2021 Formula One Abu Dhabi Grand Prix

Regarding Masi and the communication with the teams, in my opinion it should only be a "one-way" channel, the race director communicates his decision over and out.

swinny said:

No not at all,we are having a discussion on a motorsport/Simracing forum where we are stating our opinions,your post of get a grip was just empty ,if we can’t talk on hee amongst ourselves with out being offensive what the point.

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Again, your comment wasn't about motor sports, it was about my reply. You have an issue with me criticizing his post, but you do the exact same thing about my post. That's called hypocrisy.

Hamilton is F1's best representative outside of its traditional circle of influence. If the F1 company is to continue to thrive, it would be making its biggest mistake by behaving in an unsportsmanlike manner with Hamilton.

And yesterday it was completely unsportsmanlike

Scottt said:

Again, your comment wasn't about motor sports, it was about my reply. You have an issue with me criticizing his post, but you do the exact same thing about my post. That's called hypocrisy.

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Yes it was because it’s comments like that,which turn this no longer about motorsport.

swinny said:

No not at all,we are having a discussion on a motorsport/Simracing forum where we are stating our opinions,your post of get a grip was just empty ,if we can’t talk on hee amongst ourselves with out being offensive what the point.Anyway thankyou guys for chatting,I have enjoyed the passion and enthusiasm.Now back to work :[[

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I've been talking about F1 here all year and admittedly I've defended Max a lot… but hey it's my compatriot too. the championship is now over

muzikant said:

I've been talking about F1 here all year and admittedly I've defended Max a lot… but hey it's my compatriot too. the championship is now over

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"compatriot" Thank you for telling us why you are biased

I'm french so I don't really care if Hamilton wins a 8th title or not but i hate injustice

swinny said:

Yes it was because it’s comments like that,which turn this no longer about motorsport.

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I'll try one more time, how is your comment make this about motorsports? It seems your comments have taken it far further off course.

You calling out other people's comments for not being helpful is the pot calling the kettle black.

I have it on good authority that there are a group of Sicarios, hired by Lewis Hamilton, looking for Nicolas Latifi.

Damage Inc said:

Following the safty car burns less fuel doesn't it? Either way teams could allow a bit extra fuel for extra SC laps just in case.

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and at least one team would not, those cars would be faster, they would win unless there actually was a late safety car. Teams push the recommended air pressure in the tires, the exact amount of fuel, anything to save ounces or increase performance. Heck, didn't Schumie take diuretics to pee away even that tiny bit more?

davehenrie said:

and at least one team would not, those cars would be faster, they would win unless there actually was a late safety car. Teams push the recommended air pressure in the tires, the exact amount of fuel, anything to save ounces or increase performance. Heck, didn't Schumie take diuretics to pee away even that tiny bit more?

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You could mandate it so that they are required to carry extra fuel. Make a rule that if the race finishes under the regulated number of laps, you must have x gallons of fuel remaining. And even if you don't, if someone doesn't carry enough fuel than that's the risk they take.

Or, you could go back to allowing refueling. You can make it safe.

muzikant said:

I've been talking about F1 here all year and admittedly I've defended Max a lot… but hey it's my compatriot too. the championship is now ove

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Scottt said:

I'll try one more time, how is your comment make this about motorsports? It seems your comments have taken it far further off course.

You calling out other people's comments for not being helpful is the pot calling the kettle black.

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Let’s just both do the forum a favour and not either of us try for once more or anymore.You made your point I made mine.We don’t have to agree.

Corbyy said:

"compatriot" Thank you for telling us why you are biased

I'm french so I don't really care if Hamilton wins a 8th title or not but i hate injustice

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Well I also like racers outside my country. The Netherlands has never had racers of the Max caliber. If you want to know
Vic Ellford
senna..
clark,
bellof,
Rindt,
ickks
peterson
Fangio
lauda
Mansell
piquet
Jack Brabham

muzikant said:

Well I also like racers outside my country. The Netherlands has never had racers of the Max caliber. If you want to know
Vic Ellford
senna..
clark,
bellof,
Rindt,
ickks
peterson
Fangio
lauda
Mansell
piquet
Jack Brabham

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Verstappen is a beast in qualifying and he is very quick in the race too. Too bad he is so aggressive and that he does not build great overtaking. I don't like the fact that he's the son of a pilot, that he's anti-empathetic, arrogant. The fact of being at Red Bull comforts him in this way of acting, which makes this team just as detestable.

I would like all the drivers to be like Alonso without any need to touch each other to pass, cleans drivers in fact.

But for now, I don't see too much difference in terms of race intelligence between Verstappen and Mazepin. One is much better than the other, but it's just aggressiveness.

Corbyy said:

Verstappen is a beast in qualifying and he is very quick in the race too. Too bad he is so aggressive and that he does not build great overtaking. I don't like the fact that he's the son of a pilot, that he's anti-empathetic, arrogant. The fact of being at Red Bull comforts him in this way of acting, which makes this team just as detestable.

I would like all the drivers to be like Alonso without any need to touch each other to pass, cleans drivers in fact.

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Senna was also aggressive you just have to be an asshole to win .Like Lewis also most of the champs are hard racing drivers

muzikant said:

Senna was also aggressive you just have to be an asshole to win .Like Lewis also most of the champs are hard racing drivers

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Senna's sudden death made people forget how hateful he was in the race. This is not the type of driver I want to see.

swinny said:

Let’s just both do the forum a favour and not either of us try for once more or anymore.You made your point I made mine.We don’t have to agree.

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I think it may make sense if you worry about your own comments and let others worry about their comments.

Looking at this whole conflict re the safety car with a background in (administrative) law (though no experience of sports law in particular), it seems to me the following flow chart may be helpful. This is how I would analyze this type of appeal if it concerned a decision from a governmental entity (which to me seems most analogous to FIA in this sense as the rule-making entity).

1. Should there have been double yellows / safety car / red flag?
2. In case of a safety car, was there a breach of rules/protocol?
3. What would the 'correct' or 'most correct' application of the rules or protocol have looked like (can be more than one option btw)?
4. Is there one (or multiple) options under 3 which would have resulted in the same exact result for the aggrieved party (Mercedes)?

If the answer to 4 is yes, then while there was a breach in regulations, this did not materially affect the aggrieved party, and is therefore not a cause to overturn a decision. If the answer to 4 is no, then you have to overturn.

The below may be argued, but this is my interpretation:

1. First, we can all agree that the racing director has (and should have) a lot of leeway in how to respond to incidents. That said, SC is and has always been the standard option for crashed car on track or in a dangerous spot. While we've seen a host of red flags this year, they have all been either a. for damaged barriers or b. for multiple car pile-ups on track. The only debatable one that's similar to me is Baku. Even then, that was a crash at the fastest part of the track at the end of the straight, so not as similar. While there was some debris on track last Sunday, it didn't appear to be too much. Seems to me the only reason to have brought out a red flag was if the barrier was damaged, which was not the case. So SC looks like the correct option.
2. I don't care much about going into detail on this. Suffice to say not letting all the lapped cars go through was a bit odd. Let's assume for now rules were breached or - at least - inconsistently applied here.
3. What would have been the correct application of the rules? It seems to me there are, broadly speaking, four possible options.


Setting aside whether option b. is 'valid' or not (see step 2), it seems to me that options a, c and d are all possible options that we have seen in the past.

4. We have multiple valid alternatives in this case. In this case one of those valid options (a) would have led to essentially the same outcome for Mercedes, namely Hamilton on old hards and Verstappen behind with new softs and one lap to make the overtake. Now we'll obviously never know if this option would have been picked (hypothetically there's a 1 in 3 chance), but if the FIA says -> we would have gone for option a. in the 'correct' application of the rules, then your argument ends there, unless you can PROVE there is no way they should have (or could have) applied the other two options; I appreciate this may be a quirk of (certain systems of) administrative law, where's often a 'no harm, no foul' type attitude.

If there was (as Masi stated) indeed an agreement between the teams that races should, if at all possible, finish under green flag, then that sort of spikes the ball on options c and d, as then obviously option a was the only realistic option. In that case, the only thing that would save this argument on behalf of Mercedes, is if option a. was impossible, though I note I have not seen any evidence to that effect until now.

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Some final thoughts.

I think the above conclusion matches up well with what most drivers have said (Alonso, Vettel, etc.) who didn't question the SC ending or lapped cars being sent ahead, but who only questioned why it was done so late and why only some of the lapped cars were sent through. The **** up was in Masi being too slow on dealing with the backmarkers and getting the race going again. if they had done that correctly, the outcome would have been the same, and Hamilton would have still been defending into the final lap against Verstappen.

The argument that Verstappen would have been under pressure from Sainz doesn't hold with me, as he was on 30+ lap old hards. Sainz would have been lucky to defend third place, as he had the 9th fastest lap of the day (1,5+ seconds lower than Verstappen). In reality, the only people who actually have a legitimate gripe here (in my eyes) are the cars behind Verstappen, who didn't get a chance to finish under normal racing conditions due to all the backmarkers. That has nothing to do with Mercedes though, and it shouldn't (in my eyes) result in grounds for appeal on their part.

So in conclusion, Mercedes didn't lose on a wrong Masi decision, they lost on a fluke SC in the last race which they didn't protect for in their strategy (e.g. by pitting under VSC). Even then its only a 7 point swing on a 395,5 point total for the winner, so setting aside recency/sample bias, in the grand scheme of things I can think of several FIA decisions and crashes that weighed a lot more on the WDC result than last Saturday.

LeSunTzu said:

I doubt CAS can/will change the race results even Mercedes is right that the race has been mismanaged. But if the CAS changed the results, the outcome would be equally disgusting.

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They can't change the result because the regulations give the race director the override function. By the letter of the law, Masi is not at fault.

Obviously everyone knows Masi is at fault because he used the override function to generate a last lap dash for Netflix. But he technically did nothing wrong - which is a sad indictment of how complex and in need of an overhaul the F1 regs are.

Corbyy said:

Verstappen is a beast in qualifying and he is very quick in the race too. Too bad he is so aggressive and that he does not build great overtaking. I don't like the fact that he's the son of a pilot, that he's anti-empathetic, arrogant. The fact of being at Red Bull comforts him in this way of acting, which makes this team just as detestable.

I would like all the drivers to be like Alonso without any need to touch each other to pass, cleans drivers in fact.

But for now, I don't see too much difference in terms of race intelligence between Verstappen and Mazepin. One is much better than the other, but it's just aggressiveness.

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If Verstappen's talent is solely a factor of his aggressiveness, this wouldn't explain his skill in qualifying. Clearly his ability to handle a Formula 1 cars is extremely high, and while it's hard to compare it to Mazepin with the car differences, I think he's head and shoulders above him and most of the rest of the field.