FORMULA 1 ETIHAD AIRWAYS ABU DHABI GRAND PRIX 2021 - Yas Marina - RACE.. ▄▀▄▀▄▀ SPOILERS▄▀▄▀▄▀

KTU, I admire your tenacity. You have apparently decided to die upon the hill of Hamilton, and you have that right. With all due respect, Hamilton and his team handed the win to Max.

First, Hamilton presented ZERO defense to Max in the last lap, he simply rolled over, perhaps so afraid of contact with Max that he froze up. He lost the position. He lost the race. He lost the championship. It's over.

Second, Merc had every opportunity to put Hamilton on fresh tires long before the safety car, thus allowing HIM to be proactive, instead of reactive. Merc relied on his dominant engine and didn't anticipate a safety car. Don't blame the stewards for Merc's lousy tire strategy.

Third, the championship was decided by a SEASON of events leading up to the final lap, and the fact that the score was tied was the result of months of an intricate series of mistakes by Hamilton, Max, and the FIA. If Hamilton wanted to assure himself the WC, he should have come into the race more than 25 points ahead. He didn't. There was no "handing" of anything to anyone.

Finally, removing lapped cars from the queue is standard operating procedure. You seem to take issue that the cars between Hamilton and Max were removed from the action; this is exactly what was supposed to happen and Merc knew it. Neither Hamilton nor Mercedes have anything to complain about here. If anyone has the standing to complain, it would be those teams who lost advantage by not being allowed to get the lap back. If Merc wants to protest on behalf of those teams, so be it. It doesn't effect that fact that Merc got beat. The purpose of the rule is to remove non-contenders from the race (that's why we have blue flags and penalties for failing to obey them). The non contenders were removed, just as they should have been. Max passed Hamilton in a slower car with better tires. It's done.

Getting those cars out of the way was expected. If you listen to the commentators of race as it happened, they were all saying the lapped cars would be let through. It happened, just not in the way Hamilton's fans hoped it would. Hamilton, with a vastly superior engine, got passed in a square, straight fight. On the track, and within track boundaries. Mercedes left Hamilton out to dry and got burned for it. It's certainly not the first time a safety car as upset an anticipated win. How many times it he past has Hamilton benefited from the lucky appearance of a safety car?

On to next season.

 

I probably said this 100 times. RB simply would have done the opposite of Merc if they pit. They were beat.
2. All lapped cars were not let through. The other teams were ignored and unfair by Masi. . Masi has been inconsistent all year. But the one thing that ramained most consistent is the safety car rules, until the last lap of race. This is Masi handing championship to Max. Lewis outperformed Max the last 4 races. I won't waste time explaining to you. Its ok if we disagree.

 

Saying something 100 times doesn't make it true.If I understand your thesis correctly, it's that if Merc had pitted, RB would have done the same, thus jeopardizing Hamilton's track position. Let's assume that's true, and that Hamilton joined the track behind Max. Now let's replay the last lap, with Hamilton on Max's bumper with fresh tires, in a car with a mega-engine, vs. Max in a slower car. I think Merc would take those odds all day long compared to what they ended up with. They took a risk. Lady Luck, finally, laughed at them. It happens all the time in motor racing. Todo should take his whipping and come back next year more determined. Success is the best revenge.

Now, I promise you can have the last word. Just felt like I would enjoy beating my head against the wall one more time.

 

+33

MB thought they had it in the bag and had no dynamic tire strategy for Lewis.

I loved the irony that they lost the title over an accident caused by one of their sister teams. As Norbert Haug pointed out as well.

 

Let me beat my head against the wall again. You are focused on the pitstop. Its not about the pitstop or who pitted when. Its about the intervening of the safety car rules which decided the championship. I never focused on the pitstop, all pitstops were within the rules . SC car handling was not. Hence title given to Max.

 

I don't know what you're so upset about. It's not like the marshals used a crane to put Max back into the race after he got stuck in the gravel.

 

In the regulatons it doesn't say "ALL" lapped cars, it says "ANY" lapped cars.

That being said, there is an article in the regulations that says that the race director authority overrides previous articles during exceptional and specific situations such as that of a safety car. Michael Masi did nothing wrong and didn't "handle" the championship to Max because had all lapped cars let through, the result between Max and Lewis would be the same.

Lewis lost because he was unlucky with Latifi's crash AND because Red Bull took a higher risk by pitting for softs.

 

Please, don't hurt your head!

 

At least until the end of the 2022 season Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

I've been reading and hearing so much from the Hamilton fans about all the unfairness. I haven't seen any team and driver get more preferential treatment then Merc and Lewis... and I have my thoughts behind that.

Would fans have wanted the race to finish under yellow ... driving 80mph around the track? Would that have been a satisfying way to win the World Championship Title for what is the pinnacle of motorsport? I can only imagine the howling if Max was ahead and they finished under yellow. The headline would be biased FIA hand Verstappen the win by not allowing Lewis a chance to race for the WDC.

This is all just so stupid. Plenty of wins and losses have come under destroyed strategies due to crashes, weather, and other unexpected issues. This is a team sport. Bad pitstops have also cost drivers wins. Attrition is just as much a part of F1 as anything else. It's a cruel sport... but that cruelty is also someone else miracle. It's always been that way for the teams, the drivers, and the fans. I'm no fan at Masi, but he was in a fairly impossible position under the worst circumstances, in the most dramatic season we've had in years. He felt the two should race. You run what you brung. Mercedes just had the results of a poor decision that they didn't anticipate and didn't change the tires when they had the opportunities. It's bad luck... that's also part of F1. I think if you can be even remotely intellectually honest, everyone's opinions, crying and complaining would have been the EXACT opposite if the roles and outcomes were reversed.

It's time to move on. It's over. Max won fair and square and that's it. We should look to 2022 and be excited about the evolutionary shift for the cars. I've been waiting for this for years after a couple delays and I can't wait to see how that all shakes out.

 

Lol. That is maniplating the word. And its so funny and petty that people mentioned this. If "any" truly meant any then we would see this every F1 race where only hand picked cars can unlap themselves. But we don't. Because its intended for the lapped cars to be removed so the Majority of the field can race. Not the top 2. But MAJORITY. If i wanted to i could read the whole rule book and interpret words to my own understanding. Thats not how it is. Rules state whoever sets fastest lap in Q2, drivers must use the same tire to start the race. "whoever" does not mean all. So why does all drivers adhere to this rule? Whatever way you look at it, the word along with the SC rules were manipilated

 

I can see why you're a Lewis fan. Every time something doesn't go exactly his way, even during Perez's epic defense, Lewis can't stop himself whining about the unfairness of it all, man.

 

It doesn't matter if the fans wanted to see something take place. You have to adhere to the rules. I may want to see Norris use a new engine every race, but its not in the rules.

 

[

I'm a Max fan but I'm not blind. Masi is guilty of inconsistency. He "trains" everyone to expect long safety car periods, and going green only after Mother Duck sees all her little back markers pass the Safety Car. Then, when it is most important, he throws consistency away and picks and chooses who passes and when the Safety Car comes back in. I am happy with the result, because it gave us the title challenge we all wanted to see but there are nine other teams who were stunned - maybe ten. Some might say Hammerton was unlucky solely because Masi set up conditions that favored Max. What if he decided only in this one case, that there would be no pitting during the Safety Car period? What would fans think if Masi disengaged DRS the last ten laps only in one race? Sure he probably has the prerogative but it would be wrong.

Masi is a problem. Out of one side of his mouth he openly invites and answers team inquiries at even the most critical times during a race, yet out of the other side of his mouth he scolds them for bothering him.

Hey Michael, if you are afraid to tell Team Principals you refuse to engage with them during a race - ever, then at least treat them as if they are calls on your mobile phone trying to sell you an extended warranty.

 

They had two chances, not just one. They gambled to keep track position; Red Bull gambled on a Safety Car.

 

Doesn't matter who pitted. I don't care if Bennetton pitted, doesn't matter. Pistops didn't decide the race. Mishandling of SC rules did.

 

Some would say that four laps from the checkered flag, under the rules, there was little chance Max could overtake Lewis when the Safety Car came out. One lap later, Max had pitted and there were four cars between Max and Lewis, none of which would have been an easy pass with three laps to go - let alone have to pass Lewis to win. Fair minded people would call it a calculated decision to leave Lewis out. What happened next was something no one could have expected. Mercedes strategy and decisions were 100% sound, viable, and would have resulted in a race win had Masi not pulled his own decision out of his arse.

If Mercedes was gambling in any way, it was that the rules and behavior of the Race Director would be consistent with past decisions. They weren't. It was a perfect case of the goal posts being moved in the middle of the match. And again, don't get me wrong, I loved the result and am a Max fan - but I am taking partiality out of this and trying to be fair.

 

And expect a different result.

Hammer time.

 

When I said gambling, I meant it was a strategy decision. Mercedes wanted to keep track position. Under the Safety Car, Ham should, and we know there's a
risk there, Ham should have stayed up front and maintain advantage with new rubber. So that's from their point of view.

Now, with respect to the lapped cars, yes there was inconsistency. The default is to allow the lapped cars to overtake the Safety Car? That is a rule that
came from Safety Cars in rainy races, correct? In this case, I'm not sure why Masi conveyed not to allow, see sarcastic chat between Verstappen and
his pit wall about that, only to change his position after Horner critiqued in disbelief. Everyone thought those cars would be let go, no? Why was Mercedes banking
on that? Just from previous races? It all depends on the speed of the marshalls at that point.

To me the only the only egregious point was that race control should have allowed all the cars to be unlapped, not just the ones in between Hamilton and
Verstappen.


If you say that the goal posts were moved, then they were moved twice, because the incident from lap 1 was also different from previous races.
Hamilton should have yielded his position to Verstappen. All in all, Masi had a bad day in the office for sure.

 

That's dangerous, man.

 

Another way of saying this: If there were 7 or 8 laps to go from the time the Safety Car went out, they surely would have pitted Hamilton, right? So with 5 laps to go
it was touch-and-go basically. Even Hamilton said that he was getting "exposed". That is a bit of a gamble, yes, based on previous data, but not a sure thing.

 

Agree, they should have let the lapped cars go by with two laps to go and Horner wouldn't have had to complain to Masi that the cars were not
being let to unlap themselves.

 

Yes if the track was cleared and this happened correctly, there would be no issue.