Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
2021 Formula 1 Season Thread
- Thread starter pachyderm
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
In my opinion Lewis will not win another championship to beat Michael Schumacher's record of 7 championships (both men are equal on 7) because those involved in the sport will not allow it. For years Lewis has been very vocal about racism existing within the sport and it is my belief they do not want to see a man of colour beat Michael Schumacher's tally of 7 F1 titles, a man who the sport considers a legend. Lewis has already beaten many of Michael Schumacher's F1 records and I do not think the sport want Lewis to beat him on F1 titles. Even if Lewis races next year I believe things will happen to prevent him from doing so. Yes he will get close but only close. Another driver will win it.
I categorically disagree.
Let us not forget that Lewis was likely going to win the race - and the Championship - before Schumacher and Latifi collided. So this...conspiracy theory...requires the FIA to go to Williams and Haas and convince them to convince those two drivers to crash into each other with just enough laps left to force a Safety Car period just long enough to allow the marshals to clear the track with one lap to go so that the FIA could then allow only the lapped cars between Max and Lewis to pass. They also would have had to ensure that Max did pit for fresh tires and that Lewis did not. And if having done all that, if somehow Lewis had held off Max, they would have had to have given RBR something to protest to the stewards that the stewards, having already been bought-off by the FIA to reject any protest from Mercedes and uphold any protest from Red Bull, would grounds to overturn Lewis' win and hand the win to Max (maybe retroactively decide that Turn One off-track excursion was in fact not okay and a convenient time penalty applied to move Lewis to second).
People who are convinced aliens killed Kennedy with a micro black hole cannon might entertain this, but even having just written it, I certainly do not.
They would have found a way. too much petrol in the tank, a review of one of his overtaking manoeuvres, a discrepancy in the bodywork.... they would have found something. The crash gave them the perfect opportunity otherwise how do you explain the FIA going out of it's way to do all it can to help Verstappen to win? Only allowing a select number of cars to un lap themselves and not happened before which allowed Verstappen who was on fresh tyres a clear run at Hamilton and then for the FIA to reject all of Mercedes appeals when it is clear to all that the rules had been manipulated by the race director to favour a Verstappen win.
Haha if Mercedes' took it to court the Judge and Jury would be looking at that wording very carefully, rules are ALL about how they are worded, your dislike for Red Bull shows with accusing them of not winning fair.
If you don't like the result take it up with the independent stewards who 'agreed' with Red Bull.
Maybe maybe not, but he was within the rights of the rules. That's my point, and is why the stewards rejected Mercedes protests.
So Lewis won't get an 8th title because the FIA are racist race fixers? Ok...
What conspiracy will you state if Geroge wins next year then? In the sister Mercedes car to Lewis?
Question for you, do you think it was fixing the results to allow Max to change tyres under the red flag as per the rules allow?
The FIA race director has never done what he did at Abu Dhabi. Races have finished under safety car conditions before and ALL cars have un-lapped themselves when the safety car has come out before yet at Abu Dhabi, when it was clear Hamilton was going to win an 8th drivers championship suddenly everything changed, all things that had never been done before had suddenly been done. How do you explain that?
So why didn’t they penalise Hamilton for that 1st lap collision? They could’ve forced a position swap at the least…
why would they? Verstappen was forcing Hamilton to go off the track which gave Hamilton a bit of an advantage going into the turn. Hamilton should have ceded the advantage but he didn't. Both were to blame for the incident. You can't penalise one without penalising the other thus the stewards decided no penalty was needed.
Only one race finished under the safety car this year if I recall and that’s because none of the drivers could see because it was raining so much.
And what was done was within the rules, they did not want to finish the season behind a safety car.
Oh boy.
Ridiculous. Preposterous.
Still, you did say that it is your opinion. You have a right to your own opinion. I just hope that you do not burn too many calories fuming over these kinds of things.
Let me clarify something here. You say what they did was in the rules and that's your version. I say what they did was with the 'interpretation' of the rules and that's my version. We are not going to agree on each others version so let's just leave it at that, ok
Ridiculous. Preposterous you say
Lewis didn't win did he?
So how Ridiculous. Preposterous is it?
And it was also the interpretation of the stewards and the FIA who backed Masi and the stewards. So the 'interpretation' you don't agree on was agreed on by several people.
Very actually, you seem to think the crash was arranged and planned somehow?
Last edited:
I explain it by Masi not wanting to let a Safety Car period decide the WDC.
It was a bad call on his part, as it was a bad call on his part to not immediately Red Flag the race as soon as Latifi was in the wall as that would have allowed Lewis and Max to re-start 1-2 on fresh tires with 3-4 laps to fight it out.
It was not, IMO, a deliberate and pre-meditated attempt to deny Lewis Hamilton an 8th WDC and especially not to deny him an 8th because he is non-White.
They rejected the Mercedes’ protest but are yet to clarify why a race director can change a rule on a whim. This is setting a precedent at present, although the review panel are looking at it to ‘prevent mistakes occurring in future’. There has almost been a half baked acknowledgment that confusion lead to the decision and it’s wrong. Even Max has said ‘he was lucky’ but needs luck sometimes. Too right he was lucky, he was given the championship at the last hurdle and fans wanted a showdown, not have a title decided by someone in an office.
Mercedes are getting a fair bit of support for not sending Toto and Lewis to the gala last night. It’s still very raw and they both issued statements congratulating Max and Red Bull. Attending would have been wrong, the FIA looked awkward last night, especially Todt as it was.
Hamilton was the driver forced off the racetrack, that’s why. It’s the driver who does the pushing who usually gets punished and it was the third time this season Max had done this. The FIA are cracking down on this behaviour next season apparently, but then the race director can probably make something up depending on who is involved.
I’ll be honest I think any suggestion Lewis is being prevented from winning because he is mixed race is absurd. I think a poor decision was made by Masi to end the race on a green flag and this inadvertently gave a huge advantage to Verstappen. A rule was changed to suit this with a personal interpretation and that is what is wrong, nothing to do with skin colour.
I don't think Masi was deliberately trying to manipulate the race in favour of Red Bull or Max, but where 'rules' are open to interpretation they are not really rules, are they? As things played out, the decisions made clearly did favour one team and driver, and ultimately decided the championship.
While it might have looked like a 'race' on track (or at least more than driving behind the safety car) anyone who watches F1 understands how much of an advantage new v old tyres have. It wasn't really a race, and as soon as it restarted there was only going to be one winner.
Given the stakes, it was one of those unique situations where the team with nothing to lose had the bigger advantage of being able to throw the dice with strategy easier than the team in front. I still think Mercedes got that strategy wrong and could have pitted Lewis twice and still had the advantage, if not the track position. It's easier to say in hindsight than in the heat of the race though.
A further appeal would have done more damage to the sport than good, as would any decision that changed the result. I do hope the FIA learn from their obvious mistakes and make it much clearer what are rules which must be followed and what guidance is open to the race directors interpretation.
We won't have long to wait for 2022 and some pretty big changes to the cars, so all we can really do is hope for another close season like the one we've just had, hopefully with a cleaner end and a little less controversy.
While it might have looked like a 'race' on track (or at least more than driving behind the safety car) anyone who watches F1 understands how much of an advantage new v old tyres have. It wasn't really a race, and as soon as it restarted there was only going to be one winner.
Given the stakes, it was one of those unique situations where the team with nothing to lose had the bigger advantage of being able to throw the dice with strategy easier than the team in front. I still think Mercedes got that strategy wrong and could have pitted Lewis twice and still had the advantage, if not the track position. It's easier to say in hindsight than in the heat of the race though.
A further appeal would have done more damage to the sport than good, as would any decision that changed the result. I do hope the FIA learn from their obvious mistakes and make it much clearer what are rules which must be followed and what guidance is open to the race directors interpretation.
We won't have long to wait for 2022 and some pretty big changes to the cars, so all we can really do is hope for another close season like the one we've just had, hopefully with a cleaner end and a little less controversy.
I don't see it like that at all I have to say.
But I'm moving on now, I think Mercedes are behaving like children boycotting everything, interviews and contractual agreements to attend the events.
You may have seen support for them I've seen criticism of them. If they aren't going to pursue the matter further then they need to move on from it.
Whilst my opinion may be considered to be absurd, it still falls within the realms of possibility. Well hopefully Lewis will not retire and continue to race and then we will see if my opinion is proven to be wrong won't we.
Beating a dead horse here, but, thy should have released the backmarkers asap. That way MB cold have possibly made a different strategy move than waiting to get run over.