That is a question that is more or less impossible to answer in retrospect, my reasoning for this, or lets say my opinion is, Merc will have made a split second decision on whether to leave Lewis out on worn tyres, on the basis that SC rules would be followed by the letter of the rule book, and not on a adhoc decision based on the apparently agreed by the teams, to finish the race under green if possible, <the wording of that is probably the crux of the problem. So that grey area ruling or agreement has caused the resulting mess and the issue has stemmed from it, if you look at it from the perspective of the average casual F1 fan, they would be dumbfounded by what transpired, Lewis having lead for most of the race, most would have assumed that he had the WDC in the bag barring something very serious happening, so for the last remaining laps to pan out as they did with Masi deciding to change or adapt the rules to suit a racing end under green, has back fired big time in this instance IMO. So yes and no is the answer.
Directly from Daniel Riccardo about Masi creating the Abu Dhabi farcical ending! McLaren's Daniel Ricciardo said F1 race director Michael Masi needs support in his role to avoid a repeat of the farcical finish to the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. Masi's future in the job is currently in question after he botched the finish of the title decider between Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton last year. The race was settled by a one-lap sprint, which saw Verstappen pass Hamilton to win the title, when the rules were incorrectly applied.
Uh, no. When the accident with Latiffi came on the TV with 6 laps left, the expectation was that given the low amount of debris, the race would be restarted and go green again. All of the teams, including Mercedes had this expectation over the radios. This is why the Mercedes garage looked like they had seen ghosts. When Hamilton asked "Is Max behind me" Bonnington replied "he will be". Hamilton could've pitted, but Bonnington told him "stay left, stay left, we're staying out" and that turned out to cost them titled. Hamilton himself realized that was a bad call and said "****, Bono. Why didn't I box?" and Bonnington said "We would've lost track position". Things happened so fast, even Mercedes couldn't factor in all the variables properly with so much on the line. It was easy for RB because they were in 2d. What was actually surprising to the teams was the caution was taking excessively long to clean up, considering the minor mess and the amount of laps left. Mercedes had no reason to assume the race was going to end caution, and in fact over the radio it was clear that they didn't. They only began to think the race might end yellow earlier. What's clear is that Mercedes had no strategy for a late race caution. It appears the only strategy they had was to lean on race control as hard as they could into dragging a late race caution out, and hope the incident took way longer than normal to clear. I've yet to hear any radio transmissions from Mercedes that they considered the regulations in their strategy. Even after the race Toto didn't say to Masi "the regulations haven't been followed" or anything along these lines. He said "No, no! This isn't right!", "Michael, reinstate the last lap. That wasn't right", with the implication being that any restart was simply "unfair" to Hamilton. The truth is that what Mercedes and others really feel is that since Hamilton had dominated the race, and there were but a few laps left, he was entitled to the SC ending the race for him, given that he was on tires that were shot, and it wouldn't be "fair" to him if the race restarts and he's overtaken by max. Which is of course an absolutely ridiculous defense that they can't say aloud, so they instead start whining about the SC regs, and then disregard the stewards ruling that Masi had the authority to alter the protocol, so long as it was safe.
This is all honestly so old. The idea that poor Hamilton is Jesus on the cross and there was some conspiracy to manipulate the results to give the title to Max is *********. If the stewards wanted to do that they could've (and should've) given Hamilton a 30 second time penalty instead of the 10 second slap on the wrist at Silverstone, or they could've penalized Bottas for his wham-bam into both RB's, or made Hamilton give back the lead to Max in Abu Dhabi when he cut the course. Just to name three. The M-O of Hamilton's supporters is to ignore all the the instances where Hamilton and Mercedes were given either lenient treatment or Max was unfairly treated in Bahrain, Silverstone, Monza, Brazil, Jeddah, and even the start of Abu Dhabi. They have to pretend that there were no controversial decisions that went in Hamilton and Mercedes favor last year, that actually put him in position to be in contention for the WDC in the finale to begin with, and that only the final lap in Abu Dhabi was questionable officiating that altered the title, which couldn't be further from the truth.
The point you keep missing is Riccardo didn't say anything about pitting. In fact no drivers or commentators are mentioning pitting. I've been watching vidoes and reading comments from people in the F1 world about this. They are not focusing on pitting. Their comments are mostly about the officiating. Masi's job is in jepordy because of his actions. Not because of who pitted or didn't pit. The reason you and others keep trying to shift the focus back to pitting is because you know Masi decided the championship.
2 Months. How much longer do we have to endure this utter drivel with zero extra information coming out?
Fair points, however as you have pointed out things did happen fast, and that was my point as a decision had to made very quickly, so only a fool would deny that the remaining laps and SC will not have been factored in, and be based on the normal and correct SC protocol being applied, you also cannot deny that did not happen. You have an opinion, likewise as I do, and that is all it is, so do not try to make out it is fact.
What is so old is your drivel over and over while ignoring that the reality is Masi caused everything by not following the established protocols! You only signed up to Fchat this January, but are the expert on all things to do with F1. Go look into the mirror and you will see the absolute definition of a "Troll".....
It depends on conflicting stand points and views Bas, as I said from the get-go I'd have hated Hamilton to have won it in the same circumstances, in fact I'd go as far to say, enough is enough I aint wasting any more of my life watching a F1 BS pantomine.
After 2 months endlessly repeating the same **** over and over, I think he's got his point across. New information? Fine. But there isn't any. He's just endlessly hammering his point across. Every single thread that pops up turns into the abu dhabi thread.
Let me ask you this. If Hamilton had won the title that would've meant that taking Max out in Silverstone and his Knucklehead Smith teammate Bottas ramming into him against the next week in Hungary, ultimately decided the title, in that both cost Max a good 40 points in those two races, where two Mercedes drivers wrecked Max and benefited from it in the points handsomely. "Opps! Sorry!" is all RBR got from Toto. Had Hamilton gotten the 30 second penalty that was precedent from Kimi v Vettel, then he wouldn't have won the British GP, and that would've meant he would not win the WDC from simply winning Abu Dhabi. Without those incidents Hamilton would've had NO chance at the title. Would you have agreed with Max fans saying Hamilton had to crash into Max to win the title in that scenario? That Hamilton's title was illegitimate ? Frankly, they'd have been on much stronger grounds to claim they were robbed, and had a far more legitimate grievance than what we're talking about with this SC ****, and I think you know it, even as I suspect you'll insist it was soooo different.
Jesus. You totally missed all my points. Mercedes had no strategy for a late race SC because it was impossible to craft one. No matter what they did, Max would do the opposite. They had no way of knowing for sure the exact lap a SC would come out. Further, the average SC period is 3.5 laps, so with 6 laps left, they expected the race would return to green initially. It was only later over the radio that thought the race might under yellow. The initial decision not to pit was based on the fear of losing track position. Hell, had their been 10 laps left and an expectation of 4 green flag laps, Mercedes were still never going to pit. They were not going to risk a bad pit stop, getting caught up in a crash coming up through the field, or not being able to overtake Max again as possibilities. They'd have been fools to pit even in that scenario. After Hamilton's first and only stop there was a clear understanding at the team that no matter what happened, they were not coming back in. "If we lose, let it be on the track" was the call and it was a smart one in their position. RB would've done the same thing.
See you can't hand pick certain events thats goes in your favor and then leave out other events. I accept that there have been incidents every season. But you can't stop and decide the season at Silverstone etc. You have to let the season play out. Thats why they have 22 races. Max had a lead and momentom after USA. The championship was in his hands. But you leave out where Hamilton was able come back and win multiple races and tie it up. Max failed to finish strong. But you leave these events out on purpose. Max should have won the first race as he was on fresher tires and failed to pass Hamilton. Now the last race has become the decider. Which why we have this contreversy.
No, Hamilton gained a position in Lap 1. Verstappen was clearly "ahead" at the moment Hamilton went off-track. Hamilton re-joined "ahead". Given the average safety car interval at Abu Dhabi (3.2 laps prior to 2021), and given the pre-race agreement (by all teams) to end under green "if at all possible" ... the expectation of all teams when the safety car was deployed, was that the race would end under green. Certain? Of course not ... no more certain than one final lap of racing would result in a change of race lead.
Minor correction, if i may: The average safety car interval at Abu Dhabi (prior to 2021) was 3.2 laps And there was that pre-race agreement ... to end under green "if at all possible" ... that Hamilton fans want to conveniently ignore. Yep, all teams were expecting the race to end under green, when the safety car was deployed. They made their pit-stop strategy based on this expectation. You can absolutely hear this expectation, in the Mercedes radio communication ... Hamilton knew, for sure, it was a huge blunder to keep him on old tires. No need to listen to posters on this thread ... listen to Hamilton himself! Was it 100% "certain" that the race would end under green? Of course not. No future "event" is "certain" in racing ... that's why they race! For example: there was no "certainty" that Max would overtake so easily, in the final lap. For all the world knew, Hamilton would "silverstone" Max, again (just as he said he would), and the stewards would look the other way, again.
One minor issue: if by “pre-race agreement” you mean 2019, then that’s acceptable. Fact is, there was an agreement established during the 2019 season to attempt to finish under green flag conditions if possible and not a safety car (it was not an agreement made specifically for Abu Dhabi). Given the Spa debacle (and other strange safety car uses), there was no way Merc could know that Masi would finish things the way he did so it certainly made sense not to yield track position with so few laps left. “ Mercedes had to leave Hamilton out there – on hard compound tyres which had been on since Lap 14. Hamilton was potentially looking at a last-gasp restart for the race and the championship with his rival sitting right on his gearbox on a brand new set of softs. Of having his title taken from him by random fate. READ MORE: ‘It was an emotional rollercoaster’ says Horner after thrilling Verstappen title win But… it seemed like it might not come to that. As the car and the debris were removed, we were running out of laps. It seemed entirely possible that the race would end under the Safety Car. In the last couple of years there has been a general agreement with the teams that the Race Director should always endeavour to have the race ending under green flag conditions, even if only for a lap or two, as at Baku earlier this year.
Whoa whats with the reverence that is so significance in this conversation, clearly you have issues with folk that do not agree with your view, I suggest you cool your jets. Firstly let me get some context back to this, you jumped in and answered a post that was not directed at you ok, you had that chance earlier and failed to do that. And secondly those points you made are just your opinion only, you do not know excatly what went down or how Merc decided to act. I have missed none of your points I acknowledged you had some, but clearly you have missed my point or are refusing to acknowledge it or answer it in a civilized manner. And I don't need to hear the same old regurgitated reasons and let them race bolloxs. So lets try one more time again, a simplier version. Do you believe Masi made a mistake in the way he orchestrated the end of the race in regards to the usual usage and protocol of the SC ? a yes or no answer be fine, I don't need an essay.
The truth is that all his posts since he joined are about Abu Dhabi, at the exclusion of other F1 topics. In less than a month, he has built up a vehement defense of Masi to endorse the events of the last GP. The timing is troubling. Coincidence ? Hummmm ....
Personal attacks. 7-day site ban and 30-day thread exclusion. Please control yourself and debate the point rather than attack the character of other participants when you are permitted to return. All the best, Andrew.
