2021 Formula One Season: Championship Decider Abu Dhabi - Verstappen Wins in a Controversial Race! 🏆 🍾

DamoESP

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Mazepin wins another award for the year.....Track limits championship 2021!
1 warning = 1 point

MAZ: 104
GAS: 73
TSU: 59
LEC: 58
RAI: 57
NOR: 54
VET: 52
HAM: 49
SAI: 48
ALO: 42
MSC: 40
STR: 32
PER: 30
GIO: 29
RIC: 28
BOT: 25
VER: 24
LAT: 21
RUS: 20
OCO: 13
 

Achy Blakey Heart

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What a ******* sook. Absolute tosser.

63A02931-796F-4196-8B7F-63F061ADCD94.png
 

Skull Face

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I'm glad the race ended on green flags as it gave us the last lap for the ages.

But the events were manipulated, there is no doubt. How else do you explain Norris, Alonso, Ocon, and Vettel being allowed to unlap, but Ricciardo, Stroll, and Schumacher weren't? Verstappen was behind Vettel. That is the only reason why! It was a farce and Masi moved the goal posts in the middle of the game when he has set a precedent in Germany last season of all lapped cars being allowed through.

You can't follow rules in one race and then apply them inconsistently in another because of the situation, i.e., title decider. Every race has a bearing on the world championship.

If FIA don't want races ending on yellow, then be proactive about it and make an adjustment in the rules. fu** me, how long have FIA been involved in racing? Extend a race so if the yellow/safety car takes the race to the scheduled end, then there are 1 or 2 green flag laps after the safety car event to ensure that what needs to be done under yellow according to the rules is completed, and then the race can still finish on green flags. Under the current regulations, the race should have ended on yellow.

They weren't manipulated, it was a lack of time between green flagging the track and the start of the final lap. They probably had time to let them all through in hindsight and people would stop complaining. The rules do need to be fixed though to allow for such a situation, there is no reason why the lapped cars can't just pull to one side and rejoin at the back of the chain of cars on the lead lap, it would take literally 10 seconds to do.

You can't extend the amount of laps due to prefiling the cars before the start of the race, be it normal sc procedure that led to a restart with a lap to go or what actually happen NOTHING changes, NOTHING AT ALL.

I don't have a problem with it because a race should never end under safety car or red flag unless its dangerous to drive, it would have been the last championship decider myself and millions of others bothered to watch if they crossed the line at 60km/h to decide the championship. That and the obvious point everyone is sticking their heads in the sand about, Mercedes could have boxed and won the race, they lost it themselves.
 

Achy Blakey Heart

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They weren't manipulated, it was a lack of time between green flagging the track and the start of the final lap. They probably had time to let them all through in hindsight and people would stop complaining. The rules do need to be fixed though to allow for such a situation, there is no reason why the lapped cars can't just pull to one side and rejoin at the back of the chain of cars on the lead lap, it would take literally 10 seconds to do.

You can't extend the amount of laps due to prefiling the cars before the start of the race, be it normal sc procedure that led to a restart with a lap to go or what actually happen NOTHING changes, NOTHING AT ALL.

I don't have a problem with it because a race should never end under safety car or red flag unless its dangerous to drive, it would have been the last championship decider myself and millions of others bothered to watch if they crossed the line at 60km/h to decide the championship. That and the obvious point everyone is sticking their heads in the sand about, Mercedes could have boxed and won the race, they lost it themselves.


This. Merc opted to keep track position. They could have pitted and put on new softs and either been ahead of ver also on softs or behind ver on used meds. Either of those scenarios was better than staying out on decayed hards. But Toto is a complete flog and wants to blame everyone else. Dumb campaigner.
 

BIRDBRAIN

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This. Merc opted to keep track position. They could have pitted and put on new softs and either been ahead of ver also on softs or behind ver on used meds. Either of those scenarios was better than staying out on decayed hards. But Toto is a complete flog and wants to blame everyone else. Dumb campaigner.

Exactly right but they won't want to talk about that so it's much easier to jump up and down and blame Masi. For what? A safety car restart? This isn't the first time a SC has changed the course of a race, Mercedes took a huge risk leaving SLH out on nearly 40 lap old tyre and it backfired, cry me a river Toto.
 
Exactly right but they won't want to talk about that so it's much easier to jump up and down and blame Masi. For what? A safety car restart? This isn't the first time a SC has changed the course of a race, Mercedes took a huge risk leaving SLH out on nearly 40 lap old tyre and it backfired, cry me a river Toto.
No team principal in their right mind would pit their driver and give up track position with 5 laps left behind a safety car in a title deciding race. It's sheer madness. Imagine if they did that and the race finished behind the safety car? It'd go down as the most monumental * up in sport.

Once Latifi crashed, their only hope was finishing the race behind the safety car.
 
They weren't manipulated, it was a lack of time between green flagging the track and the start of the final lap. They probably had time to let them all through in hindsight and people would stop complaining. The rules do need to be fixed though to allow for such a situation, there is no reason why the lapped cars can't just pull to one side and rejoin at the back of the chain of cars on the lead lap, it would take literally 10 seconds to do.
Not if the point is to unlap themselves. With the way everything is telemetry/computer controlled these days, they would still register as one lap down if they just let the lead lap cars pass them.

I think the idea is that the safety car "bunches up" the pack, so to be fair on lapped cars, they should be allowed to bunch up too, hence overtaking the safety car and rushing back to tack on the end of the pack.

At the end of the day, this was such a rare and exceptional event, I don't think they need to worry about it. The likelihood of it happening again is extremely slim. It was the perfect storm when you think about it:
  1. Last race of the season
  2. Drivers so close in the championship that the winner determines the WDC
  3. Those WDC protagonists running 1 and 2 in the race
  4. Accident in the final 5 laps (so tricky timing with lapped cars)
If any one of those things is not true, then no-one gives a s**t about what happened here.
 

Skull Face

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Not if the point is to unlap themselves. With the way everything is telemetry/computer controlled these days, they would still register as one lap down if they just let the lead lap cars pass them.

I think the idea is that the safety car "bunches up" the pack, so to be fair on lapped cars, they should be allowed to bunch up too, hence overtaking the safety car and rushing back to tack on the end of the pack.

At the end of the day, this was such a rare and exceptional event, I don't think they need to worry about it. The likelihood of it happening again is extremely slim. It was the perfect storm when you think about it:
  1. Last race of the season
  2. Drivers so close in the championship that the winner determines the WDC
  3. Those WDC protagonists running 1 and 2 in the race
  4. Accident in the final 5 laps (so tricky timing with lapped cars)
If any one of those things is not true, then no-one gives a sh*t about what happened here.
It could be written that if its after 75-85% race distance lapped cars don't get to unlap themselves they just get sent to the rear of the pack to fight amongst themselves so the race can resume quicker or simply if their isnt deemed sufficient time they will be sent to the rear in order to finish under green flag running.

But surely in 2021 we can manually fix the lap counter if we unlapped them that way, surely the sport isnt so *ed we need them to actually drive the lap to fix the issue.
 
No team principal in their right mind would pit their driver and give up track position with 5 laps left behind a safety car in a title deciding race. It's sheer madness. Imagine if they did that and the race finished behind the safety car? It'd go down as the most monumental fu** up in sport.

Once Latifi crashed, their only hope was finishing the race behind the safety car.
Given that the stats here: suggest that during the decade from 2010 to 2020, the average number of laps per safety car was 4.03 (with an actual mean of 3.68), I don't know why anyone on the pit wall would think that with 5 laps to go, the race would finish under a safety car. And doubly so, when you consider what was at stake in this race.
 

BIRDBRAIN

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No team principal in their right mind would pit their driver and give up track position with 5 laps left behind a safety car in a title deciding race. It's sheer madness. Imagine if they did that and the race finished behind the safety car? It'd go down as the most monumental fu** up in sport.

Once Latifi crashed, their only hope was finishing the race behind the safety car.

You're right, once Latifi crashed it was too late. There were however definitely a few opportunities earlier to pit and come out 4 or 5 seconds behind Max, with fresher tyres, a speed advantage and DRS. They didn't want to give up track position of course, but that was the gamble they took. A safety car was always going to bring them undone on 40 lap old tyres, also risking a puncture which happened to Norris.
 
Mar 20, 2007
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They weren't manipulated, it was a lack of time between green flagging the track and the start of the final lap. They probably had time to let them all through in hindsight and people would stop complaining. The rules do need to be fixed though to allow for such a situation, there is no reason why the lapped cars can't just pull to one side and rejoin at the back of the chain of cars on the lead lap, it would take literally 10 seconds to do.
Lets say instead of Abu Dhabi and the championship on the line, it was the Azerbaijan Grand Prix (or any Grand Prix for that matter) in the middle of the season with no championship on the line and a safety car is deployed 5 or so laps from the end of the race.

How do you think the race would have ended in that scenario ?
 
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Not if the point is to unlap themselves. With the way everything is telemetry/computer controlled these days, they would still register as one lap down if they just let the lead lap cars pass them.

I think the idea is that the safety car "bunches up" the pack, so to be fair on lapped cars, they should be allowed to bunch up too, hence overtaking the safety car and rushing back to tack on the end of the pack.

At the end of the day, this was such a rare and exceptional event, I don't think they need to worry about it. The likelihood of it happening again is extremely slim. It was the perfect storm when you think about it:
  1. Last race of the season
  2. Drivers so close in the championship that the winner determines the WDC
  3. Those WDC protagonists running 1 and 2 in the race
  4. Accident in the final 5 laps (so tricky timing with lapped cars)
If any one of those things is not true, then no-one gives a sh*t about what happened here.
I don't see why they should get to unlap themselves. They were lapped, tough s**t.
 

Skull Face

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Lets say instead of Abu Dhabi and the championship on the line, it was the Azerbaijan Grand Prix (or any Grand Prix for that matter) in the middle of the season with no championship on the line and a safety car is deployed 5 or so laps from the end of the race.

How do you think the race would have ended in that scenario ?
there was a safety car 5 laps from the end of baku though so what would be the point of answering this question?
 
I don't see why they should get to unlap themselves. They were lapped, tough sh*t.
I see your point, but let's say everyone up to position 8 has been lapped, with the 9th car just behind the leader when the safety car is called (just been lapped) and the 8th car just in front of the leader (yet to be lapped). After the restart, 2 cars that were mere seconds apart on track are now separated by almost a full lap. That's a huge penalty for the driver in 9th place.

Your theory would work if the field just lined up behind the safety car with whoever was directly behind it when it came out staying there. But they don't, they have cars pass the safety car until the leader is behind it.
 
Mar 20, 2007
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there was a safety car 5 laps from the end of baku though so what would be the point of answering this question?
There was a red flag and a race restart in Baku, so different.

I just think the same scenario in any other race that isn't the championship decider, the race would either end by

1. Allowing all cars to unlap the safety car a few laps earlier and then resume the race.
or
2. If the above is not possible with the time remaining, finish the race under the safety car.

All of which makes the Abu Dhabi scenario a little manufactured to get a result. I get why they did it, but it was certainly a deviation from expected actions.
 
I don't see why they should get to unlap themselves. They were lapped, tough sh*t.
Let's say Danny Ric was battling Sainz for 5th, Lewis as leader laps Danny, Mazepin then does Mazepin things and puts it in the wall. Safety car picks up Lewis with Danny behind, Sainz continues merrily to the back of the field and is suddenly 98% of a lap ahead of Danny. This is why cars are allowed to unlap themselves, it's relative to who they're fighting, not the leader.
 
Given that the stats here: suggest that during the decade from 2010 to 2020, the average number of laps per safety car was 4.03 (with an actual mean of 3.68), I don't know why anyone on the pit wall would think that with 5 laps to go, the race would finish under a safety car. And doubly so, when you consider what was at stake in this race.

Mean doesn't mean exactly 4 laps. It takes as long as it takes to make the track safe. It's still a huge gamble in such an important race.
 
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I don't see why they should get to unlap themselves. They were lapped, tough sh*t.
I agree 100%.

I also agreed with this back at Imola. In that race Hamilton went off, damaged his car, and was lapped. The race was subsequently red flagged and re-started. In the interval, MERC were allowed to repair the damage, and HAM was allowed to regain the lap he'd previously lost. HAM went onto finish 2nd. Without that result, the lapped cars at Abu Dhabi were a complete non-story.
 
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I see your point, but let's say everyone up to position 8 has been lapped, with the 9th car just behind the leader when the safety car is called (just been lapped) and the 8th car just in front of the leader (yet to be lapped). After the restart, 2 cars that were mere seconds apart on track are now separated by almost a full lap. That's a huge penalty for the driver in 9th place.

Your theory would work if the field just lined up behind the safety car with whoever was directly behind it when it came out staying there. But they don't, they have cars pass the safety car until the leader is behind it.
I don't have a problem with cars being allowed to pass the safety car, until the race leader is immediately behind the SC. By definition, these cars are not regaining a lap - they may be regaining 99.9% of a lap, but they are still remaining on the same lap that they were on (relative to the race leader).

What I have a problem with is allowing lapped cars behind the leader to overtake both the leader and the SC, in order to regain the lap they have lost. These cars regain a full lap, which is just plain unfair on the cars/drivers which weren't lapped prior to the SC intervention.
 

DamoESP

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Also, since HAM didnt attend the FIA Gala event (when he is required to, as Per article 6.6 "The drivers finishing first, second and third in the Championship must be present at the annual FIA Prize Giving ceremony.") it will be interesting to see if the FIA punish him at all for it. I mean...MERC want the rules to be applied consistently..... :sweatsmile:

well holy s**t, the mad lad might actually do it…. 😅😅

 
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well holy sh*t, the mad lad might actually do it…. 😅😅


Increasing talk of Hamilton weighing up his options, this won't help lure him back to F1.

I do wonder what Mercedes will do if Hamilton walks. I think they would have to go after an experienced driver to support George for a couple of seasons.
Vettel and Alonso would be the obvious choices. Ricciardo and dare I say Bottas (would be weird) would be outside choices.
 
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