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+1. Without tearing up the rule book, the title was over as Latifi hit the wall and parked. Every other GP of the season would have ended under the SC or a Red flag.

F1 credibility is now lower than its ever been. Too much politicking, too much emphasis on the show and way too little on man and machine vs each other run under rules all understand. When the drivers don’t know the rules, 3 world champions on Sky commentary ( Rosberg, Hill and Button) couldn’t with certainty understand the rules it has become a Grand Farce.

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13 hours ago, Ian Vincent said:

John,

Until the crash and the stewards intervened Lewis was winning the race. After the crash if the stewards had followed the rules, Lewis would have won.  MB made the only decision available to them in the circumstances.   [Your prediction, Ian!]  And that decision would also have been made against the rules in place at the time. [What?!   Which regulation says that you can't change tyres while the  Pace car is out?] They wouldn’t have known that Mike Masi was going to tear up the rule book.

Rgds Ian

PS As Mark Webber said, for the final shoot out lap LH would have felt like the person taking a knife to a gunfight.  Max Verstappen is a superb driver and pretty much the equal of Lewis.  With the relative state of their tyres there could only have been one outcome. [Good to know we agree on that!] MB would have known that so they wouldn't have made the decision they did if they had known what Masi was going to do, although it is diffcult to see what else they could have done even if they had known.  So no, my comment isn't unfair and MV will always know he has Mike Masi to thank for his title.

 

Edited by john.r.davies
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3 hours ago, john.r.davies said:

 

John, you are being disingenious; I wasn't questioning the tyre change and I think you know it.  I was referring to the lapping / unlapping fiasco.

Under the rules prior to Mike Masi changing or ignoring them, the best strategy for MB was to leave Hamilton out there.  If they had brought him in straight away and Max had stayed out, Max would have been on nearly new tyres as would LH and the chances of getting a pass in the time remaining against a driver of MV's calibre would have been slim.  If they had brought him in after Max had boxed - same result.  So, they had little option but to leave LH out there and trust that there wouldn't be time for MV to take advantage of his new tyres.  With five cars between him and LH it would have been tricky and if they had followed the rule book and unlapped all the cars there wouldn't have been time.  Mike Masi's argument that it was a race and should be settled on the track is fatuous; as I have already said, once MV was on new softs and LH was on his worn hard tyres it wasn't a race it was like shooting fish in a barrel.  LH demonstrated pretty much the same thing in reverse at Spain earlier in the year, Max was unable to hold off the Mercedes on fresher tyres and had to concede first place before stopping for fresh rubber so he could go for fastest lap.

I've no argument with MV, he did what he had to do although I could have done without Christian Horner's ridiculous posturing but the real guilty party is Mike Masi - he has demonstrated time and again this year that he is incompetent and he should be sacked.

Rgds Ian

Edited by Ian Vincent
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A slightly different view:
I think we should not forget that earlier in the race Louis was not given a penalty for leaving the track, the Max-fans did not applause for that one as you can imagine. But the race continued, done deal.

What happened after the Williams accident, was a surprise to everyone; without that accident Louis would have won, I think we all have little doubt about that. RB made the (initially brave but to my opinion hopeless) decision to go to soft tyres, and without the lapped car decision this would not have changed the outcome (Louis to win).

Then came that decision, and Mercedes could not go to soft as well, bad luck for them.

That’s just my 2 cents, I’m not a F1 specialist, for many on you I bow for your racing experience, but this is how I see it (as a Max-fan obviously).

Cheers and I hope you won’t be disappointed for long, life is to short for that.

Best regards from Orange CountRy,
Waldi

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7 minutes ago, Waldi said:


I think we should not forget that earlier in the race Louis was not given a penalty for leaving the track, the Max-fans did not applause for that one as you can imagine. But the race continued, done deal.

Best regards from Orange CountRy,
Waldi

Maybe Lewis wasn't given a penalty because Max had forced him off the track?

Rgds Ian

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The reality is that whoever was in the lead at the time the safety car was deployed was going to be screwed.

The closing of the pit lane on the lap after the safety car is deployed actively penalises the car in front. If you go in you lose track position when the likelihood was that the race would be finished under the safety car.  The rule is daft. If there is a safety car it seems illogical to close the pit lane after the lap - either it closes immediately the safety car is deployed so no car may enter (other than to retire or if damaged) and so a safety call does not favour one driver over another.

We see what happens in Indy where at the slightest opportunity to bunch the field, a yellow comes out to stop someone getting too far ahead.

The virtual safety care rules are better - you hold station at the gap relative to the cars in front.  Bunching may useful for track clearance so before the safety car is called back in the cars have 1 lap to re-establish the relative gaps?

The stewards have come up with some strange calls - culminating with this but there are other examples where, to avoid being overtaken by Hamilton, Verstappen clearly left his braking so late he couldn't stay within 20 feet of the track in order to run the other wide and prevent overtaking. Yet no action was taken.

I said it about Senna and I have said it about Verstappen, he is a big accident waiting to happen. Going back to when he, on more than one occasion ran Ricciardo off the road and weaved in front of him. The stewards bottled it and left it to team to resolve.  For me he crosses the line between defensive driving and cheating. Shumacker and Hamilton had their moments but not on this scale.  There is a sense of invulnarability and there is potential significant danger when tother drivers say enough is enough and don't back off like Hamilton at Silverstone or Mansell with Senna. Even Senna learned that there were some you can't intimidate but Verstappen just doesn't appreciate danger.

If F1 really wants more teams to take part then it needs to look at the things that make it rediculously expensive - the engines.  The pretence that current F1 developments have benefits to road cars is becoming hard to reconcile.  Aside from batteries and being a mobile crash cell the differences are greater than they have ever been. There is already an e series and F1 just needs to go back to "simple" internal combustion engines, smaller, lighter and more nimble cars with noise.  Burn bio fuels to give it a semblance of innovation. If not it will remain a Mercedes:Red Bull shoot out with their second string teams and customers making up the second division. Fiat (Ferrari) struggle to organise a p*** up in a brewery. Get rid of the gismos and make it easier for others to bankroll an engine otherwise the likes of BMW, Audi, Toyota and so on aren't going to come to play.  As Honda found - the years of catching up with these engines isn't good advertising.  F1 is never going to be a budget operation but when the risks/costs and reputational issues put of the other big boys, something is wrong.

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9 minutes ago, Ian Vincent said:

Maybe Lewis wasn't given a penalty because Max had forced him off the track?

Rgds Ian

I think so - leave your braking so late that you enevitably run wide, forcing others to run wider or crash.

The loss of gravel traps has resulted in drivers being able to outbrake themselves without getting stuck in the kitty litter.  TV doesn't want that because the grids are so small but perhaps they need to return and address the grid size rather than keeping all the cars on the track and the silliness where almost all overtaking moves go to the stewards.

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I don't envy Mike Masi, and the last few races haven't gone well for him. Is this because he is trying to meet demands from teams and drivers to let them race and so trying to be flexible on the rules which means he finds himself personally in the firing line, whereas if he consistently took a hard line on applying the letter of the rules it's the rules in the firing line?

He mght do better to avoid engaging in discussions with team principals during the race.

 

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One of the biggest financial winners in all this are the bookies. By giving odds of 33/1 for Lewis to win, it’s almost as if they KNEW he would not win. Imagine what it would have cost them if he had.

So here we have a “Sport” where people can win money by betting on who wins, but the person who wins can be decided by a man sitting behind a desk who has the power to bend the rules.

Is that right?

 

 

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28 minutes ago, acaie said:

I don't envy Mike Masi, and the last few races haven't gone well for him. Is this because he is trying to meet demands from teams and drivers to let them race and so trying to be flexible on the rules which means he finds himself personally in the firing line, whereas if he consistently took a hard line on applying the letter of the rules it's the rules in the firing line?

He mght do better to avoid engaging in discussions with team principals during the race.

 

Agreed Mike Masi has a difficult job but his mistakes are not just when he engages with the team principals.  The attached is a screen dump from an article on him in Business F1 magazine.  Their view is that he is a boy doing a man's job, and remember this article was in the October issue so it would have been written before his recent disastrous calls.

Rgds Ian

Screenshot 2021-12-13 at 17.46.32.png

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6 hours ago, Ian Vincent said:

John, you are being disingenious; I wasn't questioning the tyre change and I think you know it.  I was referring to the lapping / unlapping fiasco.

Under the rules prior to Mike Masi changing or ignoring them, the best strategy for MB was to leave Hamilton out there.  If they had brought him in straight away and Max had stayed out, Max would have been on nearly new tyres as would LH and the chances of getting a pass in the time remaining against a driver of MV's calibre would have been slim.  If they had brought him in after Max had boxed - same result.  So, they had little option but to leave LH out there and trust that there wouldn't be time for MV to take advantage of his new tyres.  With five cars between him and LH it would have been tricky and if they had followed the rule book and unlapped all the cars there wouldn't have been time.  Mike Masi's argument that it was a race and should be settled on the track is fatuous; as I have already said, once MV was on new softs and LH was on his worn hard tyres it wasn't a race it was like shooting fish in a barrel.  LH demonstrated pretty much the same thing in reverse at Spain earlier in the year, Max was unable to hold off the Mercedes on fresher tyres and had to concede first place before stopping for fresh rubber so he could go for fastest lap.

I've no argument with MV, he did what he had to do although I could have done without Christian Horner's ridiculous posturing but the real guilty party is Mike Masi - he has demonstrated time and again this year that he is incompetent and he should be sacked.

Rgds Ian

Thank you, Ian.       I'm glad we agree about the tyres being a critical factor.   

 The lapped cars decision was the race directors, but he was governed by 39.12, " If the clerk of the course considers it safe to do so, and the message "LAPPED CARS MAY NOW OVERTAKE" has been sent to all teams Competitors via the official messaging system, any cars that have been lapped by the leader will be required to pass the cars on the lead lap and the safety car."     He did not consider it safe to do so.    We did't have his view of the course and the marshals on it, but the saame regulation then says that "these cars should then proceed around the track at an appropriate speed, without overtaking"  in other words, under yellow flag conditions, maximising marshal safety, so I think he was wrong to delay their release.

The Reg does not stipulate if all of the cars may be released, or only the intervening cars between the leaders, Merc assumed that they would all be.      That they were relased negated any previous argument, and put Hamilton in an unfavourable position, BUT it ensured a racing finish. We will see if the inevitable legal arguments change anything, but what was achieved was a racing  result, not a dud event like Spa.

 

JOhn

Edited by john.r.davies
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3 minutes ago, john.r.davies said:

The Reg does not stipulate if all of the cars may be released, or only the intervening cars between the leaders.      That they were relased negated any previous argument, and put Hamilton in an unfavourable position, BUT it ensured a racing finish. We will see if the inevitable legal arguments change anything, but what was achieved was a racing  result, not a dud event like Spa.

 

JOhn

John,

That wasn't a 'racing' finish, once the lapped cars had overtaken and the rest of the cars released to race prematurely there was only ever going to be one result and everyone knew that.

Rgds Ian

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The clause "any cars that have been lapped by the leader will be required to pass the cars on the lead lap and the safety car" seems very clear to me. It states "any cars...", not "some of the cars", and the "will be required" is also clear that the lapped cars must pass the cars on the lead lap and the safety car, not "may pass...", or "may be invited to pass...". The regulation might not state "all the cars..." but it doesn't state "some of the cars..." either. 

For me though, the worst aspect is that the stewards/Masi initially said that the lapped cars would not be allowed to unlap themselves, but the a minute or two later changed that decision.

I don't much care who won the driver's championship, but I object to the winner only being in that position because of a series of decisions made off the track.

And while I'm having a rant, does anyone agree that Max should also have received a penalty for the Silverstone incident? The stewards stated that both drivers were partly to blame, but LH was more to blame than MV, and giving Max a penalty wouldn't have affected the race but would have stopped the orange army from claiming their boy was blameless.

Pete

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There is much i could say about all this the rights and wrongs of it all, and much that has been written here,

I fully agree with.

What I would say is what an incredible human being and man, Lewis Hamilton is.

The sheer dignity he showed on Sunday, when no one else on the planet could rightly be more upset, his congratulations to Verstappen, were generous, and

whilst I did not think I could think more of him as a racing driver, I was wrong, he is both in my view the finest exponent of his craft that there has ever been, but also 

a great human being.
 

John.

 

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I have to agree with john

lewis was one of the first to congratulate max soon after getting out the cars. 
 

and at a similar time lewis s dad was seen congratulating max s dad.

Role  on 2022season. 

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I have to agree with John , Hamish and Alan 's comments . Sunday had to be one of the best indications of true sportsmanship on Lewis's part.

I doubt we would have seen the same from most other drivers if the roles had been reversed.

If MB continue with their legal contest it would be a PR disaster and a  very hollow victory if they won. Let Lewis end this season with the admiration and dignity he deserves . RB and Max walked away with the trophy and did a good job this season but perhaps the value of their victory is not as great as it would have been in other circumstances.

Brian

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14 minutes ago, brian -r said:

I have to agree with John , Hamish and Alan 's comments . Sunday had to be one of the best indications of true sportsmanship on Lewis's part.

I doubt we would have seen the same from most other drivers if the roles had been reversed.

If MB continue with their legal contest it would be a PR disaster and a  very hollow victory if they won. Let Lewis end this season with the admiration and dignity he deserves . RB and Max walked away with the trophy and did a good job this season but perhaps the value of their victory is not as great as it would have been in other circumstances.

Brian

I agree with a large part of the sentiment in your post but it really annoys me that the result was manipulated for external reasons. I want there to be an uncomfortable consequence for whoever initiated that manipulation so that no one ever feels tempted to do it again. 

Rgds Ian

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6 hours ago, Ian Vincent said:

I agree with a large part of the sentiment in your post but it really annoys me that the result was manipulated for external reasons. I want there to be an uncomfortable consequence for whoever initiated that manipulation so that no one ever feels tempted to do it again. 

Rgds Ian

In an article on line, which I cannot find again, it suggested there might be a new race director next year. It also said teams will not be able communicate with the race director. F1 should take a leaf out of Nascar's book, when it comes to race day they dont leave much room for debate on things, it is their way or the highway.

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Thnak you, John!  That needed saying.

May we petition Her Majesty to knight him?  YES WE CAN!    See: https://www.gov.uk/honours

Here'san extract:

"What people get honours for:
People get honours for achievements like:

  • making a difference to their community or field of work  TICK
  • enhancing Britain’s reputation  TICK
  • long-term voluntary service
  • innovation and entrepreneurship  TICK  
  • changing things, with an emphasis on achievement   TICK
  • improving life for people less able to help themselves
  • displaying moral courage   TICK"

But maybe not for a knighthood.   Extract from the "Nomination Form", "You do not need to suggest the type and level of award – these will be determined when the nomination is assessed.   Most awards are made in the Order of the British Empire at Member (MBE) level or for a British Empire Medal (BEM)."

JOhn

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