Formula 1 Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix 2021Formula 1

[sunshine2002]

Everybody should remember that here is millions dollars/euros involved. For winning you get more than coming second. Also sponsors want their money. So if someone decide to change rules from the rule book before the race end - I don't wonder that lawyers are called to discuss about this. Rules are clear as lawyers have told.

What I think, what happens... secret agreement will be signed. Mercedes and their sponsors get their millions "under the table" and Max is still the champion. FIA can't make themselves as clowns - even they already are. This is my 2 cents.

EDIT: I can also imagine what those people think about the changing rules, if they have bet money, that Hamilton is the champion.

 

[WiisardNic]

For winning you get more than coming second.

Only if it’s not Ferrari

 

[GroupB]

Only if it’s not Ferrari

“For showing up you get more than coming second”

 

[pumaATTACK]

This is essentially what NASCAR does. Red flag the race to try and ensure a green flag finish. The problem is NASCAR will artificially extend races if the crash happens on the penultimate lap.

NASCAR does that because they allow refueling and therefore race distance really doesn’t matter if it goes 1 more lap.

 

[Keef]

What you're suggesting is that we're blaming Masi for playing a part in the decision...which is 100%, without question, exactly what he did.

You guys aren't blaming Masi for playing a part, you're accusing Masi of throwing the race, and arguing that RB's title should be stripped because it was rigged. Those are two very different things. Fact is, refs play a part in every race and every game, and even if they make mistakes, it's up to the teams to weather storm. Merc just sat on their hands apparently oblivious to the idea that anything might change while RB prepared for what might happen. My point is that I don't even care if the refs made a mistake because their calls stand and the game continues. The final play of the game ended with Ham on exhausted tires unable to keep up, and that's a mistake that could've been fixed dozens of laps beforehand.

You guys are all-in on some conspiracy level stuff and it's weird.

 

[pumaATTACK]

You guys aren't blaming Masi for playing a part, you're accusing Masi of throwing the race, and arguing that RB's title should be stripped because it was rigged. Those are two very different things. Fact is, refs play a part in every race and every game, and even if they make mistakes, it's up to the teams to weather storm. Merc just sat on their hands apparently oblivious to the idea that anything might change while RB prepared for what might happen. My point is that I don't even care if the refs made a mistake because their calls stand and the game continues. The final play of the game ended with Ham on exhausted tires unable to keep up, and that's a mistake that could've been fixed dozens of laps beforehand.

You guys are all-in on some conspiracy level stuff and it's weird.

Lol dude you are so off base.


You are acting like Merc had time to adjust to the blown call…

Yes Lewis should have given up track position after being told no unlapping of cars will be happening. Yeah that sounds right.

 

[O604]

Why should the scrutiny be on Pat Symonds? Unless that was just the joke to introduce Crashgate?

Joke?

It's was a poor choice by F1 to put someone so directly connected to scandal as CTO. If something similar happens, it should be looked at.

 

[Liquid]

I was incidentally reading about Crashgate again for reasons unrelated to this Grand Prix but something about it has leapt off the page at me; at the time in 2008 the pitlane was closed under safety car conditions until the entire field was behind the safety car itself. In an era of no refuelling, wouldn't a reintroduction of this rule negate the whole "free pitstop" offered to some but not others under the safety car? Track position would be paramount, arguably to the benefit of on track action and fan perception.

Of course, Crashgate happened under this ruleset but there were plenty of other factors at play and there is no guarantee that such a thing would happen again.

 

[PletdeKoe]

If Lewis went in the pits for fresh tires during the safety car, Max would stay out. Then the entire thing would be reversed. A competition is influenced by everything that happens, including the referee’s calls.

It is what it is. And therefore the man who crosses the line first wins the race. And in this case with that the championship.

 

[AshenGraey]

You guys aren't blaming Masi for playing a part, you're accusing Masi of throwing the race, and arguing that RB's title should be stripped because it was rigged. Those are two very different things. Fact is, refs play a part in every race and every game, and even if they make mistakes, it's up to the teams to weather storm. Merc just sat on their hands apparently oblivious to the idea that anything might change while RB prepared for what might happen. My point is that I don't even care if the refs made a mistake because their calls stand and the game continues. The final play of the game ended with Ham on exhausted tires unable to keep up, and that's a mistake that could've been fixed dozens of laps beforehand.

You guys are all-in on some conspiracy level stuff and it's weird.

I don't know what race you watched but from what I saw, the refs didn't make a mistake with their calling, they just completely changed the rules of the game on the fly and I think that's what most people here are having an issue with.

Just like Max and Red Bull didn't do anything wrong by winning the race as a result of what happened, Mercedes and Lewis also did not do anything wrong. They made their strategy based on what the regulations say should happened under SC, not knowing that the ref was going to just throw those regulations out the window at the last minute.

 

[Keef]

You are acting like Merc had time to adjust to the blown call…

I guess I'll walk you through the timeline and strategy failures since you can't be bothered.

Lap 14: Max pits for new hards.

Lap 15: Ham pits for new hards. The plan is to go to the end of the race due to excellent pace and an increasing gap. (this will work if nothing stupid happens...it's a plan, and plans change, right?)

Ham extends the lead.

Perez gives him a hard time but that's team racing. Mercedes complains because - foreshadowing - they do not like the idea of racing on this particular day.

Ham extends the lead.

Ham extends the lead.

Lap 32: Ham has set multiple fastest laps, clearly outpacing Max on the same tires.

Ham extends the lead. Wow, this plan is working out really well. If nothing changes it's an easy win.

Narrator: Something changed.

Lap 36: VSC. Max pits for fresh hards to try and push the rest of the race. He uses the pit lane to gain time on Ham. Merc knew RB could do this but failed to respond.

Max and Ham are no longer on the same tires. Ham's are 21 laps old while Max's are brand new and ready to rip.

At this point Ham has a commanding lead and Max is just barely beating his times. Ham absolutely controls his destiny here. RB has pitted on tires that will get them to the end of the race so if nothing changes they can't afford another stop. Ham has such a pace advantage over Max that if Ham pitted for meds or softs he'd be able to chase Max down right at the end. It's something to consider.

Lap 39: Just a couple laps after the VSC, Ham considers it. He says his tires won't last til the end. But they probably will because Max's pace isn't enough to catch Ham...assuming nothing changes.

Lap 53: Something changes. Safety car. Ham's tires are now 38 laps old and Max is clawing back because of it. RB now responds immediately because 2nd place is guaranteed, so they go with softs because they know that typically lapped cars are let past, and they know that typically this would land Max right behind Ham, ready for a shootout. Mercedes...does nothing?

Mercedes is in first place lol. They should have been the first team to make a call. And if they were the first team to make the call, they would have known that only one of two things could happen at this point: Either Ham pits for softs and ends up right behind Max who stays out on 17 lap old hards (for the TrAcK pOsItIoN) thus setting up an easy shootout for Ham, or both cars pit for softs, maintain their track positions, and Ham is still favored because on the same tires he's had better pace all race long.

What did Merc choose? They chose to keep Ham out on hards that are now over 40 laps old and aging fast. Merc expected a championship race to end under caution. They did not consider how long the SC might take. They did not consider that it might end in a shootout. Honestly if Latifi's car was recovered faster this could've been a multi-lap shootout but Mercedes didn't consider that. They chose one course of action and left themselves with no other option. What happened was the one specific scenario that they did not prepare for - a shootout. And they lost.

If Merc had taken either free pit stop opportunity, Ham would've had healthy tires to the end of the race whether or not the SC actually occurred, and would've been outpacing Max the entire way. Even if that late SC never happened, Max and Ham still would've been on the same exact hard tires from the VSC pit stop which means Ham would've still had the pace and track position. All Merc had to do was take one more pit stop and they would've had this race in the bag but instead they kept assuming nothing would change which is ridiculously poor strategy. The entire concept of a one-stop race is risky as hell because it cannot account for change. And that's the point here, that the core of the problem is Mercedes didn't account for change. If they did, they would've won, and even if F1 made a bad call nobody would've cared because Mercedes is genius and outsmarted RB.

That's why I say that Mercedes was not racing to win, they were racing to not lose. They had the better car and driver the entire time but they failed to make that halftime adjustment to extend their lead. They put the backups in too early and lost because of it, something that does actually happen in football and is hilarious to watch. The best player on Merc's team is the tires, and the coach allowed them to foul-out late in the fourth quarter, forgetting that the game might go OT. Oops. The one race where Merc really needed to have an aggressive strategy and they just sat there like a deer in headlights.

Timeline from this site.

 

[GroupB]

The massive hole in blaming Mercedes for not pitting first under the SC is the very real possiblilty that there wasn’t enough time left to clean everything up, unlap everybody and then go green. In which case, Mercedes had just thrown away the championship because Max would have stayed out for exactly the same reason.
As it turned out, there wasn’t enough time to follow the full procedure for a restart, which is why we got Masi’s half-assed version and this thread is a thing.

 

[Famine]

Lap 39: Just a couple laps after the VSC, Ham considers it. He says his tires won't last til the end. But they probably will because Max's pace isn't enough to catch Ham...assuming nothing changes.

Lap 53: Something changes. Safety car. Ham's tires are now 38 laps old and Max is clawing back because of it. RB now responds immediately because 2nd place is guaranteed, so they go with softs because they know that typically lapped cars are let past, and they know that typically this would land Max right behind Ham, ready for a shootout. Mercedes...does nothing?

They couldn't do anything in either case without losing track position (and 4s in the case of the VSC) to Verstappen; Verstappen got a little lucky with VSC timing and took the cheaper stop but Hamilton could only have covered him off by pitting the next lap by which time VSC no longer applied in that sector.

It was quite important to keep hold of track position because of... well gestures to literally every time Verstappen has been on the same bit of track as Hamilton this season. Mercedes wanted to win it on track, not afterwards in a fight with stewards over whether Verstappen's inevitable move (which would have been a second of the race) qualified as dangerous or deliberate yet again.

In the case of the latter stop, there was no reason to suppose anything other than the race ending under the safety car. In fact it was so assured that the usual suspects were calling it a Crashgate Pt2, with a Mercedes-engined car deliberately stacking it after a pointless pass on Schumacher in order to bring the SC out to keep Hamilton's lead on his worn tyres (because of Norris's puncture), railing against cheating Mercedes.

And that's also what should have happened by the rules. The SC couldn't come in until after it had passed the second SC line after all the lapped cars had passed it after the incident was cleared. That would have been literally peeling in at the end of lap 58. Nobody thought the SC would come in before that, but it did, because Masi ordered it to.

Moreover, Masi ordered it to after saying he wouldn't, after sending a Race Control message to say he wouldn't, and after Verstappen complained it was "typical" and after Horner bitched at Masi that "we need these lapped cars out of the way" and "we just need one racing lap", and before Mercedes had any chance to do anything about it. It shouldn't have happened, but it did.

The only error Mercedes really made was Hamilton's: not covering the inside on lap 58 and forcing Verstappen to go outside, then winding the lock off to run him off track, as Verstappen would have done. But then he got told it was "almost a black and white" flag at Saudi, after being on the receiving end seven times (unpenalised) across the season, including once in that race.


The only sensible result here is to annul the race. Verstappen keeps his title, Mercedes keeps its title, and Masi gets escorted off the premises to never be seen again.

 

[Keef]

The massive hole in blaming Mercedes for not pitting first under the SC is the very real possiblilty that there wasn’t enough time left to clean everything up, unlap everybody and then go green. In which case, Mercedes had just thrown away the championship because Max would have stayed out for exactly the same reason.
As it turned out, there wasn’t enough time to follow the full procedure for a restart, which is why we got Masi’s half-assed version and this thread is a thing.

Like I said above, that was one possibility and the only one that Merc was ready for. They didn't seem to consider any other possibility while RB had everything covered.

 

[ROAD_DOGG33J]

It's easy to analyze the strategy now knowing what happened, but at the time Mercedes would not know for certain that the race wouldn't end under the safety car. Yes, Red Bull did everything perfectly in the event that the race did have a safety car and a green flag finish, but they didn't have anything to lose. The problem is that the race finish did not follow the rules laid out. The outcome may have been the same under certain scenarios, but we'll never know.

 

[pumaATTACK]

I guess I'll walk you through the timeline and strategy failures since you can't be bothered.

Lap 14: Max pits for new hards.

Lap 15: Ham pits for new hards. The plan is to go to the end of the race due to excellent pace and an increasing gap. (this will work if nothing stupid happens...it's a plan, and plans change, right?)

Ham extends the lead.

Perez gives him a hard time but that's team racing. Mercedes complains because - foreshadowing - they do not like the idea of racing on this particular day.

Ham extends the lead.

Ham extends the lead.

Lap 32: Ham has set multiple fastest laps, clearly outpacing Max on the same tires.

Ham extends the lead. Wow, this plan is working out really well. If nothing changes it's an easy win.

Narrator: Something changed.

Lap 36: VSC. Max pits for fresh hards to try and push the rest of the race. He uses the pit lane to gain time on Ham. Merc knew RB could do this but failed to respond.

Max and Ham are no longer on the same tires. Ham's are 21 laps old while Max's are brand new and ready to rip.

At this point Ham has a commanding lead and Max is just barely beating his times. Ham absolutely controls his destiny here. RB has pitted on tires that will get them to the end of the race so if nothing changes they can't afford another stop. Ham has such a pace advantage over Max that if Ham pitted for meds or softs he'd be able to chase Max down right at the end. It's something to consider.

Lap 39: Just a couple laps after the VSC, Ham considers it. He says his tires won't last til the end. But they probably will because Max's pace isn't enough to catch Ham...assuming nothing changes.

Lap 53: Something changes. Safety car. Ham's tires are now 38 laps old and Max is clawing back because of it. RB now responds immediately because 2nd place is guaranteed, so they go with softs because they know that typically lapped cars are let past, and they know that typically this would land Max right behind Ham, ready for a shootout. Mercedes...does nothing?

Mercedes is in first place lol. They should have been the first team to make a call. And if they were the first team to make the call, they would have known that only one of two things could happen at this point: Either Ham pits for softs and ends up right behind Max who stays out on 17 lap old hards (for the TrAcK pOsItIoN) thus setting up an easy shootout for Ham, or both cars pit for softs, maintain their track positions, and Ham is still favored because on the same tires he's had better pace all race long.

What did Merc choose? They chose to keep Ham out on hards that are now over 40 laps old and aging fast. Merc expected a championship race to end under caution. They did not consider how long the SC might take. They did not consider that it might end in a shootout. Honestly if Latifi's car was recovered faster this could've been a multi-lap shootout but Mercedes didn't consider that. They chose one course of action and left themselves with no other option. What happened was the one specific scenario that they did not prepare for - a shootout. And they lost.

If Merc had taken either free pit stop opportunity, Ham would've had healthy tires to the end of the race whether or not the SC actually occurred, and would've been outpacing Max the entire way. Even if that late SC never happened, Max and Ham still would've been on the same exact hard tires from the VSC pit stop which means Ham would've still had the pace and track position. All Merc had to do was take one more pit stop and they would've had this race in the bag but instead they kept assuming nothing would change which is ridiculously poor strategy. The entire concept of a one-stop race is risky as hell because it cannot account for change. And that's the point here, that the core of the problem is Mercedes didn't account for change. If they did, they would've won, and even if F1 made a bad call nobody would've cared because Mercedes is genius and outsmarted RB.

That's why I say that Mercedes was not racing to win, they were racing to not lose. They had the better car and driver the entire time but they failed to make that halftime adjustment to extend their lead. They put the backups in too early and lost because of it, something that does actually happen in football and is hilarious to watch. The best player on Merc's team is the tires, and the coach allowed them to foul-out late in the fourth quarter, forgetting that the game might go OT. Oops. The one race where Merc really needed to have an aggressive strategy and they just sat there like a deer in headlights.

Timeline from this site.

You are acting like it was guaranteed to not end under a SC. When in actuality it was all but assured it should have. It took over 8 minutes to get Latifis car off the track, and a few more to clear all the debris. At that point the lapped cars could pass. Guess what? That’s exactly what happened.

Expect one small difference…

Only Maxs traffic was cleared and the SC broke regulations and entered the same lap.

You are prentending Merc knew it would end with two breaches of conduct to allow a green flag finish.

 

[Keef]

They couldn't do anything in either case without losing track position (and 4s in the case of the VSC) to Verstappen; Verstappen got a little lucky with VSC timing and took the cheaper stop but Hamilton could only have covered him off by pitting the next lap by which time VSC no longer applied in that sector.

I hear what you're saying but who says Merc should've merely responded to RB's pit call? Merc was 1st, they should've been the ones setting the stage. They should've gotten rid of those now-old tires and forced RB to respond, not the other way around. They were leading on both track position and pace.

It was quite important to keep hold of track position because of... well gestures to literally every time Verstappen has been on the same bit of track as Hamilton this season. Mercedes wanted to win it on track, not afterwards in a fight with stewards over whether Verstappen's inevitable move (which would have been a second of the race) qualified as dangerous or deliberate yet again.

I don't think track position was nearly as important as people are making it out to be. They're forgetting that Ham outpaced Max handily when on similar tires. Passing Max would be difficult, sure, but Ham's pace was undeniable. Are you suggesting that Merc or Ham were scared to go toe-to-toe with Max? That kinda plays into the whole "Merc didn't actually want to race" scenario.

In the case of the latter stop, there was no reason to suppose anything other than the race ending under the safety car. In fact it was so assured that the usual suspects were calling it a Crashgate Pt2, with a Mercedes-engined car deliberately stacking it after a pointless pass on Schumacher in order to bring the SC out to keep Hamilton's lead on his worn tyres (because of Norris's puncture), railing against cheating Mercedes.

I don't see how ending under an SC was assured given the fact that F1 has strived all year long to end under green. A similar situation happened in Baku. All the teams agreed to make every attempt to end under green and therefore that should've been expected by everybody. RB planned for it.

The only sensible result here is to annul the race. Verstappen keeps his title, Mercedes keeps its title, and Masi gets escorted off the premises to never be seen again.

I suppose we'll see what they decide but your suggestion doesn't accomplish what most people complaining want to see. They want to see Mercedes and Hamilton win. I don't think they actually care as much about the refs as they're saying. Your idea sounds like a political solution that won't satisfy anybody.

 

[pumaATTACK]

The only sensible result here is to annul the race. Verstappen keeps his title, Mercedes keeps its title, and Masi gets escorted off the premises to never be seen again.

I don't agree with this part. That punishes Hamilton unfairly as well. Why should the race that he dominated by annulled? Just because the director messed up? If the regulations were followed Lewis is WDC.

 

[pumaATTACK]

I hear what you're saying but who says Merc should've merely responded to RB's pit call? Merc was 1st, they should've been the ones setting the stage. They should've gotten rid of those now-old tires and forced RB to respond, not the other way around. They were leading on both track position and pace.

I don't think track position was nearly as important as people are making it out to be. They're forgetting that Ham outpaced Max handily when on similar tires. Passing Max would be difficult, sure, but Ham's pace was undeniable. Are you suggesting that Merc or Ham were scared to go toe-to-toe with Max? That kinda plays into the whole "Merc didn't actually want to race" scenario.

I don't see how ending under an SC was assured given the fact that F1 has strived all year long to end under green. A similar situation happened in Baku. All the teams agreed to make every attempt to end under green and therefore that should've been expected by everybody. RB planned for it.

I suppose we'll see what they decide but your suggestion doesn't accomplish what most people complaining want to see. They want to see Mercedes and Hamilton win. I don't think they actually care as much about the refs as they're saying. Your idea sounds like a political solution that won't satisfy anybody.

"Tell me you don't know racing without telling me you don't know racing"

 

[Aloha62_2]

Nothing staged about it. The race director wanted the race to finish under green flag, that is the aim at every race. They managed to clear the track safely and finish the race under green flag conditions, what more do you want?

And all he had to do was break his own rules and put one of the competitors at a serious sporting disadvantage. All while screwing over the rest of the field bar one particular driver.

2012 finished under a safety car, noone was too upset about that, and at least that gave us a legitimate championship.

 

[GroupB]

Don’t kid yourselves either… as soon as Lewis pitted and Max stayed out, we would have heard Horner’s concerned tones “Michael, we’ve got to think safety here. I really don’t see how we can get back to racing without putting the marshals in harm’s way.”

 

[Keef]

Another argument I'm hearing is to eliminate the direct communication between the director and the teams. Makes sense on the surface. But a defense for that has been, "when do you see a soccer coach run onto the field and talk to the refs?"

Wait...they don't do that in soccer? That's standard procedure in American sports. How the hell else is a team supposed to call a timeout if they can't communicate directly with the refs? Players and coaches all have direct communication with the refs, it's just the nature of the game. In baseball, the team manager will literally run onto the field and scream in the umpire's face until they get thrown out. I don't see why this is a problem. It does lead to discussions of refball every now and then but guess what?

We get over it and we move onto the next game. Ultimately if the refs don't like a player or coach's conduct, they get penalized and tossed off the floor but again that is a subjective ref decision that can have huge consequences on the game. Imagine if Masi got pissed and tossed both Toto and Horner off the wall? Now that would've been fun to watch.

 

[Liquid]

I've said it a lot and sorry (not sorry) to be a bore about it but... stop broadcasting team radio outright. Straight up. Never play it during a race. Save it for after the race if you want to extend the 'drama' fine but leave the race to tell its own story.

 

[OutlawQuadrnt]

I mean, he's the race director. He should know this stuff back to front. If he doesn't, then that's not an excuse. That's even more reason that he's unsuitable for the job. Making a mistake that affects the championship winner is not acceptable, this is not something where we can write it off as "everyone has bad days". Making situations like this work cleanly is literally his job.

I feel like 1 would be the option I would be most happy watching. Max gets a lucky advantage from the crash, but that's racing. Hamilton keeps the lead, and now Max has a lap on fresh tyres to blow past 5 blue flagged backmarkers and clear Hamilton while also fending off Sainz. I don't think that's a sure thing, I could see it going either way. I feel like if he manages that cleanly then yeah, he got lucky, but he's also earned it with some spectacular driving at the perfect time.

You are correct. Masi should know the rules but I have seen too many times people in their position make such mistakes under intense pressure. Grant you, this is only one possibility and I want to believe this because it's the least egregious.

Otherwise, we are talking about an unorthodox decision without precedent and contrary to clearly defined regulations with a rationale that has not been used before and the perception it was developed after the fact.

We get over it and we move onto the next game.

When the reputation and motives of a governing body is being seriously being questioned by its participants and followers alike, this cannot simply be dismissed as "just another blown call."

 

[Dennisch]

I've said it a lot and sorry (not sorry) to be a bore about it but... stop broadcasting team radio outright. Straight up. Never play it during a race. Save it for after the race if you want to extend the 'drama' fine but leave the race to tell its own story.

This.

It turns them all in whiny bitches. The drivers included.

 

[Famine]

I hear what you're saying but who says Merc should've merely responded to RB's pit call? Merc was 1st, they should've been the ones setting the stage. They should've gotten rid of those now-old tires and forced RB to respond, not the other way around.

Both cars were on hards, predicted for 50-lap life, with only a potential 40 laps needed. That means surrendering track position to a car willing to take you off - and needlessly; the tyres were going to last and the only tyre quick enough to make up even the 16s pit stop wouldn't last long enough to make the pass once they got there. Mercedes had no reason to pit at all.

I don't think track position was nearly as important as people are making it out to be. They're forgetting that Ham outpaced Max handily when on similar tires. Passing Max would be difficult, sure, but Ham's pace was undeniable. Are you suggesting that Merc or Ham were scared to go toe-to-toe with Max?

I don't think "scared" is the right word, but certainly exceptionally cautious about it. I mean... look at what has happened every time the two have been on track together, and every time Verstappen has got away without punishment for it. Including at Saudi, where Hamilton's race pace was undeniably considerably better than Verstappen - he got run off the road, and then brake-checked.

That aside, would you be scared of something obviously dangerous to you? Verstappen has shown willingness to put you into a wall, brake-check you at 2.4G, and attempt to drive their car away from a crash they caused while their wheels were on your head. It would seem that caution not to put your car in that position again when there was no need to is the wise choice.

I don't see how ending under an SC was assured given the fact that F1 has strived all year long to end under green. A similar situation happened in Baku. All the teams agreed to make every attempt to end under green and therefore that should've been expected by everybody. RB planned for it.

A "similar situation" being the race getting red flagged - allowing everyone a change of tyres for a flying final lap (which Hamilton screwed up in the grandest possible fashion).

Had that happened again we'd have seen everyone swapping for softs, a standing start, and a single lap shootout between two cars on identical rubber. And probably another two divebombs from Verstappen at T1 and T6, but at least it would have been to the regs and to precedent. What happened in Abu Dhabi has no precedent.

I suppose we'll see what they decide but your suggestion doesn't accomplish what most people complaining want to see. They want to see Mercedes and Hamilton win. I don't think they actually care as much about the refs as they're saying. Your idea sounds like a political solution that won't satisfy anybody.

I don't agree with this part. That punishes Hamilton unfairly as well. Why should the race that he dominated by annulled? Just because the director messed up? If the regulations were followed Lewis is WDC.

Whether people "want" Hamilton and Mercedes to win (Mercedes did win, for reference) or not isn't relevant. All that's relevant is that race officials created brand new regulations (contradicting their own previously stated understanding of the regulations) against the advice given to the teams four minutes earlier. That screwed up the entire race, and we'll never know what would have happened had the officials done their jobs right - some options all-but guarantee a Hamilton win (mechanical failure aside) and some don't, while Masi chose a way not clearly open to him by the regulations and his own precedent.

In sport if it's found that officials have broken the laws of the game (rather than just being wrong about it), the game is invalidated - and sometimes it's restaged, which I think is unwieldy in the case of motorsport. Given that this will likely head to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, that's the probable outcome if Masi is found to have done so.

It's a fair outcome. Neither driver did anything wrong, so they should not be punished for driving to the conditions created, and annulling the race punishes neither because it doesn't affect their outcomes. We can't say Hamilton would have won had the officials followed the law correctly, so there's no reasonable cause to inflate his outcome.

Another possibility is to rewinding the race result to the last completed lap before the SC - neutralising the race at that point. That would also be a fair outcome, although it would result in a change of destination for the driver title; this is the very definition of a championship being decided in an office, which I'm pretty sure is anathema generally.


One exception to all of the above is if there is any case for collusion between Red Bull and Michael Masi (or anyone above him). That should result in full-season disqualification for Red Bull and at least a further season's suspension, as well as criminal proceedings against all individuals in position of responsibility: Masi, Masi's superiors, Marko, and Horner.

However that's entirely speculative at this point and not something that should be supposed at whim.

 

[Liquid]

One exception to all of the above is if there is any case for collusion between Red Bull and Michael Masi (or anyone above him). That should result in full-season disqualification for Red Bull and at least a further season's suspension, as well as criminal proceedings against all individuals in position of responsibility: Masi, Masi's superiors, Marko, and Horner.

However that's entirely speculative at this point and not something that should be supposed at whim.

Hypothetical:

Michael Masi, Liberty Media or other parties are proven to have colluded in Red Bull's favour but Red Bull themselves are not involved in any way; they benefitted from a situation that was unknowingly yet intentionally engineered on their behalf. What then?

 

[Famine]

Hypothetical:

Michael Masi, Liberty Media or other parties are proven to have colluded in Red Bull's favour but Red Bull themselves are not involved in any way; they benefitted from a situation that was unknowingly yet intentionally engineered on their behalf. What then?

Same as before but without any punishment for Red Bull

 

[O604]

I think many here are misunderstanding criticism directed at F1.

It beyond a team/driver issue. It's a trust issue with most people wondering if they will watch F1 again. And for me personally, a FIA issue because I think F1 is always dragging it down.

Posting this again - https://www.bbc.com/sport/formula1/59643988

Very informative stuff like :

"Being race director was part of Whiting's responsibilities, and as a result people have incorrectly assumed that Masi is his replacement. He's not. Masi was merely appointed to fill one part of Whiting's remit. The rest of Whiting's job - keeping the running of F1 by the FIA on an even keel - had not been replaced until now."

 

[MatskiMonk]

and annulling the race punishes neither because it doesn't affect their outcomes

It would shuffle Sainz, Norris and Leclerc's championship standings though.