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

[kenshi_blind]

So staying with that narrative, why was Hamilton not told on lap two to stop doing it?

i am a bit lost here ? what narrative are you talking about ?

That Hamilton 'got away with' X seconds. Had the rule been enforced (if it was there) it would not have been an issue

For clarity, most of the problems this year have come from not enforcing the rules.

i suggest you read the convo again . i am not the one pushing that narrative . what i said was there was no track limits until Masi decided otherwise which has nothing to do with what happened last sunday

[El Scorchio]

This Bahrain thing is utterly irrelevent and nothing more than a deflection to try and trivialise Sunday.

Just to put it to bed, ALL drivers were permitted to use that area as per the race director's note. That some drivers didn't is on them, and no-one else. As soon as the complaint went in during the race, then no one was allowed to use it. The rules were exactly the same for everyone in all parts of that race. To say Hamilton was doing something he shouldn't and was illegally gaining time is completely wrong. It's actually that Verstappen wasn't doing something he was perfectly entitled to do.

The above, and/or any subjective decision by the stewards during the season or squabbling over which penalty was too harsh or which was too lenient are a totally different ballgame to what happened on Sunday, and if we are being honest with ourselves, we all know it. And it's a much bigger issue than just Hamilton and Verstappen.

[kenshi_blind]

This Bahrain thing is utterly irrelevent and nothing more than a deflection to try and trivialise Sunday.

Just to put it to bed, ALL drivers were permitted to use that area as per the race director's note. That some drivers didn't is on them, and no-one else. As soon as the complaint went in during the race, then no one was allowed to use it. The rules were exactly the same for everyone in all parts of that race. To say Hamilton was doing something he shouldn't and was illegally gaining time is completely wrong. It's actually that Verstappen wasn't doing something he was perfectly entitled to do.

The above, and/or any subjective decision by the stewards during the season or squabbling over which penalty was too harsh or which was too lenient are a totally different ballgame to what happened on Sunday, and if we are being honest with ourselves, we all know it. And it's a much bigger issue than just Hamilton and Verstappen.

thank you , i couldn't have said it better

[basti313]

This Bahrain thing is utterly irrelevent and nothing more than a deflection to try and trivialise Sunday.

Just to put it to bed,

Yes. Verstappen is WDC, this is what counts and no one will ever remember this other nonsense around.
Just like Prost vs. Senna was hard, but no one is interested in this.

[Big Tea]

i am a bit lost here ? what narrative are you talking about ?

That Hamilton 'got away with' X seconds. Had the rule been enforced (if it was there) it would not have been an issue

For clarity, most of the problems this year have come from not enforcing the rules.

i suggest you read the convo again . i am not the one pushing that narrative . what i said was there was no track limits until Masi decided otherwise which has nothing to do with what happened last sunday

It does. You say "there was no track limits until Masi decided otherwise" and the rule did not change the whole time.
Either rules are there or they are not. They do not appear halfway through a race. The rule was there all along and ignored, then suddenly the decision was made and it was enforced. That is subjective.

[kenshi_blind]

That Hamilton 'got away with' X seconds. Had the rule been enforced (if it was there) it would not have been an issue

For clarity, most of the problems this year have come from not enforcing the rules.

i suggest you read the convo again . i am not the one pushing that narrative . what i said was there was no track limits until Masi decided otherwise which has nothing to do with what happened last sunday

It does. You say "there was no track limits until Masi decided otherwise" and the rule did not change the whole time.
Either rules are there or they are not. They do not appear halfway through a race. The rule was there all along and ignored, then suddenly the decision was made and it was enforced. That is subjective.

( facepalm) again there was not track limit enforced at that particular part of the race track , all drivers were permitted to do what Hamilton did per the RD notes until that was not the case anymore and that had no relevance to what happened last sunday

[El Scorchio]

This Bahrain thing is utterly irrelevent and nothing more than a deflection to try and trivialise Sunday.

Just to put it to bed,

Yes. Verstappen is WDC, this is what counts and no one will ever remember this other nonsense around.
Just like Prost vs. Senna was hard, but no one is interested in this.

Not what I'm saying at all, but I know you know that.

[ringo]

I dont see why Bahrain is even being discussed.
No regulation was manipulated there. And to weaken the discussion. Track limit rules are in the name of fair competition. The director decides which turns are policed to foster equity in cars lapping the circuit. If he changes midway during the race its for all.

1. The race director did not rewrite rules in favour of any team. All cars could do what Lewis was doing there. Max could as well but maybe it was not the fastest for him.

2. Not acting on a rule is way different than recreating rules to setup a likely outcome that disadvantanged a competitor.

This did not happen in Bahrain. Masi did not see Lewis leading and twist a rule that disadvantaged Max but benefited Lewis in an irreversible and powerless way.

Max fans please stop grasping for straws for other instances. Nothing has happened in F1 like what happened on Sunday ever.
The closest thing was Max pushing off Lewis in Brazil.

You cannot find 1 example where a regulation was corrupted then implemented opportunistically to mislead 1 team's decision making and to provide an unfair advtantage to another team. It has never happened like this in F1 before.

The last time i can think of is Spa 2007 with Kimi and Hamilton where Lewis was robbed of a win and rules manipulated. And even then it was somewhat easier to digest because the rule was not changed in race. The event was completed and then the rule created after the fact. This was wrong and i still consider Hamilton having 1 more win back then.

Now it even makes it 2 wins that Hamilton has been robbed of by the FIA.

[holeindalip]

That Hamilton 'got away with' X seconds. Had the rule been enforced (if it was there) it would not have been an issue

For clarity, most of the problems this year have come from not enforcing the rules.

i suggest you read the convo again . i am not the one pushing that narrative . what i said was there was no track limits until Masi decided otherwise which has nothing to do with what happened last sunday

It does. You say "there was no track limits until Masi decided otherwise" and the rule did not change the whole time.
Either rules are there or they are not. They do not appear halfway through a race. The rule was there all along and ignored, then suddenly the decision was made and it was enforced. That is subjective.

can we all just agree that this seasons rules were far from enforced correctly, putting an asterisk next to whoever’s name is/was on the trophy.

Just look at the event notes from 2021 Abu Dhabi
https://www.fia.com/sites/default/files ... on%202.pdf

Specifically 29.3

[Roo]

“Today he was lucky; without the Safety Car Lewis was World Champion and with Safety Car Max is World Champion, so it’s a pure luck thing what happened today,” said Alonso

Interesting comments attributed to Alonso. I did chuckle at the use of the words "pure luck", with Masi's comments to Wolf in my mind.

[PlatinumZealot]

I think we all can agree that Masi ignored the rules and created his own to manipulate the outcome of the Abu Dhabi race?

Right?

[Phil]

Phil, I agree with you on that, with the possible caveat that only in hindsight it can truly be judged as a potential championship deciding moment. I was bummed that it wasn't protested, but I can imagine a team being more reluctant to do so in the first race, than in the last (imagine the outrage if the season started with such a controversy).

The problem for me is with the narrative that is being pushed that poor rule interpretation is a singular issue that 'robbed' Hamilton from the title. Regardless of whether it can still be corrected, both sides can push the narrative that the championship was negatively influenced by stewarding decisions.

Personally, it's called a GP - Grand Prix. Every race is its own event and should be looked at as one, no more or less. The championship is just the sum of all GPs of a season. In other words, it's a failure of F1 to want to make the "last event" a bigger event, simply because a championship is on the line. In my opinion - and there's nothing in the rules that would stipulate otherwise - it's wrong to make a single event bigger than it is. If it happens to be championship deciding or not is irrelevant.

For the same reason, the double-points finale in Abu Dhabi (2014) was a complete joke. Why should a GP be worth more than any other? Every GP is unique - different layout, different surface etc - some suit certain drivers/cars better, some worse. Abu Dhabi 2021 was a single event and I hate F1 for wanting to make it something bigger than what it was supposed to be. For the same reason - altering the procedure of the safety car solely because a championship was on the line was wrong.

The only reason why we are even arguing this is because F1 decided to change that narrative.

[rb88]

I dont see why Bahrain is even being discussed.
No regulation was manipulated there. And to weaken the discussion. Track limit rules are in the name of fair competition. The director decides which turns are policed to foster equity in cars lapping the circuit. If he changes midway during the race its for all.

1. The race director did not rewrite rules in favour of any team. All cars could do what Lewis was doing there. Max could as well but maybe it was not the fastest for him.

2. Not acting on a rule is way different than recreating rules to setup a likely outcome that disadvantanged a competitor.

This did not happen in Bahrain. Masi did not see Lewis leading and twist a rule that disadvantaged Max but benefited Lewis in an irreversible and powerless way.

Max fans please stop grasping for straws for other instances. Nothing has happened in F1 like what happened on Sunday ever.
The closest thing was Max pushing off Lewis in Brazil.

You cannot find 1 example where a regulation was corrupted then implemented opportunistically to mislead 1 team's decision making and to provide an unfair advtantage to another team. It has never happened like this in F1 before.

The last time i can think of is Spa 2007 with Kimi and Hamilton where Lewis was robbed of a win and rules manipulated. And even then it was somewhat easier to digest because the rule was not changed in race. The event was completed and then the rule created after the fact. This was wrong and i still consider Hamilton having 1 more win back then.

Now it even makes it 2 wins that Hamilton has been robbed of by the FIA.

Well not against a team, but certainly vs. another driver - coincidentally Hamilton's hero - Ayrton Senna. What the FIA did under leadership of Jean-Marie Balestre, it's deja-vu for me. He didn't want Senna to win - a Frenchman at the helm of a French organisation, making sure the French driver, Alain Prost, won. Even though it was clear by any standard that Prost forced a collision with Senna in Suzuka 1989 - and Senna was DISQUALIFIED from that race, losing him the championship in the process. FIA's reasoning? That he "Cut the course, and therefore did not respect the distance of the race". Ron Dennis defended Senna that year, showing with evidence that there was inconsistency in applied rules regarding escape roads. The FIA disregarded it, Mclaren did not take it any further than that.

To add insult to injury, the very next year, at the title fight at the same circuit in Suzuka, the pole position slot was suddenly and misteriously changed sides, off the normal racing line - to give Senna a disadvantage, clearly. Senna then took it upon himself to crash Prost out once he saw Prost pulling away from what was his side of the grid really, which I really do not blame him for, at all. He was f***** over once, and wasn't going to let the FIA f***** him over twice.

This is that same situation ALL OVER AGAIN. With Mercedes today not showing up for pre-event ceremonies at the FIA Gala, I really do hope Merc stick it to the FIA hard, hopefully going as far to go to the CAS if necessary, to once and for all end this for any driver that may experience this kind of discrimination against his character ever again, because that is what it is.

edit: I recommend you all to watch the documentary "Senna", to see this whole episode played out in very good detail. Then come back and tell me this isn't the exact same thing.

[Tvetovnato]

I dont see why Bahrain is even being discussed.
No regulation was manipulated there. And to weaken the discussion. Track limit rules are in the name of fair competition. The director decides which turns are policed to foster equity in cars lapping the circuit. If he changes midway during the race its for all.

1. The race director did not rewrite rules in favour of any team. All cars could do what Lewis was doing there. Max could as well but maybe it was not the fastest for him.

2. Not acting on a rule is way different than recreating rules to setup a likely outcome that disadvantanged a competitor.

This did not happen in Bahrain. Masi did not see Lewis leading and twist a rule that disadvantaged Max but benefited Lewis in an irreversible and powerless way.

Max fans please stop grasping for straws for other instances. Nothing has happened in F1 like what happened on Sunday ever.
The closest thing was Max pushing off Lewis in Brazil.

You cannot find 1 example where a regulation was corrupted then implemented opportunistically to mislead 1 team's decision making and to provide an unfair advtantage to another team. It has never happened like this in F1 before.

The last time i can think of is Spa 2007 with Kimi and Hamilton where Lewis was robbed of a win and rules manipulated. And even then it was somewhat easier to digest because the rule was not changed in race. The event was completed and then the rule created after the fact. This was wrong and i still consider Hamilton having 1 more win back then.

Now it even makes it 2 wins that Hamilton has been robbed of by the FIA.

Spa 2008 was horrible. McLaren even got told that they did nothing wrong during the race by the race director, so they kept on going. Only to then get a completely different verdict by the stewards later on. F1 has always had a tendency to look utterly idiotic from the outside from time to time, and I have no idea how they are still in this position looking at what happened on Sunday.

[siskue2005]

Any news on Merc yet? Are they taking it to court? It's been more than 72 hours now