Not really. From where I observe, having seen fan reaction around the world, the finish was a breath of fresh air. Pretty much everyone outside of Hamilton's fanbase loved the finish, and were glad to see a new champion. The British press and pundits are the ones by and large, not over what happened in Abu Dhabi. Crying it was unfair, pissing and moaning, and frankly, just showing they don't really have the emotional maturity to handle motorsports. With the new rules package for the cars, Hamilton's age, and F1 having rising stars capable of taking WDC's, the chance for a British driver to set an all time record of 8 WDC's might be gone forever, and that is what's making Hamilton fans truly enraged. They're distraught over that and that alone, and they're going to take it on someone, and that someone is Michael Masi, who dared to refuse Toto's pleas to protect Lewis from the consequences of his team wrong strategy.
You're deliberately straw manning the rules and Masi's authority as they have been explained to you, about a dozen times now.
And who has the power to bring a SC when VSC would be enough? The race director ! I think he should be made to explain that, even if it's after the race. He should be accountable for his decisions.
Recognized. But ... gone are the days of a 1-month ban from Fchat, for the first offense of a personal attack in F1?
There is no straw manning. Remember it's stated here that the rules are clear. There is no room to straw man. So I ask if Masi wants to use 15.3 again and unlap cars in front of only Hamilton next race. Do you support it.
All this nonsense about whether Hamilton will or won't race is absurd. This is all drama queen BS on Hamilton's part. He wants the sport to revolve around him, even when he loses. He's always loved playing the victim. 99% chance, he's going to race. He has a contract with Mercedes and the first race in Bahrain is in less than 2 months. The window for him to pull a Rosberg and Mercedes find another driver has probably passed, and so he's not going to do that to them. Much as Mercedes support publicly Hamilton now, if he screws them over in deciding not to race just a few weeks before Bahrain, they'd have grounds to sue him for millions, and they would absolutely sue him for not giving them adequate notice as Rosberg did. So, for now, Mercedes are letting Hamilton have his pity party and play like he's got leverage to do this things. I also think Hamilton wants to plant seeds of excuses in the press in case the Mercedes car is not dominate this season under the new rules, and if Russel is able to hang with him on the timesheets. He wants the press and his fans to say "Oh, Hamilton is disillusioned with F1! That's why he's not dominating anymore" if that in fact happens.
I don't know that has ever happened. We typically start off with thread bans, then site bans which get progressively longer. We would usually begin with a 3 day thread ban, I thought a 7 day thread ban appropriate since there were really two attacks in his post.
You could also say that Verstappen wasted good opportunities to gather more points during the year, and SHOULD have been ahead before Abu Dhabi. But the fact remains that both faced the final showdown on equal number of points, and that anything that had happened before didn't matter in the outcome. Until Latifi's crash, Hamilton was comfortably ahead, and heading for the win and his 8th title. Verstappen had no answer to that at this point. It took Masi's decision to completely turn the table, cancel Hamilton's built advantage and remove the obstacles between him and Verstappen. I still can't fathom out if it was calculated or just clumsy, but his decision at the 11th hour looked unbelievable, and that's why it's questioned.
Thank you. Just looking for clarification, for how long i can expect to be gone ... in like a day or two
The real question that should be asked is why are Pirro and Gary Conelly still there after the 2019 Canadian robbery!!
One can argue that the only reason Hamilton and Verstappen were tied on points, coming into the final race, was because of the biased, "unfair" treatment that Hamilton was given throughout the year. Hell, one can equally argue that the only reason the last lap was a "race" at all, was because of the stewards looking the other way, again, during the first lap! You may not agree, that's fine ... but surely you can appreciate that, if one contender is "propped-up" all season to even remain in contention, then it's impossible to "write-off" what came before. Also ... how "far back" are we supposed to ignore? At the moment the safety car "came in", everything before that moment no longer mattered, right? The race was "on" at that last lap, and anything before that moment (including the unlapping decision) didn't matter. I know it sounds like i'm being argumentative for argument's sake, but there really is a valid perspective here, from outside of the Hamilton cult. When Latifi crashed and the safety car came out, all teams were still expecting a green finish (for reasons already beaten to death in this thread). You can even hear it, on the Mercedes radio. In no way did Masi's decision about unlapping cause any confusion or uncertainty about whether or not to pit (several laps earlier). Mercedes made a HUGE mistake ... that had nothing to do with Masi ... and they knew it.
The difference being that in Silverstone and Hungary, Max and RBR lost out on tons of points because of Mercedes drivers crashing into them. Max would been in position for at least one podium likely two, which would've given him between 18-36 extra points, and that would've meant the title fight either would've ended in Saudi Arabia, or Max would've had to have scored but a few points in Abu Dhabi. Hamilton's point losses were down to his own mistakes. That's the difference. Frankly, the FIA licked their chops after Max lost point in Silverstone and Hungary. They saw the makings of a title fight, and that English fans weren't tuning out. They started turning up the heat on Max, giving him a penalty whenever they could, while looking the other way when Hamilton and Mercedes did things they were penalizing other drivers for. And the stewards ignoring Hamilton's track cutting all season long? Breath taking.
Agreed. It's really quite eye-opening ... the stewards showed a pretty clear pro-Hamilton bias, all year long. But at the final race, even the pro-Hamilton stewards had no choice but to support Masi's decision! Everyone with an ounce of intellectual honesty knows, that if the stewards had some chance, no matter how small, to deny Verstappen the title ... they would have jumped on it. This isn't a case of "selectively agreeing" with the stewards ... it's a simple recognition of a clear bias, that simply wasn't strong enough, at the end of the day, to hand another WDC to Hamilton.
What's breath taking is that while some of us are over what we felt was biased officiating in Bahrain, Monza, Jeddah, along with a slap on the wrist at Silverstone , you're still not over what happened at the end in Abu Dhabi. It's still under your skin, and you're not able to accept Max as a worthy champion without trying to taint his title. I mean, Hamilton outright cut the course to keep Max from passing him. Broad daylight. Yet, he got away with it like he's done all his career. Looked as if he was going to be rewarded with a title for it, too. Notice how when you listen to Max and Horner before the SC came out, they were ready to swallow the defeat, unfair as they felt things had gone for them, while Toto and Lewis totally melted down after their fortune changed? The panic in Toto and Hamilton's voices, the screaming over the radio, Toto telling Masi "NO SAFETY CAR!" and then shortly after they lost demanding "YOU REINSTATE THE LAST LAP BEFORE!". It was unbelievable. Frankly, a disgrace to F1 how the whole Mercedes team behaved themselves, and the smear campaign they've waged against the entire sport since then, as well the trickle down effect it's had on their fanbase and supporters. I'll say a lot of things about Mosley and Ecclestone, but they would've never taken this kind of s*** from Mercedes. Ever. They would've sanctioned them for smearing the sport after the temper tantrum went passed a day or two, and told them to quit if they wanted to. Williams/Hill and Ferrari/Prost were crashed out of WDC's, and never behaved like Mercedes have.
Masi made it clear he preferred Hamilton's driving to Max's before Abu Dhabi. He threatened that if there was any contact between Hamilton and Max, the stewards would lean towards seeing Max as the offender, and if there was an incident were both Max and Hamilton took each other out, Max would have points subtracted from his WDC standings, so that Hamilton would win the title. And then what happened? Hamilton gets to cut the course without penalty at the start. But, yeah, Masi and the stewards totally wanted Max to win the title.
Ecclestone, on Hamilton allegedly being "robbed" at Abu Dhabi: “About being robbed it’s complete and utter nonsense,” he told Sky Sports News. “If you want to think about it carefully, on the first lap of that race he (Hamilton) went off the circuit and came back on again and Verstappen stayed on the circuit and did absolutely nothing wrong. “Lewis wasn’t punished at all for this so he shouldn’t be complaining too much. “These things happen all the time in sports. We shouldn’t blame the race director, he did exactly what was the right thing to do.”
Even when he was run out of the track by Verstapen ? Verstappen made some dodgy moves all season, but you prefer to ignore that.
Verstappen playing piggyback at Monza was also Hamilton's fault I suppose ? As for Silverstone I consider it was Max who created that incident for leaving a space on the inside, and then trying to close the door when he saw Hamilton coming though.
Monza, enough said. That was as bad as Silverstone. Hamilton pulled a Schumacher/Senna dirty move, trying to swerve into Max to keep him from overtaking him coming out of the pits. He was absolutely, 100% wrong to do what he did, and not only did the stewards not punish him, they punished Max instead! That was one of the most outrageous calls I've ever seen in motorsports. Even Martin Brundle called Lewis out for it.
Hamilton wasn't penalized for Lap 1, Turn 1 at Austin 2021 ... if Verstappen had gained a position by going off-track, i wonder if he would have had to give it back?
But then we circle back to the fact that there are no clear regulations when it should be a VSC, an SC or a red flag. And it's not just Masi. Whiting was just as guilty in his latter years for throwing an SC when VSC was fine, or a VSC when arguably an SC was needed. You can't hold him accountable for something he hasn't done wrong on paper. Going back to Abu Dhabi, the first VSC should've been a full SC, going by the standards set in the 2021 season (even having a full safety car for recovering a car that was literally parked on a car recovery entry point thing!). And like Werewolf said, the teams pushed HARD to never have a race finish under a SC again. By putting Masi under constant stress, all of them shouting in his ear whether to have a VSC, SC, none of them, a this or a that....and they're all only acting in their own self interest only, it creates situations like this. Further more, with Liberty buying F1 and telling them all teams have equal say in everything, this is just another part of their enormous mistake. There was a reason Bernie was a dictator. Bernie knew if you give these guys too much power, they'll end up manipulating any aspect they can. Good luck finding another Bernie. The owners/principals now have had a taste for power and they won't give it up. Mercedes lost the title because they played it safe and thought they could once again manipulate Masi what to do with this SC situation. I think Toto's now famous "Mikyl" cry was quite telling. He was so sure once again Michael would do his bidding. And now he's putting the FIA under duress with ultimatums. All utterly wrong.
100% this. And see 1994 F1 season and Schumacher. Replace Hamilton with Damon. Schumacher with Verstappen. Masi even went as far as saying he would DEDUCT points in abu dhabi if a shunt happened and both where out. Madness.
Max was 'ahead' at Silverstone, and clearly on a trajectory toward apex that left enough room for an 'alongside' driver. The collision was 100% Hamilton's fault.
