Ouch! lol

 

I have lost interest in a series where races are pretty much exclusively won and lost via pit stops (undercuts, for example), safety cars, DRS, and convoluted rules even the racing director cannot keep straight. That is to say, pretty much anything except driver skill. Yes, Hamilton and Verstappen are phenomenal -- just look at the deltas to their team mates. They are mutants. Too bad they can't take more credit for their wins. Latifi I guess gets an assist for Max's trophy.

Oh, and there seriously needs to be some black flagging. 69 bar on the brakes when you know your rival is directly behind you is just wrong. Everyone gets their elbows out, it's racing, they're gaming the DRS beacon, but a 69 bar brake tap is way, way over the line and should be a DQ.

I think if this really does get litigated, they'll probably throw out the Abu Dhabi result and Verstappen still wins.

 

Masi committed two “sins” and the most apparent sin is that he vacillated on letting lapped cars through, but in the end, that decision did not hurt Mercedes or work in favor of Red Bull.

Mercedes was never going to pit under a safety car because they would have given up track position. That call was clearly made and discussed over the radio. They gambled that the race was most liekly going to finish under the safety car.

Masi should have allowed all the cars to unlap themselves once the safety car was out on track but for some reason originally said no. The lapped cars would be given blue flags, but by the time Max got past them all, Lewis would be down the road. This would have been a patently unfair result for Max and Red Bull persuaded Masi to let cars past. That was the right call. The problem is that there was not enough time to let all the cars past so the decision was made to let just five cars to unlap and allow one lap of racing.

Who did this hurt? Only the cars which were not allowed to unlap.

Any car which was not allowed to unlap was denied the opportunity to overtake the cars which were allowed to unlap, thereby costing them points. I have not figured out who was in what position, but assuming no one was two laps down, the sixth car unable to unlap was really screwed over.

Whether Masi allowed all the cars to unlap if the call had been made early on, or 5 cars to unlap with a late call, did not hurt Mercedes or Red Bull. Both would have ended with Max right behind Lewis.

I also think it was disingenuous of Toto to radio Masi and ask for no safety car. You either need one or you don’t and that is based on the safety of the drivers and marshals. That was a horrible radio call to hear and went beyond mere lobbying.

The bottom line is that both Mercedes and Red Bull made strategy calls based on the information they had, knowing that there were a lot of variables, and Mercedes got it wrong. There should be no asterisk by Max’s WDC and the FIA did not hand him the win. Mercedes were unlucky with their call.

What should have happened, as others have stated here, was to red flag the race. Both Hamilton and Max would have come in, switched to new soft tires, and we would have been treated to the best five laps in F1 history to decide a WDC. That would have been fair to both drivers and removed the FIA from helping or hurting one team or another. This is Masi’s primary sin. He should have allowed the race to finish on equitable terms.

There were many unlucky occurrences during the race year, in addition to many questionable calls by the race stewards, all of which went into a tie in points at the end of this year. We could just as easily fixate on something which happened months ago, which cost either driver some points, and thus had a bearing on the outcome of this season. The fact that there was a call made in the final lap doesn’t make it any more of less important in the grand scheme of things.

Lastly, I will say that while I have always been a huge fan of Hamilton’s driving, and less a fan of some of his political positions, I do think he showed a TREMENDOUS amount of class at the end of the race. He showed a tremendous amount of maturity and I think he earned himself many converts. It was hard not to feel sorry for him. In the end I think he was just unlucky.

 

I wish they would have red flagged the race and had a 5 lap shoot out. Had Lewis decided to pit, Max would have stayed out and Christian Horner would be making the same argument that Toto is making now.

 

both teams saw the same wrecked williams... one chose to pit and one chose to hang it out there on old hard tires no matter what happened with the VSC or SC. Mercedes could have pitted and had ham out there on used softs in second place. cause lets be honest if he dove in from the lead, red bull stays out. the race was not going to finish under yellow (as we saw the powers that be didnt let it happen) and ham would have passed ver the same way ver passed him.. scared money dont make money.... merc racing scared slash being in first they technically had too, or they roll the dice like i just laid out there.

the race was over on lap 15. while the checo antics were great they still were not going to give max the pass on track he needed... SC was the ONLY way and it happened in the end.

in the end it was a motor race!!!

who here that w2w races has ever had a penalty called on them but not another guy, etc. it happens. most of the people who are bitching about this outcome have never ever been part of a w2w motor race.

cant believe i wasted the time writing this

 

Who's fault was it Hammy was on 45 lap hard tires? Max? FIA? Masi? None of the above?

Exactly.
To suggested Masi and the stewards "handed" Max his victory is absurd. I agree the race should have been red flagged immediately following Latifi's crash. But it wasn't, and the stewards decided to give the fans a race, albeit in an odd way that did favor Max, but he still had to pull off the pass which history has shown isn't all that easy between him and Hammy regardless of tires.

 

I was yelling at the TV the instant I saw Latifi's car in the wall, "red flag, red flag, throw the red!!".

I was ignored. As usual.

 

Again, the strategy decisions were based on the rules being followed, not being made up on the spot. He stayed on hard tires because he did not need new tires if the rules were followed. Either Max would have to pass all the lapped cars between Lewis and Max or they would not have time to get the back markers through and the race would end under yellow. The only reason there was a bunch of cars between them was because Max stopped for the soft tires. He could have stayed behind Lewis and then if the green flag did come out they would have continued their race, but Max was not able to keep up with Lewis at the end of the race before the crash.
I think red flag would have been the best result, but they had not thought through this type of ending and rather than follow the rules, they tried to fix the problem and ended up giving an advantage to Max.

Greg

 

Red flags are not thrown to make the race more interesting, nor should they be. Masi's job is not to even up the field and excite viewers, altho I would not be surprised by theories that Liberty Media would very much like that thumb on the scale.

 

Again, the strategy decisions were based on the rules being followed, not being made up on the spot. He stayed on hard tires because he did not need new tires if the rules were followed. Either Max would have to pass all the lapped cars between Lewis and Max or they would not have time to get the back markers through and the race would end under yellow. The only reason there was a bunch of cars between them was because Max stopped for the soft tires. He could have stayed behind Lewis and then if the green flag did come out they would have continued their race, but Max was not able to keep up with Lewis at the end of the race before the crash.
I think red flag would have been the best result, but they had not thought through this type of ending and rather than follow the rules, they tried to fix the problem and ended up giving an advantage to Max.

Greg

 

Funny thing is, if Lewis have dove for the pits, Max would have stayed out and Christian Horner would be making the same argument that Toto is making.

F1 wouldn't be F1 without out the Days of Our Lives Soap Opera that accompanies it sometimes.

 

X2. I have not been a fan of Hamilton out of the race car but gained new respect for him for the way he handled himself.

 

Word.

 

If they had cleared Latifi's car earlier and then had the lapped cars all overtake and then one lap shootout, fine. Known risk at the time teams are making strategy calls. Teams have a sense of how long all that takes and can make calls based on best information. If you're wrong, you're wrong.

No one saw this decision coming as part of the strategy matrix and that's the problem I have. The possible scenarios considered by the strategy team didn't include this choice and couldn't reasonably have included it. If the crash had happened 2 laps earlier everyone makes different choices and, assuming standard approaches to the situation were followed, everyone would have lived with the consequences.

Ham did nothing wrong.
Max did nothing wrong.
Mercedes did nothing wrong.
Red Bull did nothing wrong.

Masi? Hmmmm. Don't love it.