flag drops at 3 hours, but according to Alpine it dropped at 2:58;16 or so, probably time for another lap, but again, open to interpretation.
If the rules and results of the race are manipulated for political reasons, I have a problem with that. It doesn't really matter though, Verstappen was going to win the title regardless, might as well let them party hard in Japan.
The FIA/F1 needs to communicate stuff clearer and quickly. with about 20 minutes or so on the clock remaining, they showed a graph that if it finished like it did, Max wouldn't be champion (1 point short as Charles was in 2nd and Max didn't have fastest lap). The commentators where then debating/calculating if the race would meet distance X. I'm sure it was like that on all international commentary channels. Wasn't there a single person in the FIA listening in to at the very least the main feed, and could've popped in, phoned the commentary booth, put a little graph up on screen...anything...explaining the rule change and why commentators are wrong with the new rule? Leclerc's penalty was fully expected but that was one of the most anti-climatic ''you're the champion'' moments. No one even knew what points we'd be using.
