If they wanted to make sure there was a race to the finish, they should have red flagged it. If you're going to so obviously force a race to happen, at least do it in a way which isn't a farce. Don't begrudge Max the win, but what a sickener.
Masi's job has to be untenable. It's all lapped cars, not just the ones between the two cars we want to race.
Masi's been bad at his job all year. He's supposed to be in charge of safety yet is slow in calling out the safety car when Max's tyre went on the straight at Baku, drivers have been driving without the belts on and gotten away with it. Masi needs to go and there needs to be a big change to make the stewarding consistent.
Lewis dominated that entire race. To have it come down to that sucks, and is so shitty. Last second decision to say yep never mind let max up and here’s a one lap shootout is insane to me.
If Masi wanted a racing finish, should’ve red flagged the race. Tbf I think that would be a good idea within the last 15% of the race anyway. What the fuck lol
This is my first year watching F1, so I have no idea what precedent is in a lot of various situations, but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen any one driver/athlete/team as screwed by circumstance as Lewis was today. I mean that’s just grotesque. That said, what a wild season for a new fan. I have a lot of thoughts and questions on various rules and why certain things are they way they are though. For example, why can’t Lewis pit on the last caution without risking track position but max can? Is that simply strategy (seems to be an almost inexplicably dumb one, hence my question) or some nuanced rule?
If Lewis pits then Red Bull would have kept Max out and took over 1st place. Since Lewis did not pit Red Bull brought Max in since they had a buffer to third so they were in no risk of losing position.
If Lewis pitted, Max would have stayed out and been in first I think. Then you run the risk of the stewards not making a batshit insane decision and ending on the safety car. Max wins if that happens. They made the decision based on the rules and precedent. Edit: beaten by 2.
One thing not being talked about around all this, is that a Honda-engined car won a championship! Last time that happened was Senna in 1991. Pretty awesome way to bow out of F1 by
Thanks all. Seems absurd to me that drivers have to make that decision out of ambiguity from what should be very straight forward.
To be fair, Mercedes did the right thing. On any other day, in any other race, that would be a Hamilton win because of that call.
“Unless clerk of the course considers the presence of the safety car is still necessary, once the last lapped car has passed the leader the safety car will return to the pits at the end of the following lap." There was no lap in between.
Best thing to come from the protest will be Masi being fired. Also, why did Perez retire? If he had been on track he would have most likely beaten Hamilton too. Did Masi offer Red Bull another deal? #conspiracy
Lewis is all class on and off the track. Devastated for him. I am happy for Max, it just should have been a fair final lap that actually followed regulations!
For overtaking under safety car, I’ve seen. Can’t see anything coming from that. They got very close two corners before the end, but that nearly always happens. Edit: oh I’ve seen the second one now. Two protests.
In any given race, what determines if lapped cars will be allowed to overtake or not? Seems like that should be a consistent thing?