I haven’t seen the race but is it the case that Hamilton lapped 5 cars that Verstappen had not, and that Masa told the 5 lapped cars to pass Hamilton and unlap themselves? Is that correct? if so, that’s not a fair race because Passing those 5 cars cost Hamilton time which would have put him further up the road. Similarly, not having to pass those cars saved MV a lot of time. They haven’t raced the same race. Not an F1 or Hamilton fan but interested in what all the fuss is about.
FIA awards Lewis Hamilton’s knighthood to Max Verstappen https://newsthump.com/2021/12/16/fi...pq-T8JX2RZxsD5bgZCZhSNmjpuGClkP59rKhAhKXJ_UZQ
Maybe I’m being simplistic here but surely if a driver has amassed a lead of 11 seconds (or whatever it was) then that lead should be maintained when the safety car moves over. Or is that too easy?
thats never happened, a safety car allows cars to close up and also do tyre changes without loosing too much time.
a greytroversial area Terry, if you go back to standing starts, which were the norm in every situation, if you started trying to space the second place car at the correct place for a restart, not only would there be arguments over whether that gap was correct, and at what point should it be measured/relevant but it also opens a huge can of blah because the whole grid will be saying - Hang on, what about preserving my gap at the restart? etc etc
Indeed. Which is why the introduction of safety cars, solely to fit the 'race' into an allocated TV time slot has destroyed the concept of an honest competition. Before this, if a race had to be stopped for safety reasons and then re-started; then the times for the first and second segment were added together to give a fair reflection of the fastest competitor.
Hardly makes any difference time wise. If you're about to be lapped you'll have blue flags waved at you. Which means 'get off the race line' because faster traffic is coming through.
From Martin Brundle’s column He led 652 laps compared with Lewis' 303 laps. He departed 15 of the 22 races leading the championship including the last seven. He won 10 races compared to eight for Lewis and it was 18 podiums playing 17.
As an uneducated outsider, it seems to me the randomness of decision making has made it a bit of a joke.
Exactly. Everyone seems fixated on the last race in Abu Dhabi. The season is over 22 races. Had this race in Abu Dhabi been race 6,9,16 or whatever in the calendar, no one would have given a shit. Even in this race everyone seems to forget Hamilton got away with the hole shot and was allowed to keep position after gaining unfair advantage. Crucial for race and strategy control. All went to rat shit in the end for him but that wasn’t Verstappen’s fault. MV a very worthy champion. Roll on next season.
The last lap is the one that matters, and Verstappen has a habit of running people off the track. He's a dirty driver, and IMO that's not a great one. Moving the lapped drivers out of the way in front of Verstappen, but not behind him, was a crooked stunt. And his first championship ranks the same as Schumachers.
It does. It would have taken half a lap for Verst to get past and by then Hamilton would have been too far away. Plus there always the risk Verst would have totalled it making desperate passes. BTW a blue flag doesn’t mean stop racing, which those guys would have been with each other. It is what it is tho, can’t change as the ones who made the decision to allow that to happen are the ones who decide on the protest too
Immaterial though, isn’t it. They were on level points and a decision was made that is dodgy at best to allow some to unlap but not others. Worth noting Hamilton actually doesn’t seem to be moaning about it
If you follow that rationale Rea should be champion: most wins, most podiums, most fastest laps https://motorsportstats.com/series/superbike-world-championship/summary/2021
Which Which leads me to think that mistakes are made, but overall it comes out in the wash as the mistakes across the season affect all the competitors. Max did not choose the stewards, nor affect their decision making. He also proved by winning ten races this season that he is a worthy champion. I understand disappointment for Lewis and to a degree his fans, but some of the comments here seem frankly ridiculous to me.
