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52 minutes ago, Jinky67 said:

Michael Masi is turning F1 into a reality Netflix show. The decision he made yesterday to allow some lapped cars to pass didn’t make it more exciting it made the outcome inevitable as there was no way Hamilton would be able to defend.

Hamilton didn’t deserve to lose the WDC in this way especially considering he had a 11 second lead prior the SC and Verstappen also doesn’t deserve his title being overshadowed in the manner it is.

The integrity of F1 is in tatters after this season, can see Mercedes going all the way to CAS 

 

Hi Lewis, safe flight home mate. 

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Regardless of how you see the events yesterday, it was the biggest and most exciting season I can remember since I started watching in 1998. The race was pretty much gone for RB but they rolled the dice and got a 6.

Was a free to air race and got a lot of attention. I was getting texts coming in from people who don't watch it asking questions etc. 

If that season long battle finished behind a safety car then it would have been unforgivable. 

Mercedes influence on the sport worries me. Toto Wolff comes across like a jumped up bully imo. People also forget some of the stuff that went on in the past (Schumacher getting pushed out of gravel traps etc). All the seethe is very typical of the entitled little Englander mentality that you see across other sports. Button and Hill (the former being quite a lucky champion imo) were absolutely rattled and Rosberg was grinning ear to ear. Great to see. 

Yesterday was a mixture of RB tactics paying off, some luck and hard racing which any genuine F1 fan has been starved of for years.

If Mercedes spit the dummy  when the Arbitration falls through and threaten to walk away then good riddance imo. They've had a lot of fortunate moments this season and arguably Verstappen should have had this in the bag a few races ago. 

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19 minutes ago, V.Aye.R said:

Hi Lewis, safe flight home mate. 

I’m not a Mercedes fan mate nor do I particularly like Lewis Hamilton however I’ve been a F1 fan for 35 years and what I saw yesterday was embarrassing for the sport. When you start changing or applying your own interpretation of the rules to influence the outcome of a race for entertainment value you can’t really consider yourself a sport especially when that interpretation loads the dice for someone who was never actually in the race for 57 out of the 58 laps.

 

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Having thought about this, Mercedes made two bad calls that ultimately did it. Twice Verstappen dove into the puts (under VSC then again under SC) for brand new tyres. Mercedes left Hamilton out on old Hards, which even he was questioning. They did not cover the threat. 

On the Safety Car, did Wolff expect the race to finish behind the SC? Certainly many drivers came in for new tyres so there was an expectation that the race would restart. Normal procedures meant that cars unlapped themselves - so what was Wolff thinking? Mercedes have themselves to blame as much as the race director. 

The race management was a shambles though. Lap 1, Hamilton was given a huge advantage. And at the end the flip-flopping of decision making was just wrong.

The seethe is relentless - I watched BBC Breakfast this morning and Dan Walker was talking about how it was "farcical". The narrative is certainly that Lewis woz robbed by the race director. A few folk asking how a 12 second lead could be wiped out by an "unfair" safety car...well yes, that's what happens when a full SC is deployed.

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If Hamilton and Mercedes didn't want to be at a tyre disadvantage from a safety car restart, they could have stopped for tyres. They didn't though.

It's nobody else's fault then that a combination of gubbins rubber and crap driving (Hamilton relying on their beloved DRS overtake button on the straight) saw them blow the title. Perez kept a faster Hamilton behind for a full lap. Hamilton barely managed the first sector. 

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Obviously far easier for Red Bull to gamble in the circumstances, but they deserve credit for making the most of the situation yesterday - generally speaking, they trump Mercedes when it comes to strategy. Pretty sure they were ready to do the opposite of what Hamilton did at the VSC and the Safety Car to get track position.

Not sure what Mercedes hope to achieve by appealing either - unless they get Verstappen done for a safety car infringement, there can’t be grounds to amend the classification. If the referee makes a bad decision, the beneficiary can’t be retrospectively punished.

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Flip the story on its head, and it would have been “Lewis the ultimate racer keeps going right to the end and gets his reward, Max collapses under pressure as we all expected”.

The reaction from some folk who claim to have been F1 fans for years is astonishing, it’s like that was the first safety car ever deployed in a race - “Ridiculous that a 20s lead can be wiped out like that”.  It’s literally what happens at every single safety car.

The only folk that can genuinely feel aggrieved solely by the decision not to let everyone unlap are those cars who weren’t allowed past. Everyone else made a tactical decision, for some it worked, for others it didn’t.

You can argue that the race director’s discretion has been stretched to the limit, but between the two options of “Finish under the safety car” and “Finish by racing”, he absolutely made the right decision. 

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30 minutes ago, Mark Connolly said:

Flip the story on its head, and it would have been “Lewis the ultimate racer keeps going right to the end and gets his reward, Max collapses under pressure as we all expected”.

The reaction from some folk who claim to have been F1 fans for years is astonishing, it’s like that was the first safety car ever deployed in a race - “Ridiculous that a 20s lead can be wiped out like that”.  It’s literally what happens at every single safety car.

The only folk that can genuinely feel aggrieved solely by the decision not to let everyone unlap are those cars who weren’t allowed past. Everyone else made a tactical decision, for some it worked, for others it didn’t.

You can argue that the race director’s discretion has been stretched to the limit, but between the two options of “Finish under the safety car” and “Finish by racing”, he absolutely made the right decision. 

Maybe the lapped cars should’ve been dropped to the back of the pack instead. I mean, what’s the point in unlapping them with a lap to go? Also, in 25 years of watching the sport I’ve never seen a SC period ending as soon as the lapped cars have passed the leader.
 

Interesting that Max called for consistency in stewards decisions at the beginning of the weekend then we witnessed a scenario that we’d never seen before which basically won him the title!

Edited by IainMorton
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Thinking about dramatic finales, this is probably second on the ones I have seen. My top 5 deciders since I started watching in ~1995

1. 2008. Hamilton vs Massa, Hamilton wins by overtaking Glock on the last lap of the last race. Massa crossed the line believing he had won it. 

2. 2021. Scenes. 

3. 2007. Billed as Alonso (going for his 3rd) vs Hamilton (going for his 1st). In the end Raikkonen won the race to beat both Alonso and Hamilton by a single point.  A year of controversy (spygate) and bitterness within McLaren, ended with them winning nowt.

4. 1997. Villeneuve vs Schumacher. The most blatant attempt to win the title by running into someone there has been. It didn't work. Schumacher damaged his own car and retired, Villeneuve limped home in 3rd to take the title. Schumacher was retrospectively excluded from the standings and so, officially, the runner up that year was Heinz-Harald Frentzen.

5. 2012 Vettel vs Alonso. Vettel  started the race badly and ended up at the back. Recovered well...and had a slow pit stop. Had to recover again and did just enough to beat Alonso by just 3 points.

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46 minutes ago, Mark Connolly said:

You can argue that the race director’s discretion has been stretched to the limit, but between the two options of “Finish under the safety car” and “Finish by racing”, he absolutely made the right decision. 

I've watched enough Indy Cars/Endurance racing to know finishing under yellow sucks and that we would all prefer to finish under green.

If Masi had just restarted the lap with the lapped car in between Max & Lewis then we would have still got the finish under green, I also believe we would have seen a pass for the championship on the last corner.  However what we got was a scenario where the rules were applied in a manner never seen before (trying to recall when they only let a few lapped cars unlap themselves and nothing comes to mind)

Why was it ok for the lapped cars to be cleared from between Max and Lewis, but not Sainz and Max.  Sainz then never had a shot at 2nd place and instead had to contend with trying to get past Stroll and Danny Ric all the while trying to defend from a hard charging Tsunoda (who had a pretty good race tbf). 

it all smacked of creating an ending which was best for entertainment value, rather than applying the rules and regs correctly.

 

 

Edited by Mackie The Staggie
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If Hamilton and Mercedes didn't want to be at a tyre disadvantage from a safety car restart, they could have stopped for tyres. They didn't though.
It's nobody else's fault then that a combination of gubbins rubber and crap driving (Hamilton relying on their beloved DRS overtake button on the straight) saw them blow the title. Perez kept a faster Hamilton behind for a full lap. Hamilton barely managed the first sector. 
It rather got lost in the whole controversy yesterday but I was surprised at how easy Hamilton made it for Verstappen on the last lap, tyre issues notwithstanding. He left the door well and truly open. Why didn't he cover the inside? Was he not expecting Verstappen to try a move there? All very odd.
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17 minutes ago, Sarto Mutiny said:
1 hour ago, virginton said:
If Hamilton and Mercedes didn't want to be at a tyre disadvantage from a safety car restart, they could have stopped for tyres. They didn't though.
It's nobody else's fault then that a combination of gubbins rubber and crap driving (Hamilton relying on their beloved DRS overtake button on the straight) saw them blow the title. Perez kept a faster Hamilton behind for a full lap. Hamilton barely managed the first sector. 

It rather got lost in the whole controversy yesterday but I was surprised at how easy Hamilton made it for Verstappen on the last lap, tyre issues notwithstanding. He left the door well and truly open. Why didn't he cover the inside? Was he not expecting Verstappen to try a move there? All very odd.

I'm pretty sure he would have been expecting max to go for it on the straight so was trying to take as wide a line as possible for the best exit and Max has just elbowed past him . 

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2 hours ago, scottsdad said:

The seethe is relentless - I watched BBC Breakfast this morning and Dan Walker was talking about how it was "farcical". The narrative is certainly that Lewis woz robbed by the race director. A few folk asking how a 12 second lead could be wiped out by an "unfair" safety car...well yes, that's what happens when a full SC is deployed.

I think the problem F1 has to new fans is that its extremely technical and difficult to get into. Things arent quite cut and dry despite what is essentially VAR in action. 

Long time followers of the sport probably take their knowledge for granted on tyre undercuts, Safety cars etc. 

Not very helpful when Rent-a-quote F1 Experts for the day like Gary Lineker get involved and enable all these RNLI Lifeboat freedom fighters to cast their opinions on how it wisny fair 'cos the foreign guy won. 

Looking forward to Sports Personality when they passively agressively give it to Lewis Hamilton. Cos that's the real Quiz. 

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The absolute, fucking nick of this:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/dec/13/lewis-hamilton-sport-formula-one-equality-grand-prix

Quote

 

Beyond his political words and actions, in this season in particular Hamilton has connected at a personal level with many who have watched the unfolding drama. Quite simply, it has been a story in black and white. This year, in cars of equal quality, Hamilton faced a young opponent who has been continuously willing to bend the rules to breaking point in order to win.

If there’s one theme that runs through the season it’s of Verstappen seemingly being prepared to risk a crash to stop Hamilton overtaking him. In San Marino, Spain, Brazil, Saudi Arabia and on Sunday in Abu Dhabi, Hamilton had to take avoiding action to prevent a collision – though it was only in Saudi Arabia that Verstappen was penalised. How, many ask, would a Black person be treated if they drove the same way as Verstappen?

Merely a snippet of the absolutely outrageous drivel based on a writer's racial solidarity trumping all facts and reason. 

Quote

For Hamilton, in a sport where ability is clearly measurable, that has worked. And after a weekend of barely believable bad fortune, followed by a hugely contentious decision, he’s proved himself to be a true champion.

1432316645_giphy(3).gif.dec12cc8c6760a9f7421af9f53926531.gif

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