Formula 1 Round 22 Abu Dhabi GP

People don't have a problem with the safety car, at least not specifically in relation to this incident. If the crash had occurred 1 lap earlier and there had been time to end the safety car period and restart the race properly there would have been no real issue, it would have been hard on Lewis and lucky for Max but the luck had been going the other way earlier in the season and Max would have deserved his.

The way Masi handled the end of the safety car period is the only issue here. He had to depart from the normal procedures in order to get the race restarted for the last lap, and the way in which he did this favoured one car in the race over all the others and directly influenced the result of the both race and the championship. It is just wrong that one man has the authority to do this on the spur of the moment, and Masi showed very poor judgement in the way he handled things.

I don't think Mercedes are blaming everybody but themselves, they just feel very let down by the above. With hindsight it is possible to suggest things they could have done differently during the race but unfortunately the strategists have to act on the information they have at the time and cannot predict the future, for the race leader to follow a risky strategy based on the possibility of future SC or VSC periods would have been crazy.

The real tragedy with all of this is looking at people who just started watching F1, try and explain it to you.

Painful.

What would have been a farce would be to manipulate the safety car and keep it out an extra two laps after the track was clear just to ensure that Hamilton would win even though the rules clearly state that the clerk of the course should bring in the safety car when the track is safe and the teams previously unanimously agreed that in situations like this finishing under a green flag should take all priority as long as it is safe, which it was.

It’s unfortunate that all the lobbying slowed down the normal procedure of letting lapped cars through which should have been done much earlier, and this meant that they could only correctly let most of them through, but doing the normal thing for most backmarkers was preferable to doing the normal thing for none of them and ultimately that had no effect on the outcome. People are really clutching at straws if they think Sainz would risk throwing away 5th in the championship by needlessly trying to attack a much faster car on the final lap, and that he’d have succeeded if he tried. Even in prerace interviews guys like Norris were saying they didn’t want to risk interfering in the championship battle and were aiming for third.

Painful? You mean the fantastic airtime it got on us media?

Just listen to the descriptions of the race. "It was a walk-off home-run, a buzzer beater and a hail Mary, all rolled into one. It was the final lap of the final race. It brought chaos, controversy, and a new champion". That's amazing coverage.

And they gave it all that fantastic coverage FOR FREE, simply because of the circumstances. It was actually news worthy of the first time in years.

You're seeing this coverage as an unmitigated success for f1 in the US, right?

It doesn't matter if they would have tried to or not, it's that they should have had the option should they have wanted to.

No one will convince me that letting some cars unlap was the right or correct decision, for Max v Hamilton, or the rest of the grid.

I don’t watch F1 really ,but do watch other motorsports.

that was comical to be honest.

what is the point of having rules if Masi can just change it how he likes?

Also, how can the team directors be talking to the steward and making deals.

they made some deal last race also over the radio.

crazy.

Anyway the safety car always closing the bunch up through no fault of people that had no effect is always a bit sour.

they really should come up with some other solution,

the gaps should be reinstated , cross a line and wait for a signal on the wheel for when you are allowed to go.

Would cut out that accelerating and braking game before the safety car restart also, dangerous in itself.

So reinstate the gaps after a safety car, so after a red flag too so? That means Hamilton finishes maybe 7th or 8th in Imola which means Max didn't need to pass Hamilton on Sunday in the last lap .......

I don’t have a preference for any driver, but watching that it was a joke , for many reasons.

I didn’t follow the season and haven’t for many years.

A red flag is a race stoppage isn’t it? So a restart is necessary? How many races a year are red flagged?

safety cars seem to be plentiful, particularly around tracks of the same ilk as Monaco , Saudi.

Imola, Baku, Silverstone, Jeddah all had red flags

Red flags are a race stoppage. At Imola Hamilton binned it, spent 2 minutes trying to get out of a gravel trap and was lapped before Bottas and Russell crashed bringing out a red flag. Hamilton limped back to the pits, got damage repaired abd tyres changed, and then unlapped himself under the red flag and finished second

Max 25/Hamilton 6 if no red flag

Max 25/Hamilton 18 because of the red flag

So you cannot argue against cars closing up under a SC and ignore what happens under red flag situation IMO

Hamilton caused a crash at Silverstone and the Merc team gambled on a red flag being needed and repaired his car under that red flag. Hamilton and Wolff pushing the robbed/disillusioned agenda is utter crap. We never heard a word out of them about this when the SC or Red Flags fell their way to huge advantage.

I’ve heard multiple times that apparently anything up to this point doesn’t matter, this is what decided the championship. Convenient nonsense.

OK, regardless of the finish on Sunday do you accept that earlier in the season Hamilton made huge gains in similar circumstances when there was a crash involving other cars. And that if the rules were more aligned with your thinking, then the last lap on Sunday would have been irrelevent.

I didn’t watch the earlier season, as I said I haven’t watched it for many years.

that very well may be the truth?

Yea that’s great?

can you not see how the whole end of that race was a farce, regardless of what happened in the rest of the season?

No. As far as I've seen, you're the only one to bring up racism in this whole issue.

The race director got the race underway at the first opportunity. That's his job. Once it's safe to race, bring the SC in. That's what happened.

What the commentators think is irrelevant.

You can't complain about something you clearly know fcuk all about. Drivers all the last few weeks when asked about the title race kept saying they didn't want to get involved.

Michael Masi is the race director. He has the discretion to make decisions in order to get the race back under way. That's what he did. So no he didn't make a mockery of the rules.