They really dont but anyway....it just shows what a political animal that team are and how much they threaten the sport. They were fine with eht job masi did in the prior race. I dont see the difference between saudi and abu races in terms of gross interference. The results were flipped in both
What an absolutely farcical mess the FIA have gotten themselves into. The whole making things up as you go along has provided for a more entertaining season in some was, but surely it's overall to the detriment of the sport because it's being reduced to the level of WWE. You might as well have Horner knocking out Masi with a chair from behind, Newey shooting out Lewis' tyres with a rifle, then Masi coming round, seeing Max cross the line and declaring him the winner. Next week: A different storyline where Max wins. Roll up! Roll Up! While I prefer Lewis because Max has always come across badly to me, Max is probably the worthy because he was more consistent over the season and probably made fewer mistakes (though I haven't counted). Having someone young and new win is also a filip to the Sportbund, especially someone who drives in a more exciting style. But on a single race race basis Lewis should have won yesterday. But a season is not just about one race. Feel a bit sorry for Max because that can't be how he would have wanted to win his first title. On the other hand, maybe he just really doesn't care right now.
Not sure if there could be any sort of legal or contractual obligations for them to try everything they can, e.g. for sponsors, insurance, bonus payouts etc. I don't really know what they hope to achieve though, as I really can't see the result being overturned now. And surely that's not how Lewis would want to win his record-breaking title?
I would presume hamiltonm is sat queitly avoiding any questions cos he is smart enough to leave this all to wolff to look a dick. IMO something dodgy went on with mercs sudden increase in speed mid year as the engines were supposed to be frozen. nothings gotten proved but something really shady was done. hamitlon could lap the field twice in brazil if he felt like it. that's not normal is it? If not for the DQ her would probably have parked it having got a 30second lead and cruised home miles in front but as it stood he was forced to basically pass half the field in the sprint really quick and then pass the rest really quick in the race. since thye took the two engines theres a radically different merc so how that works who knows. Hamilton had that title in the bag and imo theres a case that political interference in both the last races caused the results to flip so in the end they might as well have not raced them. the result was in effect rest to before saudi arabia.
All true and it's not like F1 was ever without it's politics and backroom deals. At the end of the day, if Mercedes wanted to win, they should have had a better car in the first half of the season. They start the season saying they're focussing on 2022 and finish it by going to court over the result.
Personally if they wanted to win they really should have not been so conservative with their pit stops in the race. They followed Verstappen in on the first stop (early IMO) rather than follow a regular pit stop 1 stop strategy and then Verstappen pitted under VSC a second time (that should have been mercs one and only pitstop btw) and the safety car at the end is lap of the gods stuff. Really Hamilton should have had 30 seconds on verstappen by then. he had the pace to do it. that race was over bar latifi running out of talent. after that they shouldn't have got the car cleared and tract sanded and lapped cars cleared by the end but they wante dot "go racing" per some non reg agreement between teams so hamilton was royally screwed by his team's conservatism but also by his own antics at the restart. In short hamilton was trying to play games with vertappen to position the guy badly but he put his car too far inside and allowed verstappen to park his car and box himself in. He then tried slowing down to get vertappen in trouble. Off the two corners hamilton should have gone and had get the half a second gap he needed to try defend a bit. Nobody is mentioning that part. If hamitlon parked car in the middle of track and forces verstappen to ineffect almost stop then hammered the throttle and was gone before he could react around the corner this would be over now. He was in too tight and compromised his exit and take off. thats why he was in range on turn 5 and not the final two desperate lunges. Vertappen had to break the tow as he ****ed up turn 6. again hamilton left run 5 open for vertappen to lunge and that was another error as he should have parked in middle of the track and compromised his own corner. Hamilton then did all he could to retake verstappen but coudln't do it.
Unless Hamilton would have gotten a puncture on the last five laps (we'll never know), I think the tyre calls were right. Agree that Hamilton didn't do himself any favours at the restart. Tbh I'm not expert enough to comment on the rest. I did enjoy the fight between Perez and Hamilton earlier though, that was about the highlight of the race.
I dunno. I think they went conservative to match verstappen rather than managing a genuine one stop and letting verstappen have to two stop and battle. In the end the first call led to the second call and the second call led to the third call. Each was justifiable on their own bit led to hamilton nursing his car home.in the end which was never right but manageable. Hamilton got a stay off the kerbs message prior to the safety car due to slow puncture for norris who did similar to him. Imo merc as a result were shown to be a bit too conservative.
Problem is that the last few laps just don’t seem fair when you look at it in isolation. Know it’s not first time it’s happened but you’ve s guy 10 seconds clear with 5 laps to go and cruising. And then you just flip the advantage to the guy behind. To put it into football terms, you’ve a game where 1 team is winning 3-0 with 10 mins to go. You then blow the whistle. Let the team losing swap all their players so all fresher, reset the score to 0-0 and say next goal wins. Now it might make the ending far more exciting but for the integrity of the sport it looks ridiculous.
I dunno either. If you're controlling a race you need to win you don't take unnecessary risk. Red Bull only took risks because they had no other choice. Before Latifi crashed it looked like Mercedes had got it spot on. Obviously if he had gotten a puncture they would have looked silly. The course Mercedes took wasn't completely risk free. And even if they did pit under the virtual safety car, would it have made a difference at the end?
No issue with Verstappen being champion, as he probably deserves it over the season, but that ending felt wrong. Once they didn't call a red flag, any option Masi took was going to effectively decide the title one way or the other. He went with the most exciting, but probably not the correct one. In some ways you think he should be replaced (and ban the radioing from the teams during the race). But there's probably more people interested in and talking about F1 now than there has been for a while, so for his paymasters, presumably he's doing a good job.
I think the main talking points are that the race director didn't adhere to FIAs own rules right? 1) He brought the safety car in a lap earlier than he was supposed to, if he kept to the rules, the race would have finished under the safety car and Hamilton would have won. 2) He only let the 4 or 5 cars between Hamilton and Verstappen un-lap, but if he's going to do that (which i think was also not allowed under the rules) then it should apply to all the lapped cars, but they didn't do this. In effect, what they did is drop Verstappen in behind Hamilton with the new tyres which meant he was almost guaranteed to win. The whole thing about them pushing the "let them race" argument is nonsense, as Hamilton didn't have a chance. It seems that the FIA wanted to have a change in winner after Hamilton's years of dominance to liven up the sport and they were prepared to do almost anything to get achieve that aim. There's also the nonsense during the penultimate race where mid-race Masi allowed Red Bull to argue about what penalty they should be given FFS it's up to the race director to hand out punishment according to the rules.
That's about right. I think the reason the stewards rejected Mercedes' appeal was that the rules also say though that the Race Director can basically abend the rules as he sees fit during the race, which makes both the rulebook and especially the appeals system a bit pointless really.
1 is not true as far as i can tell. the signal just needs to go out sometime before the car passes the pits and it really says if they are told its coming in then it must come in. 2 is the issue for me. He left 2 cars between sainz and vertappen so that materially affected the podium battle so its double standards. The rule on cars overtaking is over ruled by the next rule along. he already said the safety car was coming in so it had to come in. the partial unlapping in theory were the only cars that could get by in time before hamilton was the lead car. 3. the FIA wanting whatever doesn't stack up as they've dropped penalty after penalty on Verstappen making it a tighter and tighter battle all the time. 4. the saudi race farce was utterly stupid. the director should not have been involved and the stewards should have applied a time penalty. asking two teams to swap places in a competitive situation is nonsense and accused the collision. verstappen should have had a 5 second penalty and be done with it. We have to be fair and see wolff onto the same race director seeking to influence constantly including demanding things hhe has no right to on dropping safety car etc on the first virtual safety car. absolutely no right to interfere in safety, end of. Masi has screwed over hamilton here no question. But in the end its circumstance, rushing, political chicanery on the radio and incompetence. Masi has allowed the paid to be in his ear constantly all season so this is the end result. If there was 5 more laps to go when the safety car comes out the reuslt would have been obvious. if there was 2 laps less then theres no option but a safety car ending. Because he's decided it has to end under green flag consitions they've rushed madly to get the track cleared and sand down then said safety car in and then on top horner whinges and half way round then masi decides to let lapped cars go but then decides there's not time for all to go and even vettel is very late doing so. he goes just about as safety car is going in. theres probably 30seconds of chaos on radios where wolff and Horner are shouting the odds and masi hasn't time to tell everyone everything anyway. the only solution is to block access to race director and create a formal protest option to stewards in future. both wolff and horner are constantly seeking advantage and playing the game. Hamilton is always on the radio accusing people of doing things so IMO there is a wee bit of live by the sword die by the sowrd to this. BUT, its double standards with the lapped cars as sainz couldn't challenge Verstappen so for me it aint right.
I need to look at it again but from what I remember it's to do with the unlapping - the cars unlap and then according to the rules the safety car comes in at the end of the following lap, which would have been at the end of the race and not seconds later.
As I said before the race regarding crashing, but it applies to this too... It would have to be something blatant and obvious to all before they would get involved with any sort of punishment or changing race orders. They simply don't have the stones to change a result and as badly as it looks allowing the result to stand it would have looked even worse to overturn the result regardless of whether it's the right thing to do or not.
Yeah. If Mercedes do appeal (and it sounds less certain now), I don't really see what they can do practically, because I can't see them overturning the result now.
