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

[DChemTech]

no offense but you're just making things up and moving the goalpost to fit your narrative
. In Bahrain, Hamilton didn't ignore track limit, there was no track limit before the race director issued a new ruling so no He did not ignore track limit . please do not rewrite history
. As far as the wings regulations is concerned , it was obvious to anyone that Redbull wings was not compliant with the spirit of the regulations , it passed the test but it was not compliant with the spirit of the regulations hence why they were given ample time to sort it out
. As for the pit stops , i fail to see the relevance as it affected all the teams.

No, I am not making up anything.

This quote literally comes from Masi on F1.com, after Bahrain:

"it was mentioned very clearly in the [drivers’] meeting and the notes that it would not be monitored with regard to setting the lap time so to speak – but it will always be monitored in according with the Sporting Regulations that a lasting advantage overall must not be gained"

In other words, that a certain corner is not monitored does not mean you can abuse track limits. It may not directly lead to a lap-time gone, or to a warning after 3 successive digressions, but it is illegal. In addition, the sporting regulations simply say one should not leave the track and gain an advantage. It does not say anything about that rule only being applied in designated corners. That it took Masi 29 digressions to take action is outrageous (calculation of 3 seconds advantage by Jolyon Palmer, f1.com) and may very well have cost Max the race - were track limits applied fairly, he might have had more shots at overtaking LH fairly. The race director did not consistently apply their own rules, and with that, handed one team a potentially championship deciding advantage. Analogous to this weekend. The thing that changed compared to when the accident happened is that now we know the potential implication on the championship.

As for the other rule changes:
RB was compliant with the letter of the regulations, namely the stated tolerances, because nobody can literally design a completely rigid wing. Spirit is all fun and games, but designers cannot design on spirit - they need numbers. By changing the tolerances mid-season, the teams that took maximum advantage on the regulations as they were provided (which we should applaud, because that is what competition is about!) were penalised - forcing them to spend time and money to redesign a part (whereas competitors did not have to) to comply with regulations that could not have been known to them when they originally designed the part. That introduces huge bias. What makes it worse is that the call for change was not originating from FIA itself, but it was originating from complaints by Mercedes - the team that stood to gain - based on qualitative observations and their own judgement about what is excessive movement. Mid-season regulation changes that are not supported by imminent safety concerns (such as the tire-sidewall strengthening) are troublesome, because your are favoring some over others. It's worse if it comes from a political lobby. The underlying issue here is that the FIA did not write clear rules on what was excessive wing flexing, and RB was penalized for the shortcomings of the FIA. That is not how things should work. The FIA should take their responsibility and be clear about what excessive flexing is for future seasons, so that there would be no qualitative spirit of the rules mumbo-jumbo. Like they did with DAS. Mercedes exploited vaguely worded rules, and were not punished that season, it was just changed for the next.

For the pitstops, yes, all teams were hit, but some (that spent more time and resources perfecting pitstops) more than others. What bothers me most though is that the regulation change, under the poorly argued guise of safety, essentially came from a political lobby - with Mercedes again playing a substantial role. And the impact was there: the new regulations led to a few botched pitstops that may well have been less safe. And indirectly led to LH and VS coming together in Monza, although I do blame the incident itself there on MV.

[Shrieker]

You're making a ridiculous argument that's contradicted by what happened this year. If Verstapen was the chosen one then:
1. Lewis would've received a much bigger penalty for Silverstone
2. Verstapen would've been allowed to keep the first place from the overtake in Jeddah.
3. Lewis would've been asked to give the place back after the first lap incident on Sunday.

One unusual (and illegal) touch was all that was needed. When opportunity presented itself, they just pulled the trigger. Not even the secret love child of Prost and Senna could've prevented that overtake from happening on 40+ laps old hard tires.

So I don't need to go into 2 and 3.


As for 1: Lewis already received a much bigger penalty than was warranted at Silverstone. The only thing he could've been held accountable for was, the rules stating it's the overtaking driver's responsibility to make a clean pass. Driving wise, he made no error. Proof here. If you are going to further this discussion by conveniently omitting irrefutable evidence, please don't do it and litter the entire internet.

[KeiKo403]

no offense but you're just making things up and moving the goalpost to fit your narrative
. In Bahrain, Hamilton didn't ignore track limit, there was no track limit before the race director issued a new ruling so no He did not ignore track limit . please do not rewrite history
. As far as the wings regulations is concerned , it was obvious to anyone that Redbull wings was not compliant with the spirit of the regulations , it passed the test but it was not compliant with the spirit of the regulations hence why they were given ample time to sort it out
. As for the pit stops , i fail to see the relevance as it affected all the teams.

No, I am not making up anything.

This quote literally comes from Masi on F1.com, after Bahrain:

"it was mentioned very clearly in the [drivers’] meeting and the notes that it would not be monitored with regard to setting the lap time so to speak – but it will always be monitored in according with the Sporting Regulations that a lasting advantage overall must not be gained"

This is perfect....read Masi's quote again and tell me he followed through - the bold part.
You're quoting someone to prove a point when the quote clearly contradicts the quote. That isn't a slight at you, it's just yet further evidence Masi has messed up since the start of the season.

[Tom145145]

no offense but you're just making things up and moving the goalpost to fit your narrative
. In Bahrain, Hamilton didn't ignore track limit, there was no track limit before the race director issued a new ruling so no He did not ignore track limit . please do not rewrite history
. As far as the wings regulations is concerned , it was obvious to anyone that Redbull wings was not compliant with the spirit of the regulations , it passed the test but it was not compliant with the spirit of the regulations hence why they were given ample time to sort it out
. As for the pit stops , i fail to see the relevance as it affected all the teams.

No, I am not making up anything.

This quote literally comes from Masi on F1.com, after Bahrain:

"it was mentioned very clearly in the [drivers’] meeting and the notes that it would not be monitored with regard to setting the lap time so to speak – but it will always be monitored in according with the Sporting Regulations that a lasting advantage overall must not be gained"

This is perfect....read Masi's quote again and tell me he followed through - the bold part.
You're quoting someone to prove a point when the quote clearly contradicts the quote. That isn't a slight at you, it's just yet further evidence Masi has messed up since the start of the season.

I for one would love the application of the white line is the edge of the track and that’s the end of it. But that was not the situation in Bahrain.
Again this is an inconsistency and needs fixing, but it has no place in the discussion about what happened on Sunday.

[DChemTech]

no offense but you're just making things up and moving the goalpost to fit your narrative
. In Bahrain, Hamilton didn't ignore track limit, there was no track limit before the race director issued a new ruling so no He did not ignore track limit . please do not rewrite history
. As far as the wings regulations is concerned , it was obvious to anyone that Redbull wings was not compliant with the spirit of the regulations , it passed the test but it was not compliant with the spirit of the regulations hence why they were given ample time to sort it out
. As for the pit stops , i fail to see the relevance as it affected all the teams.

No, I am not making up anything.

This quote literally comes from Masi on F1.com, after Bahrain:

"it was mentioned very clearly in the [drivers’] meeting and the notes that it would not be monitored with regard to setting the lap time so to speak – but it will always be monitored in according with the Sporting Regulations that a lasting advantage overall must not be gained"

This is perfect....read Masi's quote again and tell me he followed through - the bold part.
You're quoting someone to prove a point when the quote clearly contradicts the quote. That isn't a slight at you, it's just yet further evidence Masi has messed up since the start of the season.

Yes, Masi screwed up there, which was my point. My point was not to reopen the discussion on Bahrain (which may have inadvertently happened, I will not argue that further), my point is that there have been decisions made by the race director that potentially affected the championship outcome from the start. The last race is not an exception, it's part of a whole. Which is why, in my view, (a) challenging Abu Dhabi but not the other decisions will not lead to a fair resolution of the championship and (b) in case Abu Dhabi's result would be overturned in some way, and LH crowned champion, MV fans can just as strongly argue that the championship was taken away from their driver, as LH fans are doing now. As I have mentioned several times, the result was tainted no matter how this race turned out. But this point seems to be ignored by most.

[kenshi_blind]

no offense but you're just making things up and moving the goalpost to fit your narrative
. In Bahrain, Hamilton didn't ignore track limit, there was no track limit before the race director issued a new ruling so no He did not ignore track limit . please do not rewrite history
. As far as the wings regulations is concerned , it was obvious to anyone that Redbull wings was not compliant with the spirit of the regulations , it passed the test but it was not compliant with the spirit of the regulations hence why they were given ample time to sort it out
. As for the pit stops , i fail to see the relevance as it affected all the teams.

No, I am not making up anything.

This quote literally comes from Masi on F1.com, after Bahrain:

"it was mentioned very clearly in the [drivers’] meeting and the notes that it would not be monitored with regard to setting the lap time so to speak – but it will always be monitored in according with the Sporting Regulations that a lasting advantage overall must not be gained"

In other words, that a certain corner is not monitored does not mean you can abuse track limits. It may not directly lead to a lap-time gone, or to a warning after 3 successive digressions, but it is illegal. In addition, the sporting regulations simply say one should not leave the track and gain an advantage. It does not say anything about that rule only being applied in designated corners. That it took Masi 29 digressions to take action is outrageous (calculation of 3 seconds advantage by Jolyon Palmer, f1.com) and may very well have cost Max the race - were track limits applied fairly, he might have had more shots at overtaking LH fairly. The race director did not consistently apply their own rules, and with that, handed one team a potentially championship deciding advantage. Analogous to this weekend. The thing that changed compared to when the accident happened is that now we know the potential implication on the championship.

As for the other rule changes:
RB was compliant with the letter of the regulations, namely the stated tolerances, because nobody can literally design a completely rigid wing. Spirit is all fun and games, but designers cannot design on spirit - they need numbers. By changing the tolerances mid-season, the teams that took maximum advantage on the regulations as they were provided (which we should applaud, because that is what competition is about!) were penalised - forcing them to spend time and money to redesign a part (whereas competitors did not have to) to comply with regulations that could not have been known to them when they originally designed the part. That introduces huge bias. What makes it worse is that the call for change was not originating from FIA itself, but it was originating from complaints by Mercedes - the team that stood to gain - based on qualitative observations and their own judgement about what is excessive movement. Mid-season regulation changes that are not supported by imminent safety concerns (such as the tire-sidewall strengthening) are troublesome, because your are favoring some over others. It's worse if it comes from a political lobby. The underlying issue here is that the FIA did not write clear rules on what was excessive wing flexing, and RB was penalized for the shortcomings of the FIA. That is not how things should work. The FIA should take their responsibility and be clear about what excessive flexing is for future seasons, so that there would be no qualitative spirit of the rules mumbo-jumbo. Like they did with DAS. Mercedes exploited vaguely worded rules, and were not punished that season, it was just changed for the next.

For the pitstops, yes, all teams were hit, but some (that spent more time and resources perfecting pitstops) more than others. What bothers me most though is that the regulation change, under the poorly argued guise of safety, essentially came from a political lobby - with Mercedes again playing a substantial role. And the impact was there: the new regulations led to a few botched pitstops that may well have been less safe. And indirectly led to LH and VS coming together in Monza, although I do blame the incident itself there on MV.

Again you're making things up .
.whatever Masi or the Fia said afterwards to save their asses is irrelevant , we all heard what the race direction said during the race and what the driver said post race conference .
. as for the wings , as i said you can keep on moving the goalpost . we all know wings cannot be all rigid and we've seen wings ( front and back bending) , what Redbull did was not compliant and they have a long history of bending wings (again they were given more than enough time to fix that and they have benefited from it but that's fair game).
The fact that you mentioned DAS actually does a disservice to your argument. there was nothing in the rule that prevented DAS and it was not vaguely worded either. in fact they had to rewrite the rules , includes specifics in order for DAS to be banned ( thanks to Redbull i guess).
. so yeah you're making thing up to fit your narrative . Redbull had party mode banned , before that it was Fric and so on. i fail to see how you can even remotely compare those to what Masi did last sunday. it was a hold up done on the last lap or the last GP where the winner was going to be the champion. no ways for the aggrieve party to catch up or claw back the points lost

[PlatinumZealot]

Couple of arguments I’m seeing here is Max has been declared the winner of the race and championship so it’s unfair to strip him of the race win and WDC crown.

However if the argument of fairness is anything to go by then it was unfair to say the least how that race ended.

The argument of Max has 10 wins to Lewis’ 8 is also undone by this too as if fairness is taken into account then Max didn’t win AD and Lewis did, ergo 9 wins each.

Masi has also insinuated that fairness doesn’t come into it with his “this is a motor race”

The thing I think I most dislike is Max saying that it’s ok for him to be champion because Lewis already had 7 titles and so as bad as it is for Lewis to feel how he does it would’ve been worse for Max to not win the Championship because he didn’t win a race he wasn’t on to win for 57/58 laps anyway.

No, what would be unfair is to revert one decision that was unfair to Lewis while neglecting other decisions throughout the season that were unfair to Max (or others), and then calling it fair . Again, the championship is the sum of the season, not the result of a single race. Singling out one decision and forgetting the rest does not lead to fairness.

We had other race threads to squabble about the rulings in other races, and everyone was quite satisfied with Brazil, Quatar and Jeddah. Mercedes fans were baying for blood after Jeddah, but we let it slide.

Now what unfair decisions against other drivers are you speaking of? Let's not focus on Max alone. This is not about Max.

[the poster below]

If Mercedes decide to file the appeal, then I see the skeleton arguments running something along the lines of the following.

Sporting fairness is the bedrock of sporting competition, and the FIA is meant to be an agent of that fairness, which includes the rules they make and enforce.

The rules weren't followed to the letter. This resulted in unfairness which affected Hamilton and Mercedes.

They want the unfairness resolved in their favour. Quite what that means in terms of specific remedies... Take the race results one lap early? Take the race results assuming 48.12 procedure was followed in full for the safety to pit on the last lap and so have a processional finish? Those two are the simplest to argue but there are many others including "let them race" with the lapped cars all there (but not all removed, because that gives the safety car entering the pits on the final lap).

Courts exist primarily to attempt to right wrongs, and to do it in a fair and equitable way. The FIA arguably wronged Hamilton and Mercedes, but the court can't make things right without doing harm to red bull and verstappen. They don't like those sorts of scenarios, because righting one wrong in a particular way could cause further wrong.

I can see a scenario where they (Mercedes and Hamilton) get monetary compensation, or some sort of formal written acknowledgement/ public apology. It's more difficult re. adjusting race result and therefore championship result, but some competitors acting in good faith based on the rules and prior safety car instances were harmed by the Masi decision.

The court should take account of the reputation and sporting integrity of the FIA, as mentioned before, since letting this slide doesn't send a good message to other competitors for future series. But having Toto and Christian trying to influence race director behaviour isn't exactly the model of sporting integrity and fairness either

All that said, I would be surprised if they change the championship outcome. Poor execution by a race director of a rule concerning a safety car is concerning, but really this is about how to rectify the unfairness inflicted on Hamilton and Mercedes by the FIA. You can only do that by punishing Verstappen and red bull, which isn't really equitable. Too many things could have happened on the last lap if they had kept lapped cars in place and just pulled the safety car in (still late in the lap, but not unprecedented I think).

How to only punish the FIA and possibly put Hamilton and Mercedes back in the position they would have been in had the FIA applied the rules properly and in line with past precedent? Without harming red bull and verstappen? Without rerunning the race (which is beyond the court's powers)?

Money. Apology. Masi's head. Rules overhaul.

And most likely some words from the judgement that basically explain what a shitshow it was and that an isolated procedural error (as opposed to outright corruption / manipulation) under such intense spotlight and conflicting incoming opinions in the heat of the moment led to a small human error with a huge consequential effect, and that's life.

Glad I'm not involved in the case.

[dans79]

No, I am not making up anything.

This quote literally comes from Masi on F1.com, after Bahrain:

"it was mentioned very clearly in the [drivers’] meeting and the notes that it would not be monitored with regard to setting the lap time so to speak – but it will always be monitored in according with the Sporting Regulations that a lasting advantage overall must not be gained"

This is perfect....read Masi's quote again and tell me he followed through - the bold part.
You're quoting someone to prove a point when the quote clearly contradicts the quote. That isn't a slight at you, it's just yet further evidence Masi has messed up since the start of the season.
[/quote]

He's been messing up since the moment he took over the position.

[radosav]

Is it possible that FIA makes decision to exclude this race from official results if Mercedes wins at court?

[Tom145145]

If this does go to court, do Mercedes have a right to gather evidence/information from the FIA?

[El Scorchio]

If Mercedes decide to file the appeal, then I see the skeleton arguments running something along the lines of the following.

Sporting fairness is the bedrock of sporting competition, and the FIA is meant to be an agent of that fairness, which includes the rules they make and enforce.

The rules weren't followed to the letter. This resulted in unfairness which affected Hamilton and Mercedes.

They want the unfairness resolved in their favour. Quite what that means in terms of specific remedies... Take the race results one lap early? Take the race results assuming 48.12 procedure was followed in full for the safety to pit on the last lap and so have a processional finish? Those two are the simplest to argue but there are many others including "let them race" with the lapped cars all there (but not all removed, because that gives the safety car entering the pits on the final lap).

Courts exist primarily to attempt to right wrongs, and to do it in a fair and equitable way. The FIA arguably wronged Hamilton and Mercedes, but the court can't make things right without doing harm to red bull and verstappen. They don't like those sorts of scenarios, because righting one wrong in a particular way could cause further wrong.

I can see a scenario where they (Mercedes and Hamilton) get monetary compensation, or some sort of formal written acknowledgement/ public apology. It's more difficult re. adjusting race result and therefore championship result, but some competitors acting in good faith based on the rules and prior safety car instances were harmed by the Masi decision.

The court should take account of the reputation and sporting integrity of the FIA, as mentioned before, since letting this slide doesn't send a good message to other competitors for future series. But having Toto and Christian trying to influence race director behaviour isn't exactly the model of sporting integrity and fairness either

All that said, I would be surprised if they change the championship outcome. Poor execution by a race director of a rule concerning a safety car is concerning, but really this is about how to rectify the unfairness inflicted on Hamilton and Mercedes by the FIA. You can only do that by punishing Verstappen and red bull, which isn't really equitable. Too many things could have happened on the last lap if they had kept lapped cars in place and just pulled the safety car in (still late in the lap, but not unprecedented I think).

How to only punish the FIA and possibly put Hamilton and Mercedes back in the position they would have been in had the FIA applied the rules properly and in line with past precedent? Without harming red bull and verstappen? Without rerunning the race (which is beyond the court's powers)?

Money. Apology. Masi's head. Rules overhaul.

And most likely some words from the judgement that basically explain what a shitshow it was and that an isolated procedural error (as opposed to outright corruption / manipulation) under such intense spotlight and conflicting incoming opinions in the heat of the moment led to a small human error with a huge consequential effect, and that's life.

Glad I'm not involved in the case.

Yup! Sounds good to me.

- Public apology
- Compensation for any financial or commercial loss
- Masi fired
- Changes to ensure no one else ever falls victim to this

[diffuser]

Couple of arguments I’m seeing here is Max has been declared the winner of the race and championship so it’s unfair to strip him of the race win and WDC crown.

However if the argument of fairness is anything to go by then it was unfair to say the least how that race ended.

The argument of Max has 10 wins to Lewis’ 8 is also undone by this too as if fairness is taken into account then Max didn’t win AD and Lewis did, ergo 9 wins each.

Masi has also insinuated that fairness doesn’t come into it with his “this is a motor race”

The thing I think I most dislike is Max saying that it’s ok for him to be champion because Lewis already had 7 titles and so as bad as it is for Lewis to feel how he does it would’ve been worse for Max to not win the Championship because he didn’t win a race he wasn’t on to win for 57/58 laps anyway.

No, what would be unfair is to revert one decision that was unfair to Lewis while neglecting other decisions throughout the season that were unfair to Max (or others), and then calling it fair . Again, the championship is the sum of the season, not the result of a single race. Singling out one decision and forgetting the rest does not lead to fairness.

The only race where a incident between Max and Lewis ended poorly for Max was Silverstone. The argument there was NOT that Max didn't have space but that he was ahead and was deserving of this invisible racing line. While Lewis basically was not on his racing line. They each knew where each other was and both expected the other to yield. Neither did and what result was a more negative experience for max just cause that's the way luck, gods, faith (whatever you want to call it) wanted it. To me even the 10 second penalty to Hamilton was stupid. You can't be giving a driver a penalty for every time he doesn't take the racing line regardless if it results in an accident or not. I think you can give a penalty if one driver doesn't leave another driver space in a corner if they hit the corner together. There was plenty of space. Neither driver tried to hit the other car but neither tried to avoid the other. For me that penalty to Hamilton was to appease the Max fans while at the same not hurting Hamilton. If they go through that corner at Silverstone 10 times and they each do the exact same thing, I doubt that the what resulted would have happened more than once or twice. That atleast some of the times both cards would have hit the wall and others just Hamilton. It was just won of those things. Just like Hamilton getting away unscathed in Hungry. Wasn't Lewis's fault that he got away cleanly and wasn't involved in that accident.

[DChemTech]

Again you're making things up .
.whatever Masi or the Fia said afterwards to save their asses is irrelevant , we all heard what the race direction said during the race and what the driver said post race conference .

And again, I completely disagree. For track limits, the rule is simple. "Drivers must make every reasonable effort to use the track at all times and may not leave the track without a justifiable reason. Drivers will be judged to have left the track if no part of the car remains in contact with it and, for the avoidance of doubt, any white lines defining the track edges are considered to be part of the track but the kerbs are not."

There is nothing about "this rule will only be enforced in selected corners", and a statement that the stewards will explicitly monitor selected corners by no means implies that the track limits do not apply to the others. The only ambiguity comes from the stewards not enforcing swiftly and consistently. I am not going to change my mind on this, nor am I going to argue it any further here. There's another thread for that.

. as for the wings , as i said you can keep on moving the goalpost . we all know wings cannot be all rigid and we've seen wings ( front and back bending) , what Redbull did was not compliant and they have a long history of bending wings (again they were given more than enough time to fix that and they have benefited from it but that's fair game).

And so under what regulation was RB not compliant, as wings cannot be rigid, and they did meet the quantitative regulations that were in place? By every measurable rule (rules should be SMART, and M stands for Measurable) they were compliant. How could they have enough time to change, if they were not told what rules to adhere to when changing? Did they need to telepathically connect to the rulewriters mind to get that information? That's not moving any goalposts. It's just an analysis of the situation. And as for the partymodes, I agree, that should not have been changed midseason. But anyway, there is another topic for this discussion too.

My point stands, disputable decisions were made throughout and have affected both teams. Not just last race.

[DChemTech]

Couple of arguments I’m seeing here is Max has been declared the winner of the race and championship so it’s unfair to strip him of the race win and WDC crown.

However if the argument of fairness is anything to go by then it was unfair to say the least how that race ended.

The argument of Max has 10 wins to Lewis’ 8 is also undone by this too as if fairness is taken into account then Max didn’t win AD and Lewis did, ergo 9 wins each.

Masi has also insinuated that fairness doesn’t come into it with his “this is a motor race”

The thing I think I most dislike is Max saying that it’s ok for him to be champion because Lewis already had 7 titles and so as bad as it is for Lewis to feel how he does it would’ve been worse for Max to not win the Championship because he didn’t win a race he wasn’t on to win for 57/58 laps anyway.

No, what would be unfair is to revert one decision that was unfair to Lewis while neglecting other decisions throughout the season that were unfair to Max (or others), and then calling it fair . Again, the championship is the sum of the season, not the result of a single race. Singling out one decision and forgetting the rest does not lead to fairness.

The only race where a incident between Max and Lewis ended poorly for Max was Silverstone. The argument there was NOT that Max didn't have space but that he was ahead and was deserving of this invisible racing line. While Lewis basically was not on his racing line. They each knew where each other was and both expected the other to yield. Neither did and what result was a more negative experience for max just cause that's the way luck, gods, faith (whatever you want to call it) wanted it. To me even the 10 second penalty to Hamilton was stupid. You can't be giving a driver a penalty for every time he doesn't take the racing line regardless if it results in an accident or not. I think you can give a penalty if one driver doesn't leave another driver space in a corner if they hit the corner together. There was plenty of space. Neither driver tried to hit the other car but neither tried to avoid the other. For me that penalty to Hamilton was to appease the Max fans while at the same not hurting Hamilton. If they go through that corner at Silverstone 10 times and they each do the exact same thing, I doubt that the what resulted would have happened more than once or twice. That atleast some of the times both cards would have hit the wall and others just Hamilton. It was just won of those things. Just like Hamilton getting away unscathed in Hungry. Wasn't Lewis's fault that he got away cleanly and wasn't involved in that accident.

Can people please stop bringing up Silverstone? I didn't mean Silverstone, I never mentioned Silverstone as being unfair. Stop putting words in my mouth for heavens sake.