Yes like we should here the radio discussing penalties under the red flag every time and not just at select times.
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2021 Formula 1 Season Thread
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Yes like we should here the radio discussing penalties under the red flag every time and not just at select times.
No doubt the FIA directly affected the outcome of the race and that should never happen. Red Bull chose to pit their driver to get him on the softs that put five cars between Lewis and Verstepphen. That was their choice and they should have had to live with it. By allowing the cars between Lewis and Verstepphen to pass making it a sprint race. Lewis was always going to be handicapped because he was on hard tyres which had done some 35 laps and Verstepphen was on a pair of new softs. If that is not directly influencing the race i don't know what is. Mercedes have a right to feel aggrieved and personally i am not sure I want to watch F1 anymore.
Yep, the championship was eventually decided by circumstances created by the governing body, not won on merit and I fully sympathise with Mercedes. Going into this race I felt both drivers deserved the title for the effort they had put in but in the end Lewis was the better driver and beat Max on the day. It’s a let down he doesn’t have the prize to reflect that. Max doesn’t realise this now or may not care, but there will continue to be doubt on him and whether or not he’s able to manage himself and win a title on merit. I think he needs to mature quite considerably and quickly if he wants a world championship going forward. Perez gave him a little lesson in how to race wheel to wheel and how to respect your opponent.
The mistake of the FIA was listening to Horner. Horner was complaining to Masi about cars not being unlapped and then telling Masi that he needs only 1 lap. In the end, the FIA gave everything Horner wanted by doing something against the sporting regulations.
The FIA should stop listening to teams and just follow the rulebook. It is really simple.
Welcome to my world as a Ferrari fan !! pre season starts -> hopes are high , red car looks amazing , great drivers , ready to rock & roll -> Australia Q3 ends -> "Lewis Hamilton takes pole by 1sec !!! what a lap !!" -> say I am done with this "sport" where the outcome is done and dusted from the first race of the season , who needs it , why waste my time.
BUT , NEXT YEAR IS OUR YEAR , its time for Max and Lewis to see my boy Charles run away with it !!!
you guys forget but Max was basically the best midfield driver for most of his career , first pole of his career was this year , if that engine is as good as advertised we are in for a ride !!! also hope Merc wont be able to fix the gremlins that are killing their reliability of their engines.
Lewis wont retire , as he might have the best car again from day 1 and just cruise (if George is not up for it) to his 8th.
Agreed, Red Bull took gamble to pit under safety car, so lost track position to some lapped cars, in hope that safety car would come in and allow some final lap(s) of racing. inconsistency seems to have started with Masi announcing that safety car would come in without lapped cars being allowed to clear. This was equally not normal rules and Red Bull rightly challenged. Probably only strict rule adherence but disappointing sporting finish should have been to finish race under safety car.
Weren’t most of those leaped cars already between Max and Lewis? I think he only let one more car in, so not much of a gamble. More of a free pit stop.
Mercedes’ didn’t have that option. A full red flag would have given us a great 5 lap race at the end wouldn’t it. Both on fresh rubber. I’d have enjoyed that. Instead we all feel robbed. Even RBR say they were lucky. I’m sure victory would have been better if they had been able to do it on the track.
That would have been a fairer outcome. Or stop the race and flip a coin for the winner, at least both drivers would have had a 50/50 chance.
Jos Verstappen admitted they were ‘only in that position because of the safety car’ but said his son deserved it because of the whole season in his view. Imagine putting all that effort in over 9 months to have your title given to you by the governing body? It’s a hot topic today on the news though and the FIA are under a lot of scrutiny. It’s a bit of a PR disaster for them and they’ve spent years trying to clean up their image since Todt took over. I think Masi will be replaced in the off-season.
Hello!
Hot topic for sure.
F1 is not a "play-by-the-book" motorsport since a long time ago.
It's owned by a corporation with profits in mind. So, all those calls
to follow the rules and so on are kind of worthless since they want
to maximize income, and this kind of circus and media attention brings that.
If FIA wanted a serious racing, they will not ask to Pirelli to change compounds
every race to add "spice" to the show. Also, be honest, if every race was sole defined
by the fastest motor the F1 will be over in 2-3 years since it will be very boring.
Hamilton is an exceptional driver and had 7 (well earned) titles. However I didn't like
his Silverstone actions nor the Saudi ones. For a rookie driver it will be sort of OK to
collision on Silverstone, but Hamilton was very aware of the situation and forced the
crash. A very serious and dangerous accident.
Same in Saudi Arabia when it back crashed Ver and after that put Ver against a wall
(action that was called by FIA).
Then it play the "totally innocent" part that I don't like a bit.
While I agree that the end of the last race was kind of messy, I believe that Ver deserved
the title. Even more, if is not for the 3 DNF (some caused by Mercedes) he had won the title
a few races back.
Hot topic for sure.
F1 is not a "play-by-the-book" motorsport since a long time ago.
It's owned by a corporation with profits in mind. So, all those calls
to follow the rules and so on are kind of worthless since they want
to maximize income, and this kind of circus and media attention brings that.
If FIA wanted a serious racing, they will not ask to Pirelli to change compounds
every race to add "spice" to the show. Also, be honest, if every race was sole defined
by the fastest motor the F1 will be over in 2-3 years since it will be very boring.
Hamilton is an exceptional driver and had 7 (well earned) titles. However I didn't like
his Silverstone actions nor the Saudi ones. For a rookie driver it will be sort of OK to
collision on Silverstone, but Hamilton was very aware of the situation and forced the
crash. A very serious and dangerous accident.
Same in Saudi Arabia when it back crashed Ver and after that put Ver against a wall
(action that was called by FIA).
Then it play the "totally innocent" part that I don't like a bit.
While I agree that the end of the last race was kind of messy, I believe that Ver deserved
the title. Even more, if is not for the 3 DNF (some caused by Mercedes) he had won the title
a few races back.
Sure , its a show , and they did hamper the merc car with the new floor regulations at the start of the season , but there is a sense of desperation in the way they took away Lewis title in the last race , all the parameters can be set against the Mercedes at the start of the season (as they were against Ferrari back in the day) , you let them engineer their way out of it and if they can , they win , here it looked like when it mattered the most the FIA crumbled under the pressure of letting a new winner and a carnival around it to be crowned.
Also regarding of "if this and that didnt happen" , well that's the sport , you can say that without the new regs Mercedes would just hammer the field again , as they would have the end of the season car at day 1 basically, just look at the bad luck yesterday with miserable Masi and the idiotic crush by Latifi fighting for P18 , also Spa was in favor of Max , Monza Max was on his way to losing , Silverstone is actually interesting , its basically Saudi but reverse , where Lewis just sent It and if they crush they crush , while Max was doing it all season long pushing lewis to yield , if the role were reversed , i.e Lewis leading the championship he would back out of it (if he was in Max position) to secure the points and move forward.
But you cant argue against either one of them deserving it to be honest , Max drove brilliantly and so did Lewis , hoping next year we get new teams at the top all together , Renault can really nail it with a completely new engine , they had a good car with the worst engine on the grid , also Ferrari with a brand new Engine should make a move forward , Honda 2022 engine was pulled in , so nothing groundbreaking is waiting for them which I feel will take them a step back vs Mercedes who also going to introduce an improved PU (probably fixing the gremlins they had in this one , and upping the power to Saudi level as the baseline).
So you think all the incidents you’ve stated there, some of which Max was penalised for, were actually Hamilton’s fault? Ok mate lol. Was he supposed to just concede every time Max threatened a contact in case he got the blame? That’s not how motor racing works thankfully. Perez and Hamilton didn’t hit each other and raced fairly and many couldn’t see that being the case of it were the other Red Bull driver. Max is young and aggressive, but needs to accept that he is accountable for his actions when things don’t work out.
Hamilton got 10 secs for Silverstone and was found guilty by the Stewards...but his title rival ended in the wall and he got the points. Hamilton acted different against Ver than Perez. Even when Perez was super clean in the last race, Hamilton was calling "dangerous driving". But he didn't risk against any other driver.
And again, in the race start incident, Hamilton with plenty of time to decide goes to bang the wheel against Ver and then raise his hand as telling are you crazy...
Look at the Ham car angle. He was fully aware of Ver:
Wheel bang:
I'm innocent:
Malice is part of the sport, hard play too and it's fun sometimes. Sometimes, like Silverstone it's not. And I think that Ham under pressure this year played more dirty than on previous seasons.
Hamilton wasn’t obliged to yield though. He went across the run off as he couldn’t tuck in behind at that point. Verstappen made the move and ultimately forced Hamilton to leave the track like we saw in Brazil and Saudi. That incident was irrelevant after the gap was reduced at the request of the RD and Lewis opened this gap back up again however. The controversy is starting the race with just one lap left and before the lapped cars has reached the back of the pack. That would never have happened at any other race in the season and the RD failed under pressure not to end the race under the SC. It made the whole race a complete sham and it has inevitably undervalued the championship this year.
I do not believe the FIA / Masi deliberately wanted to hand the title to Max and did what they did to maximize Max's chances.
I do believe they did not want the title decided by the Safety Car and their failure to throw a Red Flag immediately put them in a position to follow that bad call with another bad call in an attempt to not let the Safety Car decide the race. So they went with the "creative interpretation of the sporting regulation" to allow one final racing lap as otherwise the Safety Car incident would the title in Lewis' favor because there were not enough laps to clear Latifi, clean the track, get the field in order and then resume the race.
I feel for Lewis and Mercedes because, IMO, Lewis had the title in hand as Max was not lapping consistently fast enough to catch him, but there was still the chance of Lewis making a mistake or hitting bad traffic and allowing Max to close.
RBR gambled there was enough time to get a race lap in after the SC incident and pitted Max for new tires. AMG gambled there wasn't and kept Lewis out so he would remain in First when the laps ran out under the SC.
I do believe they did not want the title decided by the Safety Car and their failure to throw a Red Flag immediately put them in a position to follow that bad call with another bad call in an attempt to not let the Safety Car decide the race. So they went with the "creative interpretation of the sporting regulation" to allow one final racing lap as otherwise the Safety Car incident would the title in Lewis' favor because there were not enough laps to clear Latifi, clean the track, get the field in order and then resume the race.
I feel for Lewis and Mercedes because, IMO, Lewis had the title in hand as Max was not lapping consistently fast enough to catch him, but there was still the chance of Lewis making a mistake or hitting bad traffic and allowing Max to close.
RBR gambled there was enough time to get a race lap in after the SC incident and pitted Max for new tires. AMG gambled there wasn't and kept Lewis out so he would remain in First when the laps ran out under the SC.
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Masi said a couple of races back that he only has the broadcast feed to make judgements from so I do think he knew that by giving Max and Lewis ‘one lap’ to race, would ultimately hand the title to Max. We all knew at that point that Lewis’ tyres were 40+ laps old hard tyres and Max had fresh super softs, even Masi knew this. He may not have wanted the race to end under a safety car but that was the correct reflection of the race. Lewis won the race on merit.
If the FIA wanted a race at the end, they should have red flagged it with 5 laps to go and allowed the drivers to restart on fresh rubber. That would have been an exciting end for the fans and we would have actually seen a race, not a ‘sitting duck’ situation that handed the title to Max. We didn’t end up with a fair race at the end and that is the conclusion of such a competitive season. All that battling we’ve seen over the season came down to ‘one lap’ with one driver ‘Max Verstappen’ being gifted an enormous advantage and it stinks.
Ross Brawn has now said that communication between the Race director and the team principles is banned next season as it adds too much pressure and causes mistakes. He is hinting himself that the end was a mistake and yeah I know he has historic link to Mercedes but even so. It’s a sad end to a great year and a rather underwhelming way for Max to win a title, even Jos admitted that with his comment ‘we are only in this situation because of a safety car’.
Yes, Masi knew Max had fresher tires than Lewis and his call ensured that there was no traffic between Max and Lewis so one can rightfully argue that Masi manipulated the events to give Max the best chance to win the WDC because he was right behind Lewis at the re-start instead of having four cars between him.
What we can't know is if Lewis would have won the race if Masi had not allowed the four lapped cars between Max and Lewis to get out of the way prior to the re-start. And that is why I believe Mercedes' protest will eventually be denied and Max will remain the 2021 WDC.
What we can't know is if Lewis would have won the race if Masi had not allowed the four lapped cars between Max and Lewis to get out of the way prior to the re-start. And that is why I believe Mercedes' protest will eventually be denied and Max will remain the 2021 WDC.
I’m pretty sure those cars (none of them rookies) under blue flags would have gotten out of the way quick enough for Max on his rubber to have got it done.
I want to believe they would move aside down the front straight to allow Max a straight shot at Lewis and not interfere with Max's advance by scuffling amongst themselves. And I am inclined to believe Max then would have caught up to Lewis during that lap.
Then we would have crossed our fingers that they didn't end up colliding and both going out at which point it would have had to go to the stewards on who was penalized and forfeited the WDC.
Adding my vote to those expressing appreciation for this forum and the enjoyable, knowledgeable and cordial discussions. I'm glad to have discovered it and joined in this season, and I'll be here for next!
The last lap at Abu Dhabi was sure a shocker. I won't soon forget the image of Max pulling alongside and nearly ahead of Lewis once he was allowed to pass the lapped cars and was pushing Lewis to resume racing. His eagerness to attack was visceral! Can you imagine how he felt, given that one lap chance to win the championship? I'm not a fan of Max but he took the opportunity he was given and made the most of it. At that point, Lewis had very little chance, with worn tires and Max on fresh softs, but he fought hard.
Red Bull took some risks and in this race they gained the ultimate win. Mercedes probably played it a bit too safe but who can predict whether or not there will be an accident or safety car at any point in a race? I don't miss Mercedes winning another championship and I think this will give Lewis some real incentive to fight for his 8th next year - with a new teammate and all of the changes to the cars next year, I hope we will see more drama and excitement.
Best images of the race were of Lewis congratulating Max, and his father also congratulating both Max and Jos. Those guys have class. I don't think that the Verstappens will come close to filling those shoes, they have a much different personality and style. And Christian Horner tried to shake hands with the Mercedes folks but was snubbed by most of them.
I will miss Kimi! Best wishes to him in his future! And I'll miss Honda as well. I'll be cheering for Ferrari in 2022!!
The last lap at Abu Dhabi was sure a shocker. I won't soon forget the image of Max pulling alongside and nearly ahead of Lewis once he was allowed to pass the lapped cars and was pushing Lewis to resume racing. His eagerness to attack was visceral! Can you imagine how he felt, given that one lap chance to win the championship? I'm not a fan of Max but he took the opportunity he was given and made the most of it. At that point, Lewis had very little chance, with worn tires and Max on fresh softs, but he fought hard.
Red Bull took some risks and in this race they gained the ultimate win. Mercedes probably played it a bit too safe but who can predict whether or not there will be an accident or safety car at any point in a race? I don't miss Mercedes winning another championship and I think this will give Lewis some real incentive to fight for his 8th next year - with a new teammate and all of the changes to the cars next year, I hope we will see more drama and excitement.
Best images of the race were of Lewis congratulating Max, and his father also congratulating both Max and Jos. Those guys have class. I don't think that the Verstappens will come close to filling those shoes, they have a much different personality and style. And Christian Horner tried to shake hands with the Mercedes folks but was snubbed by most of them.
I will miss Kimi! Best wishes to him in his future! And I'll miss Honda as well. I'll be cheering for Ferrari in 2022!!
Although not a Ferrari fan, I do hope they are up at the right end of the grid next season. It’s been a while since they were championship contenders. Hope McLaren will continue to improve as well. I think they have two very likeable drivers.
I’d love to see McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes fighting for it next year. Two British teams and three British drivers taking on the Italians of the Scuderia again. That would be awesome.
Is all because of money. Creating another new champion, the Dutch will come again to buy tickets. FIA happy.
Edit: I have the feeling not to watch F1 in the future after so many years of fan
Edit: I have the feeling not to watch F1 in the future after so many years of fan
To all the folks who dont want to watch F1 again because how the season ended , that's the feeling most of us had for 8 years now if you are not a Mercedes fan , you cant imagine the pain going to the first race of the season and see those god damn mercs locking out the first row and winning with seconds to spare.
Did the ending sucked as a genuine natural F1 fan , it did , and I was mad about Max winning the way he did , but having ANOTHER Mercedes win was so meh , that the feeling of "**** the FIA for deciding the race" vanished quickly when I realized that they almost won all the championship of this formula , 8 years straight of WDC + WCC is way too much for me to accept , so Max stole one , so be it.
Its time for the new Formula next year , lets see the pecking order !!! and I expect those Lewis and Mercedes fans to stick with us if they are a midfield team (one can only dream !!) as we did with them crushing our souls year after year.
Did the ending sucked as a genuine natural F1 fan , it did , and I was mad about Max winning the way he did , but having ANOTHER Mercedes win was so meh , that the feeling of "**** the FIA for deciding the race" vanished quickly when I realized that they almost won all the championship of this formula , 8 years straight of WDC + WCC is way too much for me to accept , so Max stole one , so be it.
Its time for the new Formula next year , lets see the pecking order !!! and I expect those Lewis and Mercedes fans to stick with us if they are a midfield team (one can only dream !!) as we did with them crushing our souls year after year.