the ultimate decision on whether the FIA followed their own rules.

So the FIA dismissing Mercedes appeal so far is largely meaningless, this matter will not end until either Mercedes accepts the result or the FIA proves to independent arbitrators that the restart was handled according to the established sporting code.

F1 deserves to be damaged for its own good. Its going down a very bad road at the moment.

Well, I'm certainly not going to argue that the FIA hasn't done this to themselves.

I think everyone is going to agree on that.

[Roo]

Can you deny that there was manipulation by the regulator?

Letting lapped cars overtake was the right thing to do. It was important that the different tyre strategies the teams had decided on could play out, and that the race finished under green flag. Ideally, all 8 lapped cars would've been allowed to overtake so as to not disadvantage Sainz & Ricciardo (etc), but the Race Director had to make a compromise.

That's well and good except that compromise may or may not have been legal under the sporting regulations.

FIA is not going to be allowed to decide whether they followed their own rules, Mercedes have every right to independent arbitration and that independent arbitration has the final say.

And there is no champion until due process has finished