Lewis did show a lot of class given the emotions of the moment.

 

Either the rules are followed or they are not. As far as I can tell Masi did not follow the rules. No one has made an argument that he did. And that is because the rules applying to the situation were unequivocal. See my earlier post.

If you ignore the premise that Masi was required to follow the rules - as written - then you can bring in the kitchen sink about all the other stuff.

For all of you people making that leap, why don't you state your basis- based on the rules - that authorized Masi to do that.

 

Mr. Hamilton looked like he was delivering a talk he once gave from early karting days. I’m sure that helped Lewis keep it together.

 

Mercedes pitted Lewis way too early and essentially eliminated the advantage they had over Max starting on the soft tires. That decision put them behind the eight ball the rest of the race in case a safety car came out. Then they were forced to stay out to avoid losing track position. I guess they didn’t have much confidence that Lewis could ever get by Max on track. So it was Mercedes decisions that doomed Lewis. Not Masi.

 

Best overall season in several years..

 

Here is an article which explains Mercedes arguments, Red Bulls defenses, and the FIA's ultimate ruling. https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/f...start/6878858/

Bottom line -

1. Whether they let 5 or 8 cars unlap themselves it would not have altered the results.
2. The race director has control of the safety car's deployment.

The one item that doesn't necessarily sit well with me is the statement that both teams wanted the race to end under green flag conditions, as if that is a justification. If that were true than a red flag stoppage of the race would have been the most equitable result. I think if Masi had a time machine he would choose this result.

At the end of the day Mercedes made a strategy call in a fluid situation and they got it wrong. We all know racing involves a huge component of luck and they were unlucky.

 

Lewis failed to cover the inside line, twice. Max failed to hesitate. End of story.

Hell of a season. Bring on 2022.

 

This kind of sums it up:

 

FIA announces new rule book for 22

 

Yeah, of course, but having a squared up shoot out for a few laps would have been a much better measure of the two drivers going for the WDC. Wouldn't have endangered anyone's safety to throw a red, would, if anything, been safer overall and eliminated the goofiness of the calls by Masi at the end.

 

One hell of a season.

For those that gave up on following F1 (fair enough), or think this was the best in just a "few" years - not sure what kind of season/championship would change your mind. F1 is possibly not for you.

This was the best championship in 30 years. Some of us weren't even quite old enough to consciously follow F1 the last time there was a battle between two rivals like this.

And a bunch more won't be alive or around to see such again.

 

The rules state that lapped cars can unlap themselves under safety car situations after being granted permission by race control. Masi's mistake was saying that lapped cars would not be able to unlap themselves because if he allowed it, the race would finish under SC. From what I understand, Red Bull argued that the rules state that "Any" lapped cars can unlap themselves but not ALL lapped cars" and thus the decision to remove the cars only between Max and Lewis and have 1 lap under green. Lewis was on the radio asking Toto why they didn't pit him when the SC first came out and Toto said he thought the race would end under SC and that's why they didn't pit him. Mistake by Mercedes before even knowing what race control would or would not do.

BTW, during the VSC in the middle of the race, Toto was broadcast asking Masi to not put out a full SC.... we can all debate whether this should be allowed or not.

 

Another option would have been to bring all the lapped cars through the pits and rejoin at the end of the field. The crash was not close to the front straight/pits, it would have saved time and got the race underway with perhaps 2 laps left rather than 1.

 

I just checked on something and letting just the cars between Hamilton and Verstappen through is pretty weird: what about the lapped cars between Verstappen and Sainz and Bottas?

We (and apparently Masi) are just focusing on the P1-P2 fight as if no one exists behind them, but don't Sainz (P3 at that point) and even Bottas (P4) have just as much expectation to close up on Verstappen on the restart to try and pass him, as Max got to on Lewis when waiving the lapped cars by? What's so special about P1 and P2? You could say that the partial wave-by left Sainz and Bottas hung out to dry with Riccardo and Stroll left in their way of trying to attack the P1 and P2 cars.

The way I look at it is that Max was showered by the racing gods with astounding good luck in the race. But "luck" or whatever bounces back and forth and around among the drivers all season long. You could say that if Lewis had been better and more deserving of the championship this season, he'd have had 7 points in the bag heading to this race and wouldn't have been at risk of a P2 losing the championship. Same for Max, had the Latifi crash happened a lap later and he'd come up short; we'd say his season just wasn't good enough to beat Lewis. It really was a toss-up. (I have gotten bored with Lewis' & Mercedes' dominance, and I think Max is obviously fast(er? est?) but is a repeat offending "you-yield-or-we-crash" bad passer, so I wasn't really rooting for either one... but it sure was exciting.)

 

Luigi made a great point about looking at just the last lap, vs. the entire season. Regarding Max getting lucky at the end, well, that kind of balances the rest of the season of less good luck he had vs. HAM.

To play the coulda-woulda-shoulda game will take eternity regarding this season, so I'm happy to see Max as champion, with a new 18 podiums in a year record too. Oh, and that was all 1st and 2nd places, and he coulda-woulda-shoulda had more with the tire blow out, 2 DNFs thanks to HAM and BOT, and another DNF right on top of HAM in Monza.

HAM is a 7 time champ, and holds so many records I can't name them all. He is a great driver. I'm not a fan of his, so to compliment him for congratulating Max at the end of it all is just what is expected of the GOAT in my opinion.

Let's go on to 2022 and hope for more close racing, and see what constructor gets it right.