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

[kenshi_blind]

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.

Alright perhaps i haven't worded my thoughts clearly enough . what i am basically saying is, you shouldn't have responded to the poster conspiracy theory with those 3 bullets points because in my opinion they are actually irrelevant to what he/she was saying in the first place ( that's the way i understood the poster argument). what happened the previous races had no relevance once the last GP started, the two contenders were on equal footing so to speak and Masi went out of his way to give the championship to Max . had he done that earlier as you suggested with Silverstone, jeddah and so on perhaps Lewis would have had the opportunity to catch up but the fact that he did it on the last lap of the last GP was the perfect coup . Again this is how i understood the theory put forward by the poster you were replying to and that is why i pointed out that your bullets points were no relevant . No that i agree with that poster though
I do think Masi is doing a crappy job compared to Charlie. the two are not even in the same league . Vettel outburst is nowhere near the nonsense Masi did the last two years . Jules loss is another matter

[Just_a_fan]

I don’t think we will ever agree on this, you are working in hindsight. The assumption that it would end under the safety car was backed up by decades of SC periods, so well founded. Mercedes’ mistake and mine is thinking that this was Sport based on rules and not Entertainment based on some idea that the season needed a fitting end. The best person to reference on this is a Mr Masi (pre race version),

”There’s a requirement in the sporting regulations to wave all the lapped cars past,”

“From that point, it was position six onwards that were still running [on the lead lap], so between 10 or 11 cars had to unlap themselves.

“Therefore the safety car period was a bit longer than what we would have normally expected.”

How could Merc do anything different?!

I did expect, during the race (not in hindsight!) they would restart based on entertainment argumentation, and without lapped cars in between (although I expected they'd let all cars pass, not a subset). On that notion I was completely baffled by MB not calling Hamilton in. Perhaps it was not the thought a strategist would have with a broader dataset at hand, but I guess in this case ignorance was a bliss!

If he had let all lapped cars unlap themselves - which is one of the two options the rules require - the race would have finished behind the safety car. So Mercedes pitting would have put them behind Max behind the safety car. That's why they didn't pit. If the race had run without the cars unlapping, pitting would have put Mercedes behind lapped cars with, possible, a single lap to pass them and attack Max. An extremely unlikely scenario.

That's F1 101, or at least it was until Sunday. On Sunday, Masi decided to change the procedure in the moment. None of the teams could have forecast that and factored it in to their strategy calls. Red Bull didn't have a stroke of genius with their pit stop. They had a free stop available because there was no threat from behind. So it was the obvious choice to make once Mercedes didn't pit. It was an entirely free stop. Mercedes did not have the option. They couldn't pit - assuming the written SC procedure was followed - without losing the race.

[Oleo]

So many posters do not seem to get that this is not about Lewis v Max or Horner V Woolf, and it does not matter who was leading and who was 5 cars back, or what happened during the season.
The whole nub of this is that a race and championship was decided on the whim of an official who had written rules and procedures and he decided to ignore them for a lap of TV excitement.

We all know Merc is not going to get anywhere and now way is the race or championship going to be changed but the procedure has to be.
This time it was RBR and Max gaining at the expense of Merc and Lewis, if it happens again to could equally well be Mclaren and Ferrari in those roles, or any other team.

The only possible outcome is Massi will be 'promoted' to a different job and a new set of procedures and rules will be introduced for next year on.

Please understand this is not a driver and team v another driver and team this is fundamental to the fairness of sport for the future.

Agreed with this isnt about Lewis vs Max, Horner vs Wolf, Red Bull vs Mercedes.
However it is also not about excitement. Its about the essence of sport. The problem with a sport like this and f.i. football as well, is that you can not fit every situation into regulations, there are too many variables. So you always have to take the rules with a minor component of interpretation of why the rules are the way they are.

Like in football, a match takes 90 minutes. Except after 90 minutes they continue with a set extra time to compensate for the number of player substitutions and injury treatments that happened during a match.
Except then the referee has the option to continue the match even longer if during those few minutes there was a delay. Now if a deciding goal is scored in the 5th minute of 4 minutes of extra time, that totally sucks for the losing party, but its all in the game. The extra time added is often incorrect and an interpretation of the referee and his assistant.

Similarly in a situation as this one, one has to consider the necessity of following the exact safety car protocol vs the wish of all fans and teams to not finish any race under safety car conditions, whether it is the final championship decider or the 4th race of the season.
So there are the following considerations in any race where a safety car is needed in the final 10% of the race:
1) No one wants to finish any race under safety car conditions, if it is safe to do so. (has been previously discussed and agreed by teams). It is a race not a parade. (Teams know this and should consider that in their strategy choice.)
2) We have a safety car situation near the end of the race, can we safely get the safety car situation ended and get 1 or more laps of racing.
3) What is the normal safety car protocol, what is the goal of the various provisions of that protocol and is it necessary to follow through considering the agreed goal of not finishing races under safety car conditions.

So: Lapped cars are let through so they do not interfere with the race leaders during race restart.
The safety car stays on the track for 1 additional lap to allow these lapped cars to create a gap so they wont interfere with the race leaders within like 10 laps after the restart.

We can conclude, as race control did:
1) The track was safe in time for 1 final lap of green flag racing.
2) Considering there was only 1 more lap possible, driving another lap behind the safety cars is wasted time, since lapped cars do not need to create a bigger margin than 10 seconds. Therefore the standard additional lap of Safety Car can be scrapped. This provision is required when there is half a race left, but obsolete in the closing stages of the race.
3) The only lapped cars interfering with the race win were the cars between Hamilton and Verstappen, most other cars will not have a chance for the race win in one lap. To save time no other cars need to be unlapped. (One could argue that the cars between Verstappen and Sainz should have been unlapped as well)

Its super unfortunate for Hamilton, super lucky for Verstappen, but it is also a fair decision under the circumstances and agreed principle of trying to not finish race under safety car conditions, choosing the spirit of the sport over strictly following regulations, similar f.i. to how Hamilton was not ordered to surrender his place in lap 1, because maybe Verstappens pass was slightly too agressive, while it was very clear that Hamilton gained a significant advantage by leaving the track.
Anyway considering Silverstone and Hungary and considering Verstappen leads Hamilton in poles, podiums, laps led and wins, probably the slightly faster driver/car combo across the season won.
Mercedes/Hamilton did not lose the championship in Abu Dhabi, they lost it in Monaco, Baku and Hungary.

[holeindalip]

So many posters do not seem to get that this is not about Lewis v Max or Horner V Woolf, and it does not matter who was leading and who was 5 cars back, or what happened during the season.
The whole nub of this is that a race and championship was decided on the whim of an official who had written rules and procedures and he decided to ignore them for a lap of TV excitement.

We all know Merc is not going to get anywhere and now way is the race or championship going to be changed but the procedure has to be.
This time it was RBR and Max gaining at the expense of Merc and Lewis, if it happens again to could equally well be Mclaren and Ferrari in those roles, or any other team.

The only possible outcome is Massi will be 'promoted' to a different job and a new set of procedures and rules will be introduced for next year on.

Please understand this is not a driver and team v another driver and team this is fundamental to the fairness of sport for the future.

Agreed with this isnt about Lewis vs Max, Horner vs Wolf, Red Bull vs Mercedes.
However it is also not about excitement. Its about the essence of sport. The problem with a sport like this and f.i. football as well, is that you can not fit every situation into regulations, there are too many variables. So you always have to take the rules with a minor component of interpretation of why the rules are the way they are.

Like in football, a match takes 90 minutes. Except after 90 minutes they continue with a set extra time to compensate for the number of player substitutions and injury treatments that happened during a match.
Except then the referee has the option to continue the match even longer if during those few minutes there was a delay. Now if a deciding goal is scored in the 5th minute of 4 minutes of extra time, that totally sucks for the losing party, but its all in the game. The extra time added is often incorrect and an interpretation of the referee and his assistant.

Similarly in a situation as this one, one has to consider the necessity of following the exact safety car protocol vs the wish of all fans and teams to not finish any race under safety car conditions, whether it is the final championship decider or the 4th race of the season.
So there are the following considerations in any race where a safety car is needed in the final 10% of the race:
1) No one wants to finish any race under safety car conditions, if it is safe to do so. (has been previously discussed and agreed by teams). It is a race not a parade. (Teams know this and should consider that in their strategy choice.)
2) We have a safety car situation near the end of the race, can we safely get the safety car situation ended and get 1 or more laps of racing.
3) What is the normal safety car protocol, what is the goal of the various provisions of that protocol and is it necessary to follow through considering the agreed goal of not finishing races under safety car conditions.

So: Lapped cars are let through so they do not interfere with the race leaders during race restart.
The safety car stays on the track for 1 additional lap to allow these lapped cars to create a gap so they wont interfere with the race leaders within like 10 laps after the restart.

We can conclude, as race control did:
1) The track was safe in time for 1 final lap of green flag racing.
2) Considering there was only 1 more lap possible, driving another lap behind the safety cars is wasted time, since lapped cars do not need to create a bigger margin than 10 seconds. Therefore the standard additional lap of Safety Car can be scrapped. This provision is required when there is half a race left, but obsolete in the closing stages of the race.
3) The only lapped cars interfering with the race win were the cars between Hamilton and Verstappen, most other cars will not have a chance for the race win in one lap. To save time no other cars need to be unlapped. (One could argue that the cars between Verstappen and Sainz should have been unlapped as well)

Its super unfortunate for Hamilton, super lucky for Verstappen, but it is also a fair decision under the circumstances and agreed principle of trying to not finish race under safety car conditions, choosing the spirit of the sport over strictly following regulations, similar f.i. to how Hamilton was not ordered to surrender his place in lap 1, because maybe Verstappens pass was slightly too agressive, while it was very clear that Hamilton gained a significant advantage by leaving the track.
Anyway considering Silverstone and Hungary and considering Verstappen leads Hamilton in poles, podiums, laps led and wins, probably the slightly faster driver/car combo across the season won.
Mercedes/Hamilton did not lose the championship in Abu Dhabi, they lost it in Monaco, Baku and Hungary.

It’s pretty naive to think that not unlapping the other cars wouldn’t have had an effect on the outcome.Hell sainz could’ve locked up going into turn one and took Max out, nobody knows. Red Bull arguing that along with yourself is total nonsense. Along with Mercedes’ lost it earlier in the season Max also lost it in Brazil as he should’ve been reprimanded harshly and in SA he should’ve been DQ’ed. its a shame people arguing the better driver won…. Not from my eyes, I saw 19 other cleaner drivers than verstappen on track this year.

[Fairplay]

I have a question, and this time I want to speak up, after lurking for years.
So why doens't red bull use the following strategy:
Whenever Lewis pull up enough of a gap in front of Vestappan, a Tauro Rosso car would intentionally crash to create a safety car, preferreably after Lewis missed the pit entry ,
In this case, Vestappan had at least 2 chances of jumping on Lewis with fresh tire, or even without fresher tire, he'd defend like crazy. I thought this was the ultimate weapon for a desperate win.

Just saying.

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.

Funny yes, but I don't think Mercedes or Hamilton would do anything that. But others might have.

[Fairplay]

Has anyone found out why Perez was called in?

[El Scorchio]

Has anyone found out why Perez was called in?

Was he on track between Verstappen and Hamilton in the SC queue? I'd heard he was, and that was why, but I really don't know.

Or it could have been an ultra cautious move just to minimise even slightly the risk of anything extending the SC period. Or he could have been on the verge of conking out.

[cooken]

Has anyone found out why Perez was called in?

The leading rumours:
a) He may have been in Max' pit window so it was a convenient way to get him out of the way. I haven't gone back to look at the gaps/timings to see if this makes sense. Edit: I just had a quick look and from what I can tell Perez was never ahead of Max (although it was a very quick look so I could've made a mistake).
b) They deliberately underfueled him so that he could have an advantage holding Hamilton up.

Both questionable ethics-wise, but especially the latter - if true I would think could get them into big trouble. Similar to if Bottas was instructed to "break down", I would expect the punishment for that type of gaming to be quite severe (loss of points, fine, and/or even complete disqualification from the constructors).

[jz11]

Has anyone found out why Perez was called in?

Was he on track between Verstappen and Hamilton in the SC queue? I'd heard he was, and that was why, but I really don't know.

Or it could have been an ultra cautious move just to minimise even slightly the risk of anything extending the SC period. Or he could have been on the verge of conking out.

your first point makes zero sense in more or less objective view - think about how he went by in quali, would you really not expect him to fully sacrifice his position for Max to get by quicker?

underfueling would make more sense, though Perez would be aware of that, but he sounded quite surprised when was told about having to retire the car, but if he was so obviously underfueled, I'd expect more pace from him, he was dropping off at more or less usual rate as far as I remember, but yeah, that would be Flavio game level

p.s. just thought of a meme - Ferrari strategists shaking Mercedes strategists hands and saying something along the lines - we feel for you, you did everything right...

[dans79]

Has anyone found out why Perez was called in?

Was he on track between Verstappen and Hamilton in the SC queue? I'd heard he was, and that was why, but I really don't know.

Or it could have been an ultra cautious move just to minimise even slightly the risk of anything extending the SC period. Or he could have been on the verge of conking out.

your first point makes zero sense in more or less objective view - think about how he went by in quali, would you really not expect him to fully sacrifice his position for Max to get by quicker?

underfueling would make more sense, though Perez would be aware of that, but he sounded quite surprised when was told about having to retire the car, but if he was so obviously underfueled, I'd expect more pace from him, he was dropping off at more or less usual rate as far as I remember, but yeah, that would be Flavio game level

p.s. just thought of a meme - Ferrari strategists shaking Mercedes strategists hands and saying something along the lines - we feel for you, you did everything right...

He was sacrificed to ensure Max had a shot at Lewis.
https://the-race.com/formula-1/how-cruc ... -f1-title/

Perez retired from third place under the late-race safety car. He put that down to the fear that he might suffer an engine failure that could have extended the safety car period and denied Verstappen his shot at victory.

This was down to a combination of the age of the engine, and the fact that it had been pushed hard to ensure Perez could play a role in the battle at the front.

“The engine was on the limit,” said Perez.

“The last thing that we wanted was to have a failure and then not have the opportunity for Max to have that lap.”

[kenshi_blind]

So many posters do not seem to get that this is not about Lewis v Max or Horner V Woolf, and it does not matter who was leading and who was 5 cars back, or what happened during the season.
The whole nub of this is that a race and championship was decided on the whim of an official who had written rules and procedures and he decided to ignore them for a lap of TV excitement.

We all know Merc is not going to get anywhere and now way is the race or championship going to be changed but the procedure has to be.
This time it was RBR and Max gaining at the expense of Merc and Lewis, if it happens again to could equally well be Mclaren and Ferrari in those roles, or any other team.

The only possible outcome is Massi will be 'promoted' to a different job and a new set of procedures and rules will be introduced for next year on.

Please understand this is not a driver and team v another driver and team this is fundamental to the fairness of sport for the future.

Agreed with this isnt about Lewis vs Max, Horner vs Wolf, Red Bull vs Mercedes.
However it is also not about excitement. Its about the essence of sport. The problem with a sport like this and f.i. football as well, is that you can not fit every situation into regulations, there are too many variables. So you always have to take the rules with a minor component of interpretation of why the rules are the way they are.

Like in football, a match takes 90 minutes. Except after 90 minutes they continue with a set extra time to compensate for the number of player substitutions and injury treatments that happened during a match.
Except then the referee has the option to continue the match even longer if during those few minutes there was a delay. Now if a deciding goal is scored in the 5th minute of 4 minutes of extra time, that totally sucks for the losing party, but its all in the game. The extra time added is often incorrect and an interpretation of the referee and his assistant.

Similarly in a situation as this one, one has to consider the necessity of following the exact safety car protocol vs the wish of all fans and teams to not finish any race under safety car conditions, whether it is the final championship decider or the 4th race of the season.
So there are the following considerations in any race where a safety car is needed in the final 10% of the race:
1) No one wants to finish any race under safety car conditions, if it is safe to do so. (has been previously discussed and agreed by teams). It is a race not a parade. (Teams know this and should consider that in their strategy choice.)
2) We have a safety car situation near the end of the race, can we safely get the safety car situation ended and get 1 or more laps of racing.
3) What is the normal safety car protocol, what is the goal of the various provisions of that protocol and is it necessary to follow through considering the agreed goal of not finishing races under safety car conditions.

So: Lapped cars are let through so they do not interfere with the race leaders during race restart.
The safety car stays on the track for 1 additional lap to allow these lapped cars to create a gap so they wont interfere with the race leaders within like 10 laps after the restart.

We can conclude, as race control did:
1) The track was safe in time for 1 final lap of green flag racing.
2) Considering there was only 1 more lap possible, driving another lap behind the safety cars is wasted time, since lapped cars do not need to create a bigger margin than 10 seconds. Therefore the standard additional lap of Safety Car can be scrapped. This provision is required when there is half a race left, but obsolete in the closing stages of the race.
3) The only lapped cars interfering with the race win were the cars between Hamilton and Verstappen, most other cars will not have a chance for the race win in one lap. To save time no other cars need to be unlapped. (One could argue that the cars between Verstappen and Sainz should have been unlapped as well)

Its super unfortunate for Hamilton, super lucky for Verstappen, but it is also a fair decision under the circumstances and agreed principle of trying to not finish race under safety car conditions, choosing the spirit of the sport over strictly following regulations, similar f.i. to how Hamilton was not ordered to surrender his place in lap 1, because maybe Verstappens pass was slightly too agressive, while it was very clear that Hamilton gained a significant advantage by leaving the track.
Anyway considering Silverstone and Hungary and considering Verstappen leads Hamilton in poles, podiums, laps led and wins, probably the slightly faster driver/car combo across the season won.
Mercedes/Hamilton did not lose the championship in Abu Dhabi, they lost it in Monaco, Baku and Hungary.

This wall of text is just...I can't believe what I've just read.
your comparaison and analogies are flawed. Last Sunday was an injustifiable --- show by Masi. There were rules he could have followed that were suitable for the situation at hands.
he chose to do something that had never been done before and thus giving the championship to a driver who was not likely to win the championship at the time .
It is truly amazing how far some of you are going to justify his actions.

[west52keep64]

Interesting onboard from Stroll's perspective on the final lap. Basically shows how it wasn't a race other than for P1 & P2.

[outer_bongolia]

Has anyone found out why Perez was called in?

Checo was going to be between Max and Ham after Max changed his tires.

[Mattyw]

Yeah that Stroll video actually made me laugh out loud at how much of a comedy it was. Stroll sums it up nicely.

It's also just occurred to me and I'm guessing this has probably been covered already but when Max overtakes Ham in the breaking zone on the final lap he then proceeds to weave down the entire straight after - why was nothing made of that, are we allowing weaving now too? Or is that just another technical foul of 'worst case black and white flag' which = nothing

[cooken]

Has anyone found out why Perez was called in?

Checo was going to be between Max and Ham after Max changed his tires.

No he wasn't. Max was already leaving the pits by the time Sergio got to the pit entry. See the above post with the correct explanation.