Though I do still feel I should have been allowed to unlap myself at the end after spaffing too many votes on Bottas.
Can anyone confirm I’m enough of a **** to enjoy F1 if I start watching next season? Thanks in advance.
I can confirm you are , if you want to watch american TV ratings orientated racing, if you like professional wrestling you'll love it.
Can i ask a question on the restart. In the context of the pure restart: in an alternative universe hamilton has parked his car in the middle of the road and forced verstappen to stop his antics round the back of him, Hamilton is not too tight onthe final corner and he's not been trying to verstappen ahead and a penalty. If hamilton had gone hard and got good traction out of the restart corner could he have held off verstappen on that last lap? in this universe Turn 5 was a late lunge by verstappen. hamilton left it open hoping to be hit hit of forced off track again, if hamitlon made it round turn 5 and 6 with 0.5 seconds gap what would have happened next? would vertappen have the tyres and engine to get hamitlon or could hamilton have held him off from there? surely there was one more major lunge?
Not had a chance to read through the whole thread, but the poll entitled "Which will win - simple?" Was surprisingly accurate.
I don't fully follow the question, but I don't think any driver on the grid on 40 lap old hards would hold off any other driver on new softs. Michael Masi essentially picked the winner - and did so outside of how the rules have been applied throughout the history of the sport.
Masi knew what he was doing, he decided the sport needed a new champ and it would be controversial and loads would become interested in the sport. mercedes won't succeed in their appeal, it is a formal stitch up. What might happen is a rewriting of the rules so everyone knows them. Mercedes might even lessen their commitment to the sport going forward. I don't want to dwell on it too much, it has happened. It is not who I support most it is whether I think an injustice has been done, and it has, by the Masi the Massively incompetent.
Max had tyres around 3s a lap quicker on by that point, which would have been up to temperature much better so maybe even add a little bit more on. Unless he had a failure he was going to get Lewis no matter what. In retrospect perhaps Hamilton should have tried to cause a collision and hope he came off better, but that would still be a sham ending to the season.
i suppose the question is if hamilton got a good jump and traction out of that final corner could he have held off verstappen on that final lap or would verstappen simply have got him later. you've 1 lap, no DRs and hamilton has the faster car in engine terms. He needs traction in the turn 5, and on the entrance to the straight and after than the tyres didn't really matter.
I would have taken a broken front win to cut vertappen's tyre off personally. you can get a broken front wing home easily apparently
Max played a smart hand by surprising Lewis with the early lunge. Had he attempted the traditional move into the next corner Lewis would definitely have gone ultra-defensive and as we saw with Perez it's still tough to pass at Abu Dhabi.
Did any teams or drivers end up with different championship positions as a result of the race? I think it was just the odd one maybe Sainz? Maybe the FIA could declare the race result null and void. OK so the championship would be the same but at least the farce of a final lap would be removed? I can't see how any court could side with FIA as surely, with signed contracts, they can't include a clause that allows a race director to do what he likes unless it's a safety issue? I can see why Masi wanted to finish the race under racing conditions but surely he new full well the result he was creating. OK so we all know that any gaps will be eroded if there is a safety car but that's the way it goes. If Merc were told what was going to happen maybe Lewis would have pitted for softs and we would have had a proper race to the line. It just seemed like Masi changed his mind after Horner spoke with him. Maybe he was looking at changing him mind anyway but from the broadcast audio it did look like Horner changed his mind. After Lewis and Merc realised what was about to happen when some of the lapped cars passed it was very good to see how Lewis didn't resort to dirty tactics to win! He fought as best he could but even in that situation he drove fairly. I can't say max would have done the same if the situation was reversed! I think we should retain the broadcasting of team to race director audio but I think Masi needs to go. Who can replace him? Difficult one maybe 3 people as a committee but that would slow things down in the decision making process. Thinking about it maybe it should just be the stewards making the non safety calls. So race director would just be responsible for safety?