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

[Laserguru]

It does not matter if it was or was not. That was this time it could be any other car or team next time or the same teams the other way around. What any team does (or does not) should have no effect on what happens under the rules of a particular incident. ( I suppose there could possibly be exceptions when all parties are notified well before hand, but even then only in exceptional circumstances.)

Should have might do and whataboutary is the irrelevant bit. It does matter, they may be cuplable and benficiary.

The irrelevant bit is that there is not going to be anything changed this time and no one is going to benefit from proceedings. The important bit is that it should not happen to any team again

What so far is interesting is that the fia and Masi feel they were right, and fia could opt to clarify the rules with only a few words to make this explicit (i.e. what cars to unlap and when to restart decided by race control/director). The rights holder will be pleased, and so far most objections are on the letter and not the intention, bar suggestions to change the rules in favor of a standing/rolling restart when to be defined (!) conditions are met. Fia claims that track safety was reinstated, per intention of the rules cars interfering with the win were removed and the race director rightfully called in the safety car early. The whole virtual safety car, possible pit option strategic advantage, removing lapped cars, safety car restart or repairs and changing tires under red flag being unfair may stay for a while and what we witnessed may be allowed explicitly.

Anyone who can recall what the intention of the rules in question were at the time they were introduced, possibly from published or leaked directives or memos?

[cooken]

Yeah...maybe Toto asked for it as Verstappen was catching Hamilton, and Toto thought that the race would be stopped !
At the end of the day, it was serious mismanagement of Mercedes that caused the problem. They were out thunk ! if they mirrored RBR, they would have won.

Please elaborate on how they would have won by mirroring RB.

Also, any strategy decision made by Merc OR RB, have NOTHING to do with the race director flouting the rules. Frankly this is a bit troubling coming from a mod.

Why is it troubling? it is an unbiased viewpoint from someone who has actually raced. nothing to do with being a mod....a golden rule of racing (and also mentioned by brundle) is to do what your competitor does. this means that they get no advantage . Had Merc called in Hamilton for a set of softs, he would still have been in front of Verstappen and held him off. Had Hamilton stopped and Verstappen not stopped, then their positions would have been reversed at the restart.....Verstappen out on older hards, and Hamilton on new softs. Result would then have been similar....Hamilton sweeping past Verstappen to win.
That is my PERSONAL opinion, like it or not.

Had Merc called in Hamilton for a set of softs, he would have come out behind Max, as evidenced by the gaps at the time, and the radio correspondence (both before Max pitted, and even moreso afterwards). Note also that Hamilton stopping first isn't mirroring is it. You yourself said "do what your competitor does", which means you have to wait for them to do it first.

The troubling part is not about bias (although you should be aware that there is no such thing as an unbiased opinion), but that a moderator appears to be misunderstanding the actual point of the discussion. How can we expect a mod to be effective if they seem to struggle with comprehension? Which you have done again with my post by clearly ignoring the part about the RD/rules. Strategy is not the topic of discussion, bringing it up constantly is just deflecting and whataboutery.

[El Scorchio]

Yeah...maybe Toto asked for it as Verstappen was catching Hamilton, and Toto thought that the race would be stopped !
At the end of the day, it was serious mismanagement of Mercedes that caused the problem. They were out thunk ! if they mirrored RBR, they would have won.

Please elaborate on how they would have won by mirroring RB.

Also, any strategy decision made by Merc OR RB, have NOTHING to do with the race director flouting the rules. Frankly this is a bit troubling coming from a mod.

Why is it troubling? it is an unbiased viewpoint from someone who has actually raced. nothing to do with being a mod....a golden rule of racing (and also mentioned by brundle) is to do what your competitor does. this means that they get no advantage . Had Merc called in Hamilton for a set of softs, he would still have been in front of Verstappen and held him off. Had Hamilton stopped and Verstappen not stopped, then their positions would have been reversed at the restart.....Verstappen out on older hards, and Hamilton on new softs. Result would then have been similar....Hamilton sweeping past Verstappen to win.
That is my PERSONAL opinion, like it or not.

Hold on- if the golden rule is to do what the other person does, then RBR should have kept Verstappen out both times, then? That course of action would have 100% cost them the race. It was impossible for MB to do what RBR did as they had to act first, and RBR would simply have done the opposite rather than the same and won the race regardless.

As for MB pitting under the VSC, that's surely not a sensible strategy giving up track position with only 21 laps to go on a track where IIRC the safety car historically has a pretty low chance of being deployed so the data would suggest track position was more important, added to the fact that Verstappen we know from past history would have raced Hamilton extremely hard and an overtake even with the faster package would have been incredibly tight and risky. We saw how careful Hamilton had to be around Perez, and how difficult it was.

[Michelangelo]

Just wondering, what if Hamilton chose to pit under the SC, would Max have pitted or not?

[dans79]

As for MB pitting under the VSC, that's surely not a sensible strategy giving up track position with only 21 laps to go on a track where IIRC the safety car historically has a pretty low chance of being deployed so the data would suggest track position was more important, added to the fact that Verstappen we know from past history would have raced Hamilton extremely hard and an overtake even with the faster package would have been incredibly tight and risky. We saw how careful Hamilton had to be around Perez, and how difficult it was.

More importantly If memory serves, the safety car ended right as Lewis came through the last corner. Thus it would have been a green flag pitstop and he would have lost a boat load of time.

One thing i have always wondered is if the teams have access to all the cameras the FIA does, so that they can see how significant an issue is. I assume they do, but i have never seen any verification of it!

[alexx_88]

i know the message was not intended for me . my point is the 3 points you choose to base your counter argument on were not relevant no matter what tin foil hat theory the poster you were replying to came up with.
Edit : now 2012 is not relevant because there was no direct fight between two protagonist ? i see the goalposts have moved again .

I'm sorry, but I can't continue a conversation with a person that doesn't understand the topic of what he started replying to. Try to follow through with the conversation please. I said Masi wanted to get the result of the championship on track. Racing for 1-2 laps at the end in 2012 wouldn't have achieved that, hence being a baseless comparison.

You can't claim a conspiracy to give Max the title without considering all the races that form the championship for which the title is awarded. A conspiracy means a plan put in motion a long time ago, all the points I've made are relevant to the conspiracy school of thought.

The KIS principle tells us we just had a race director that, while trying to stay out of the way in the championship, stumbled into awarding the victory on Sunday to the person who didn't deserve it on track. That pretty much is clear. But he didn't do it out of a grand plan to penalize Mercedes/Hamilton. Saying that, I don't agree that he's doing a worse job than Witting. I remember a certain 4x WDC having really strong opinions on Charlie's performance in Mexic, as well as Jules Bianchi crashing because a tractor was out while the course only had double waved yellows on a very slippery track with fading sunlight.

[Baulz]

Just wondering, what if Hamilton chose to pit under the SC, would Max have pitted or not?

I think Max would have stayed out and they would hope the race ended under SC.

[Tom145145]

Just wondering, what if Hamilton chose to pit under the SC, would Max have pitted or not?

I have to imagine you are the painter having traveled through time, because if you had seen an F1 race or at least read the posts you would know. He would have 100% not have pitted. Sorry for being facetious but we should be moving beyond this point of debate.

[alexx_88]

Just wondering, what if Hamilton chose to pit under the SC, would Max have pitted or not?

I think Max would have stayed out and they would hope the race ended under SC.

And we would've had 100s of pages of people arguing in the same way Just from opposite PoVs.

I supported Max (was at the race) and think that he didn't deserve to win the race, but, as Alonso (and others said), you can see it as some sort of justice for all the bad luck he had during the year.

[alexx_88]

I think it would be a very see through tactic- particularly in light of Piquet jr and Alonso for Renault, and generally something that's just frowned upon out of principle by the teams- particularly because of the safety aspect of such things. I cannot see a team ever stooping so low.

I thought that it would be funny to see the faces at RedBull on lap 57 if Bottas parked it at the track with a mechanical "issue" and force the SC to stay out. I would honestly do that if i was Mercedes because it was clear what was about to happen.

Can you imagine!? Although I'm pretty glad they didn't. That would have been the height of cynicism!

I think it would've been a slam dunk penalty. Why stop the car on track?

[Michelangelo]

Just wondering, what if Hamilton chose to pit under the SC, would Max have pitted or not?

I have to imagine you are the painter having traveled through time, because if you had seen an F1 race or at least read the posts you would know. He would have 100% not have pitted. Sorry for being facetious but we should be moving beyond this point of debate.

Yeah, I couldn't read the whole thread and wanted to ask a question came up to mind, about the very race. I hope there is nothing wrong with this.
Thanks for the person sharing opinions.

[Big Tea]

Should have might do and whataboutary is the irrelevant bit. It does matter, they may be cuplable and benficiary.

The irrelevant bit is that there is not going to be anything changed this time and no one is going to benefit from proceedings. The important bit is that it should not happen to any team again

What so far is interesting is that the fia and Masi feel they were right, and fia could opt to clarify the rules with only a few words to make this explicit (i.e. what cars to unlap and when to restart decided by race control/director). The rights holder will be pleased, and so far most objections are on the letter and not the intention, bar suggestions to change the rules in favor of a standing/rolling restart when to be defined (!) conditions are met. Fia claims that track safety was reinstated, per intention of the rules cars interfering with the win were removed and the race director rightfully called in the safety car early. The whole virtual safety car, possible pit option strategic advantage, removing lapped cars, safety car restart or repairs and changing tires under red flag being unfair may stay for a while and what we witnessed may be allowed explicitly.

Anyone who can recall what the intention of the rules in question were at the time they were introduced, possibly from published or leaked directives or memos?

Yes, it could easily become a total XXXXup, but whatever is decided still needs to be adhered to so teams (not just Merc) know what is supposed to happen and can plan for it. TBH, I think I am done on this now until we hear something from F1.

Nothing past is going to change because the team that benefit from it did nothing wrong, they did what they were told was happening so they can not be penalised for it, so nothing will have ant effect until next season.

[El Scorchio]

I thought that it would be funny to see the faces at RedBull on lap 57 if Bottas parked it at the track with a mechanical "issue" and force the SC to stay out. I would honestly do that if i was Mercedes because it was clear what was about to happen.

Can you imagine!? Although I'm pretty glad they didn't. That would have been the height of cynicism!

I think it would've been a slam dunk penalty. Why stop the car on track?

Well, quite. It would have been a really poor move and even if they did manage to get away with it, it would have been patently obvious they were gaming the system.

[Just_a_fan]

I thought that it would be funny to see the faces at RedBull on lap 57 if Bottas parked it at the track with a mechanical "issue" and force the SC to stay out. I would honestly do that if i was Mercedes because it was clear what was about to happen.

Can you imagine!? Although I'm pretty glad they didn't. That would have been the height of cynicism!

I think it would've been a slam dunk penalty. Why stop the car on track?

Yeah, but a penalty for Bottas. And that wouldn't have stopped the team and the other driver from taking the two titles.

It's entirely underhand and not the sort of thing one would expect other than from the likes of Briatore.

[Phil]

Exactly that. Watching live on lap 56, it was clear that there's no way there was time for the cars to all unlap properly and for the final mandated SC lap to take place, before the end of the race distance, given the regulations. At that point was where Masi should have evaluated his TWO options as per the regulations and chosen one of them rather than dreaming up and actioning an until-then-non-existent third possible option/scenario/farce, which is what ended up happening.

What I don't understand, is why was it so goddamn important to finish under green flags instead of under safety car?

The least controversial option there was to finish under the safety car with the positions in place, because that's what it would have been according to the procedures in place. Before the crash and safety car, the race was pretty much done and dusted and there was little chance for Verstappen anyway. Wanting that last lap action, a potential red flag and standing restart is just from people who's driver either wasn't leading or who didn't realize that we had a 50+ lap race already that just unfolded with Mercedes/Hamilton doing the better job.

If Max had led the race start from finish, I guess as a Hamilton fan I'd be disappointed, but it would have been the correct and predictable result. They did the better job during qualifying, maximized everything and presumably won the race. It usually happens this way.

Not on Sunday: Mercedes seemingly had a quicker race car, Hamilton had the better start and he drove off into the distance.Then RedBull tried something different on strategy and it was a great race on who's strategy would prevail to the end; Would Hamiltons 1-stop race get him to the end? Would the tires drop off? Would he, if it'd be close, have enough in the tires to defend his position? That was the race.

I don't get this "red flag standing start" suggestions or even the wish to have a race on the last lap for the show because it takes away from the actual race that we had and got.

If the crash had happened earlier and RedBull ended up on the better tire? Tough luck. I don't believe for a second this race should have been treated any different than any other race on the calendar, championship deciding or not. Sometimes the chips just fall the way they do. But breaking protocol to manufacture a last lap race just between the top two drivers (because that's all there was, because the other cars didn't unlap)... it's artificial and really takes away from a great race we had before that point. And given how it played out, it wasn't fair either.