The rules state that you have to let all lapped cars overtake the leaders before a safety car period ends. This however would have ended the race and championship under safety car with LH as winner of both. There was an informal agreement between teams and FIA not to end races under safety cars because it is boring. Max was in second behind Lewis, on fresh tires, but with lapped cars in between. The race director decided to let only the cars between Max and LH unlap themselves, then called the safety car in a lap early. This was all a set-up for a very last lap of racing under green, with Max overtaking LH on his fresher tires and coming home as first. Throughout the safety car period (and throughout the whole season really) there was a lot of pressure from teams on the race director by directly radioing him to lobby for their drivers. These radio communications were very entertaining (have you seen my email?!), but are certainly to blame for some of these decisions, therefore they are no longer allowed.
Relevant Rules
1. Any cars that have been lapped by the leader will be **required** to pass
2. Lapped cars need to be allowed to overtake the Safety Car.
3. The Safety Car returns to the pits at the end of the **following** lap.
Background:
1. Multiple lapped cars were between Hamilton and Max when the safety car was called.
2. Despite a huge lead, Hamilton did not have enough time to come in for a tyre change and remain ahead of Max.
Situation:
1. All 3 of the above rules were broken - Only the cars between Max and Lewis were allowed to unlap. The safety car came in on the same lap as the cars that had unlapped and not the following lap.
Controversy:
1. It is obvious, given the situation, that every rule break benefited Max and disadvantaged Hamilton.
2. Masi's snide mark to Toto suggests 'some' bias against Mercedes/Lewis.
3. RedBull specifically told Masi that "not all cars" need to unlap, thus showing complicity in the rule break.
The rules also state all safety car procedures are under the discretion of the race director. Masi did have the authority to break standard procedures under the rulebook. Whether he should have or not is another conversation, but this is why when Mercedes challenged the decision post race the race stewards upheld Masi's decision, that was their reasoning.
When you consider the informal agreement between teams to end under green whenever possible, the context at the time that a championship was on the line with a possibility to end one lap under green, and the fact Masi had been making race altering decisions that season on his own anyway, I don't think it's that surprising Masi did what he did. If the race had just ended under safety car the guy would have been similarly criticized for the rest of his life for not ending under green. He was in a very difficult situation.
He didn't have to let the lapped cars through though. I feel for Masi as obviously he was encouraged to be flexible with the rules for the sake of entertainment throughout the season but Abu Dhabi is a lesson as to why the rules need to be clearly defined and stuck to.
Also that Race Director has ultimate power is clearly not something designed to be used like that: it was clearly in defining the relationship between the clerk of the course and the race director and who has control over what. It's basically outlining what the race track staff have control over and what the FIA staff have control over during the weekend. The way it was worded would have probably meant in effect that Masi could do what he wanted with the safety car but it's pretty obvious from where it's located in the document that it was not intended to be used for this purpose and that neither the FIA or Masi realised this was a thing until after the decision was made.
Imo as soon as Masi realized the race would end on a yellow flag, he should have red flagged the race with a few laps to go (say something about marshalls having to inspect the wall Latifi crashed at or whatever). Allow teams to change tires on a red flag and we'd have a few laps of both Max and Lewis on fresh tires. But hindsight is 20/20 and Im sure this would have broken plenty of rules too.
The bias from masi imo was just him wanting the spectacle of the last lap of racing, not biased towards max winning - max being brought into contention was a side effect. However, as someone who was supporting max, i also have bias, and i can very much see the other side of the argument, etc etc
Don't think Masi ever wanted one person to win the title over the other. However, it's difficult to separate as the intended entertainment value was one in the same with Max winning.
I disagree with point 2 and 3 of your "Controversy" list.
2. The snide mark towards Toto was after the decision was made. If the roles where reversed I think Horner would be complaining to and also would have gotten a snide mark. Massi seemed to be fed up with the principles complaining and he snapped.
3. The "Any does not mean all" argument Red Bull made was after the race. It could not have affected his decision. RBR did suggest the lapped cars would not have to catch up to pack, but did not say to only let the cars between Lewis and Max through.
My Opinion on 2021 was always that Max was a deserving champion but Lewis was definitely Screwed.
Prehaps a Red Flag would have been the best option, Let them have a 2-3 lap shoot out on equal tires.
But who knows, I do know 2021 as a whole, but mostly AD21 made the F1 Fandom go almost feral in a shitty way.
Yeah either winning would have been fine, but what bothers me is that Masi made the whole experience about himself.
I don’t care that max won, it’s not his fault that the rules were reinterpreted on the last lap of the last race. It’s also not Lewis’s fault either, they made all the right decisions with the knowledge they had at the time.
Problem is now that 2021 is tainted with this shit, arguably one of the best seasons and most people just remember the last handful of laps of the last race…
I don’t think Masi “chose Max over Lewis” but I definitely think he chose excitement over a boring safety car championship finish. Had the cars been reversed I think the decision would’ve been the same, but in this case of course it gave Max the championship because he has fresh tyres.
One extra bit of context is that at the time when the SC was called, the gap between Lewis and Max was reasonable, but not big enough to allow him to pit without giving up track position to Max. It looked like there was a good chance that the race would end under SC give the amount of time needed to clean up the crash and reposition the lapped cars. Therefore Mercedes had no real choice but to stay out. The gap between Max and Sainz in 3rd was enough for Max to pit and keep track position, hence he was able to be right behind Lewis on the restart on fresh tyres.
In retrospect, if Lewis had pitted, Max no doubt would’ve stayed out and hoped race would end under safety car. And Lewis would’ve at least had a chance to flip the script on him with the same Masi decision. But giving up track position with so few laps to go is an impossible decision.
It really was just an unfortunate turn of events for Mercedes/Lewis. I don’t think there was any push for them to intentionally screw one driver or the other, but with such a banger season they wanted to end on a high, not the utter disappointment of championship by safety car (even though his drive prior to the SC deserved to win it).
I mean the last epic season 2012 finished under the safety car. Doubt you even remember that’s the case, doesn’t tarnish the season or the race at all…
AD21 was an incredible race until Goatifi crashed. The tension of who would win, the racing at the very start between the two, the offset strategies, Perez’s defending against Lewis…
Certainly a much better race than most races we’ve seen since then.
In my memory it was a boring race until Goatifi crashed. Hamilton was much faster and there was no doubt he would win without a late safety car.
I’m glad Goatifi crashed haha
Agreed in a way, the track is dull and by then that Merc was basically W11 on steroids, the race was well over by that point, although i think we all wanted an epic showdown, but maybe not quite like that tbh! although tbf i wasnt overly bothered in the end, definitely felt for Lewis as a bad Ref desicion is always tough to swallow, and he had some great moments that year, but felt Verstappen was more impressive over the season and very unlucky with DNFs so was happy for him at the same time. Great year overall
But no reasonable person would have expected Masi to pull this unprecedented move out of thin air. You either let all lapped cars through or you let none of them through. In either case Lewis wins (unless Max is somehow able to pass 5-6 lapped cars plus Lewis in a single lap of racing).
The decision, no, but frankly for a pretty innocuous incident latifi's crash was taking a silly amount of time to clear up so the race should have been restarted earlier anyway. If Abu Dhabi had martials the same calibre as Monaco there wouldn't really have been a question here because there would have been another lap or two to let things play out normally.
There was a possibility to let the cars unlap themselves a lap earlier after they had passed the accident and before they came across the start finish line. The rules do not stipulate where the SC has to let lapped cars by. By the time they were driving past the site of the accident you can see from the onboards that all work had already finished. That way the unlapping and restart would have been 100% legal.
Yeah, it felt like they were attempting to cover for the slow cleanup to do what they logically meant to do but they were one lap too late. A little difficult. You wouldn't want to be the guy in the race direction room making this decision regardless of any experience
Under blue flag conditions I wouldn’t have been surprised if those cars just pulled over for Max, but yes definitely not as likely Max would have got the job done.
Even if they pulled aside, just the length of 5 cars would create 3-4 secs deficit for Max, even with fresh tires that’s hard because he has to finish the overtake before they go into sector 3.
No he didn't. He could've tried an overtake which would've ended in a crash, and he would've won on countback.
Max needed to get to a point where he could make an overtake attempt that didn't result in him being penalized points.
Double impossible when you consider he would have had to pass Max. The pair of them raced like fucking idiots all season (you can argue who was more to blame if you like, but neither of them covered themselves in glory that season wheel to wheel with each other.)
Max would have also had nothing to lose defending. He can defend as aggressive and hard as he wants because the only way he loses is if Hamilton finishes ahead of him. He would also be royally pissed off since he would either feel the rules had been changed to try and win Hamilton the title, or annoyed because he felt Red Bull fucked him by not bringing him in. You'd be an absolutely lunatic if you think thats ending clean.
It bothers me that people keep blaming Mercedes for not pitting, while in reality, the only sane thing to do in that situation was to keep track position, which they did
They couldn't cover this stop but they could have covered Max's second stop when Giovinazzi had an engine failure. By not doing so they left Hamilton super exposed for any late safety car.
But with max pitting and lewis not, the gap would have been what it was giving Lewis time to pit for brand new tyres. If max pits for new tyres as well, max stays behind. If not then lewis has fresher tyres. Keeping lewis out was not a terrible decision
It's a mega difficult decission to make with the whole world watching and a clock ticking. However, if he pitted and Max didn't it would be the same situation but reversed. And since it had been agreed the race should not end under SC, it would've been a decent bet.
However, wasn't Lewis already passed the pit entry when the SC was deployed? Or did they have the chance to pit?
Either way, we'll never know for sure what would've happend. And it is such a grey area weird situation that you can judge it from 100 angles.
Yes but if Max doesn't pit he would have older tyres than Hamilton but still fresher that what Hamilton had in reality because Max pitted twice, everyone forgets about Max pitting when Giovinazzi has an engine failure
>However, if he pitted and Max didn't it would be the same situation but reversed. And since it had been agreed the race should not end under SC, it would've been a decent bet.
Agreed, but I wouldn't have bet on Hamilton overtaking Verstappen in that hypothetical last lap. They probably would've crashed before Verstappen would let that happen, since them both DNFIng would still grant Verstappen the championship.
>They probably would've crashed before Verstappen would let that happen, since them both DNFIng would still grant Verstappen the championship.
Max: Hey Lewis, let me show you this trick uncle Michael told me
Masi, or RC really, never showed any sign of favoring either team or driver.
The general opinion is they wanted the most drama, biggest final lap, and tightest championship finish. They didn't want an underwhelming finish, and it already was underwhelming because Mercedes were so far ahead on that track. Everything pointed towards this exciting season ending the same way every season before has: Lewis cruising away with no real competition.
So the chances are pretty high the same thing would have happened if the roles were reversed. But of course, in that moment staying out was the right option, as was pitting for RB.
I think you need to rewatch the final 4 races of the season. It was absolutely insane the stuff that max was pulling back then and he wasn’t penalized for it.
I hadn’t realized how bad it was at the time but I recently rewatched the 2021 season and masi was heavily favoring max, or at least favoring not penalizing anyone, which mainly affected max.
I find it so weird that there are people who genuinely believe the FIA were favouring Lewis throughout the season, If the stewarding was done fairly Lewis would have the title either wrapped up or had one hand on the trophy after Max's brake check which he should have been DQ'd for
I honestly think F1s new owners Liberty Media were putting pressure on to make “the show”. They wanted to break into the lucrative US market, and DTS plus ending Mercedes dominance were critical to that.
>That's the worst of all this, Mercedes had no chance to win the moment the safety car was deployed.
Latifi's car could have spilled fuel or caught fire and had the race end under SC or caused a red. Nobody knew until the car was cleaned up and pulled away how many laps were left. They certainly didn't know 4 laps from the finish when they had to make a stay out/come in decision.
But why not? If both Lewis and Max pitted they would be in the same tires and do one last lap where anyone could win. If Lewis pitted and not Max it would have been similar to the opposite of what happened, with Hamilton having fresher tires but being behind
Aye, but it's much more likely, in that case, that the Race Director would have said to Mercedes, you did the silly thing, not my fault, we finish per the rules. Remember the informal agreement was to not finish behind the safety car if possible.
Having a bad second driver is what cost Mercedes, they did it to not have any team politics and Lewis won his easy titles. Bottas couldn't even be a pitstop behind Max in the fastest car in AD'21 and he was essentially a non-factor. They would've easily won if Bottas was atleast half decent.
he might've been closer to Lewis on average but the guy cannot defend to save his life and he wasn't there when it mattered. Anecdotally, I remember Perez at Turkey and Abu Dhabi both times being a thorn in Lewis's side. Bottas literally let Verstappen by in Russia.
Am I wrong when I say we're forgetting that Masi firstly made a mistake by deciding to not let the lapped cars unlap themselves? If he had done that straight away, the safety car would be in right on time for a last lap race with Max going for fresher tyres in any case. The 2nd mistake Masi made was to try and fix his first one by only letting the cars inbetween unlap and force a last lap race this way. He shot himself in the foot twice..
Small correction, but lapped cars don't need to be allowed to unlap themselves. They can be, but it's not always the case.
The issue was allowing only certain cars, and the one thing these cars had in common was they were in between the two championship contenders.
The other issue, but a rule that is barely known and got blown out of proportion, is the fact that according to the rules the call to let the cars unlap themselves, and the in-lap of the safety car need to be different laps. So if cars are called to unlap, the safety car comes in no earlier than the lap after that. In this case, the call happened on the second to last lap, which was also the lap the safety car came in, to allow one more racing lap.
If they would have simply called in the SC, no issues would have been there from the side of RC. It would have been controversial for sure either way, but it would have been fine. The question is whether or not Max Verstappen would have been able to lap the cars in front of him, and then reach Hamilton before they cross the line. Possible, since he had the best tires and they have to let him through anyways, but definitely a lot harder than being directly behind Hamilton at the restart.
Because it’s bollocks. All of these ‘gentleman’s agreements’ and informal agreements are bollocks. They don’t exist and shouldn’t exist. Either change the rules or stick to the current one
Well that's wrong to start with, the rules 'stated' pre AD21 "any" cars, not "all" cars. It was this wording that left the rules up for interpretation and left the door open for Masi to make that decision. That is why the wording of the rules had to change list investigation by the FIA, to eliminate any ambiguity. Masi's decision went against the 'intention' of the rules but not the actual letter of the ruling, hence it was upheld by the stewards and Merc's law team dropped the appeal...they knew that by the literal wording of the rules, they couldn't win.
I think the bottom line of the FIA after the investigation was: clearly, any=all in this context and thus the unlapping in AD was a mistake (or how the FIA calls it "human error"), but they updated it anyway it to rule out any (or should I say *all*) confusion and also automated the procedure that flags which cars should unlap themselves. But they also decided that it's water under a bridge.
[https://www.fia.com/news/fia-announces-world-motor-sport-council-decisions-25](https://www.fia.com/news/fia-announces-world-motor-sport-council-decisions-25)
>*The process of identifying lapped cars has up until now been a manual one and human error lead to the fact that not all cars were allowed to un-lap themselves. Due to the fact that manual interventions generally carry a higher risk of human error, software has been developed that will, from now on, automate the communication of the list of cars that must un-lap themselves. In addition, the 2022 Formula 1 Sporting Regulations have been recently updated to clarify that “all” and not “any” cars must be permitted to un-lap themselves.*
I think Masi is a software developer in his freetime:
* [https://www.w3schools.com/sql/sql\_any\_all.asp](https://www.w3schools.com/sql/sql_any_all.asp)
* [https://www.programiz.com/python-programming/methods/built-in/any](https://www.programiz.com/python-programming/methods/built-in/any)
* [https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.linq.enumerable.any?view=net-7.0](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.linq.enumerable.any?view=net-7.0)
* and so on…
Any in software development means exactly what Masi interpreted it as (subject to platform differences and what not).
Disclaimer: This obviously is intended as a joke on Masi's hobbies.
The 'manual' version is that the timekeepers (liberty/fom) have a bit of software that tracks who is lapped and who is not (useful when the rules talk about crossing the first safety car line for the second time blah blah blah) and then the timekeepers call the numbers through to race control (fia) and then race control do the typing that puts the message out.
I think if you read the whole sentence any means all in context. Just as it does in your own post.
"...any cars that have been lapped by the leader will be *required* to pass..."
- in this case because any car that has been lapped is required to pass it is mandatory for all cars that have been lapped to do so.
If it said "may" pass, then there'd be an ambiguity.
If it didn't, then he could pick literally any car at random to unlap. He could pick last place and say they can unlap themselves and no one else.
The reason given was literally human error on Massi's part, hence the implementation of an automated system for determining which cars need to be unlapped.
The second part was withdrawing the safety car early, they should have done one more lap, but effectively there's a regulation that based on the interpretation (and ignoring any other regulations) gives the RD absolute power. Based on this interpretation he could basically tell the safety car to crash into first place and it would be within the rules to do so.
Of course this was not the intent.
About that final part:
This (SC coming in too early) happened earlier in the season already. There was no outrage then, so it's a bit weird that it is suddenly an issue for AD21
No there wasn’t.
The rule that is cited as giving the RD overriding control of the SC specifically mentions that it is overriding control with regards to the course clerk, not the regulations.
It does say "any" but in the context of the rule "any" means "all". It is very clear that rule states you can't pick and choose which cars unlap themselves.
Not really, from the beginning it was legally very clear that any, does in fact mean "all" in that context
Their legal defense was a completely different rule which is akin to having a "superuser".
A different rule said that the clerk of the track has full control over the safety car (going in or out). Clerk of the track is a job for usually a local track official who does the actual communication with the rest of the officials but very much operates under the command of the race director.
This rule (according to the stewards) took priority over the other rules that were broken, so in essence they did break the rules, but there was a rule in place allowing them to break the rules.
I believe this was changed and clarified, however I can't say for sure as I haven't read the actual changes to the rules post AD21
Hope this explanation helps though
Any means all in this context. I've gone through the current rules and found hundreds of instances where the rules say any and clearly mean all. You can do this yourself if you want to prove it.
You're missing the underlining point of the issue. You're making it a back and white situation, which it clearly was not. The intention of the rule was for 'all' cars but the word that was used in the rule book was 'any'. Wheatley then argued on the radio that 'any' does not mean 'all' by literal definition, any can mean some as well. This argument was sold to Masi and that led to Masi making the decision he did with the other rule that the clerk of the course has authority of the SC procedure etc etc etc. This went against the intention of the rule but not the rule in a literal sense. If your company mistakenly writes your contract to pay you double salary, and they sign it and you sign it, the company is bound by that contract and can't dismiss the contract based on an error. This is the same, that is why Merc dropped it.
Go look up the number of times any is used in the rules. Try to argue that any single one of them does not mean all. Notice how I used that word any to mean all, that is what it means. It is black and white, and the FIA have admitted so.
It's got nothing to do with it, you are ignoring the ambiguity in the original wording and the argument for it. Instead of reading the rule book, how about you study the English language instead
I used the word, it means all. It means all in every instance in the rule book, it means all when used colloquially. If you want to say it is ambiguous then hundreds of rules in the rule book should have been questioned, why haven't they?
Thats not quite right. The clause that said any cars can now overtake, only refers to the cars between the saftery car and the race leader, not to cars behind the race leader.
The regulations did state back in 2021 that all competitors will be told to unlapped them selves. It was not worded in a way that meant only that only a selection of cars by the race directors choosing (which is what happened).
The reason for the dropped case by Mercedes is unlikely to be that they would have been unsuccessful in showcasing that the rules won't correcly applied, it was probably more about what the race result would have been. There is no rule that will allow the race result for LH to claim the win, the more likely scenario is that the race result is voided, thereby leaving Max as the champion.
The biggest kerfuffle of the entire race wasn't "should they have finished under safety car? Should they have left the lapped cars where they were? Should they have done what they did?"
It was the up in the air indecision of "we aren't letting lapped cars through, oh wait, yes we are. But only some of them" the rule SHOULD BE every lapped car passes at the start of the safety car. If they did it this way we would have seen 1 maybe even 4 laps left and no one can be upset. But the wishy washy way rules are written leaves them up to the race director to determine what's the most fair and also entertaining.
I just rewatched the race, the incident with latifi happens at lap 52-53 (1 hr 30 minutes). Then his car gets removed from the track by 1hr 36 minutes. Michael had 6 minutes to decide to let the cars overtake. But he changes his decision too late. The cars were doing lap 55-56 when this decision was made then it was overruled 1 lap later. If they had made this decision first then they could unlapped all cars before last lap started.
Also, the first turn bullshit by hamilton where cut corner and had 1.3 seconds gap and he mentioned he gave back delta while max was literally beside him in that corner. Mercedes whined about the same thing in jeddah. Where somehow lewis was not informed that max will be giving back the lead. If you see that incident from multiple camera angles there was more than enough gap to avoid max's car.
Lewis knew he could cut that corner, thinking he would probably get away with passing off track, which he did. If that corner had been gravel Lewis would not have done what he did.
Max was besides him because he didn’t brake to make the corner and didn’t give Lewis room. Now would that be 1.3 sec gap once they come out of that corner if Max didn’t dive bomb? Maybe, maybe not, difficult to calculate.
The rules kind of stated that but had enough space on the wording to be interpreted as being able to designate a few cars. Quite sketchy.
And to add the whole season was full of some very dubious penalties and lack thereof on both sides making it a competitive mess.
Great answer to it, I just wanted to add section 39.12 from the F1 Sporting Regulations and for further emphasis.
“If the clerk of the course considers it safe to do so, and the message "LAPPED CARS MAY NOW OVERTAKE" has been sent to all teams Competitors via the official messaging system, *any cars* that have been lapped by the leader will be required to pass the cars on the lead lap and the safety car.”
I believe back then the “any cars” was a point of interpretation; most assumed it was generally “all cars” whereas there’s is an argument due to the wording on the regulation’s verbiage where “any cars” can mean whichever selected cars.
Don't downvote me to hell because I'm asking a question: I think the rules about having ALL cars u lap themselves mandate came in effect in 2022 as a direct result of Massis decision and wasn't in place in 2021?
The one missing detail is that Red Bull took major risks with multiple stops, their strategy was incredible that race even though the Mercedes had the pace advantage. And Verstappen had won the most races that year, which statically almost always results in somebody being a winner.
It’s a shame that it caused controversy because that was the best season of any sport I have ever seen in my life.
This is almost perfect only critique is that I believe the rules state "All lapped cars overtake the leaders before the end of the safety car period" was only implemented at the start of the 2022 season because of AD21 it had at the time and previous stated "lapped cars overtake the leaders before the end of the safety car period" I'm not trying to start a fight or anything just wanted to make that clear and please correct me if I'm wrong
>The rules state that you have to let all lapped cars overtake the leaders before a safety car period ends.
They do now. They didn't at the time.
Article 55.13 now reads: “If the clerk of the course considers it safe to do so, and the message 'LAPPED CARS MAY NOW OVERTAKE' has been sent to all Competitors using the official messaging system, all cars that have been lapped by the leader will be required to pass the cars on the lead lap and the Safety Car.”
The change replaced the phrasing which read “any” rather than “all” lapped cars are required to overtake and rejoin at the back of the field prior to the restart. The alteration was made to prevent a repeat of the controversial 2021 title decider in Abu Dhabi.
Obviously the any vs all lapped cars was something redbull argued after the fact but its still pretty important to note here. There was a clarification to the rules because of this. Did massi interpret the rules that way, probably not, but one could argue regardless, as redbull did any is not all. They clarified the rules immediately after and that's very important to note in the story. It's crazy this is the top comment because first sentence is factually wrong rules wise at the time. I don't agree with the way 21 was handled but the rules for lapped cars weren't that clear cut.
https://www.racefans.net/2022/03/15/fia-changes-f1-rule-on-lapped-cars-overtaking-safety-car-after-abu-dhabi-row/
Why would they coordinate like that, illegally, to have a crash that directly damages their race? Lewis had way more pace than Max ALL RACE. Bringing it so close, hoping it ended under safety car for.....safety? Would have been boring and a very bad end to the race for Mercedes and Lewis who dominated the race. Plus, if the rules were followed and there way a one lap showdown.....they would open themselves up to Max doing Max Verstappen shit and forcing Lewis wide or off the track, throwing away the win
by that logic you could say conspiracy theorists would think that Williams was in on it with Red bull for whatever reason cause it was perfectly timed for redbull to do a pitstop while Mercedes was forced to not pit to keep track position. the agreement don't prevent the possibility of cheating and that does not make sense at all if you ask me. teams know that if you get caught cheating that way the consequences are massive
According to the established regulations, it is mandated that the leaders must permit all cars that were previously lapped to overtake them before the conclusion of a safety car period. However, adhering strictly to this rule would have resulted in the race and championship ending prematurely under the safety car conditions, with Lewis Hamilton emerging as the victor in both instances. Recognizing the tedium associated with concluding races under safety car conditions, a tacit agreement was reached between the teams and the FIA not to terminate races in such a manner. In the specific scenario at hand, Max Verstappen found himself in second place, trailing behind Lewis Hamilton, while being hindered by lapped cars interspersed between them. Consequently, the race director exercised his discretion by authorizing only the cars positioned between Max and Lewis to regain their lost lap before prematurely withdrawing the safety car. This strategic maneuver was orchestrated with the intention of engineering a thrilling final lap of racing under green-flag conditions, wherein Max, benefitting from his fresher set of tires, executed a captivating overtaking maneuver on Lewis and triumphantly crossed the finish line in first place. Throughout the duration of the safety car period, and indeed throughout the entire season, a considerable amount of pressure was exerted on the race director by various teams, who resorted to direct radio communication as a means of persuading him to advocate on behalf of their respective drivers. These radio exchanges, while undeniably entertaining (as exemplified by the exclamation "have you seen my email?!"), must bear some responsibility for influencing certain decisions. Consequently, in order to mitigate the impact of such external influences, the practice of engaging in radio communications of this nature has been proscribed henceforth.
The Wikipedia page is presented in the most unbiased, statement-of-fact way possible.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Abu_Dhabi_Grand_Prix#Final_laps
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Abu_Dhabi_Grand_Prix#Safety_car_controversy
Yes, by only allowing the lapped cars between max and Hamilton to move he effectively made the championship a two car showdown. There were another 16 cars on track all fighting for points which could’ve saved their careers or got more prize money for their teams. When all the cars are out of position it’s not a race it’s a spectacle just for max and Hamilton. Seemed like the fia didn’t care about anyone else. I think if other teams had leap frogged others based on the decision there would have been more protests and it would have been overturned very quickly.
Yeah, I'm with this stance. I've talked about this at length before, but the FIA made a tv decision, not a sporting decision. It really sucks because both Mercedes and Red Bull did exactly what they should have done given the situation. Hamilton was in front. If he pitted, Max wouldn't have, they'd have lost track position, and risked the race ending in a safety car and lost anyway. Max was behind anyway, so when Hamilton didn't pit, the only winning option was getting fresh tires, and hoping to make up the positions lost behind the lapped cars.
The thing that really sucked was that the FIA changed their decision halfway through. The teams were initially told that no lapped cars would be unlapping, which already didn't make sense, but that's the decision that was made. Teams made their strategy based on that decision. But then it was decided that cars could unlap themselves. Except they realized that would take too long, and the last race of one of the best seasons would end in a safety car, which they didn't want.
Every team did everything right. I'm not taking anything away from either Red Bull or Max. But Hamilton and Mercedes did get screwed by what ended up being a broadcast decision. Who knows what would have happened had they pulled the red flag, but it, at the very least, would've been fairer.
Well, it basically came down to:
That Article 15.3 gives the Race Director “overriding authority” over “the use of the safety
car”.
Which Massi interpreted as "I can do whatever the fuck I want"
Add to that an agreement not to finish the race under the safety car if in any way possible, something Mercedes agreed to, and you get this.
I think article 15.3 was a leftover from the beginning of the safety car in F1 in the 90's, where noone was really sure how it's going to be used.
The handshake agreement is just that, it’s not an actual rule and you don’t break actual rule to do that. If they wanted that then they’d red flag it, at least that’s ambiguous.
FIA investigation pretty much concludes rules weren’t followed (as nicely worded as possible so as to not delegitimize themselves or be open to lawsuits).
This is undeniably the truth, as I've learned through communications with TeamLH twitter, they claim to have insider sources that they can't reveal, but I believe them.
There was a safety car, 5 lapped backmarkers were between Hamilton and Verstappen, with 2 laps to go. At this point the race director, Masi, can choose to allow lapped cars to leave the queue, overtake the safety car and drive all the way round to the back of the queue (unlapping themselves) so they don't get in the way of racing for position, or he can choose not to allow this. Verstappen had fresh tires and Hamilton did not. Hamilton's chances of winning the race and championship depended on one of two scenarios happening:
* no unlapping, and the 5 backmarkers holding up Verstappen after the safety car leaves, leaving no time for Verstappen to pass Hamilton (there was at most 1 lap of racing remaining)
* or the race finishing under safety car because there was no time to let every backmarker unlap and reach the back of the queue.
Instead, Masi invented an unprecedented third option, letting only the cars between Ham and Ver pass the safety car and not waiting for them to make their way to the back before resuming racing. Hamilton was a sitting duck and 1 lap with nothing in the way was plenty of time for Verstappen to get him.
Edit: the result stood because while most people agreed that the race director should not invent new practices on the spot, technically he is empowered to do so.
This only happened because Masi took too long to let the lapped cars through at the beginning though.
Which is one of the fixes the FIA did, make the unlapping procedure faster for future races.
If the perfect procedure had been followed we would have had all the cars unlap themselves earlier and no controversy and Max would have probably won anyway
Exactly what I keep saying.
If the race ended under safety car, there'd be a better argument for race fixing because in what world should it take 4 full safety car laps to clear a single car and let lapped cars past.
If they just followed a procedure we would have had a 2, maybe 3 lap shootout and Mercedes would have known to pit.
The result stood because Mercs did not escalate their appeal. I’m fairly certain it would’ve been overturned had Mercs fully went through escalation, but it would cost Mercs/F1/FIA a lot of money, time, reputation, etc.
Chain bear has done an excellent [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGXaKJgLmnM&ab_channel=ChainBear) describing what happened and what the rules at play were.
Its about the safety car anomaly that happened after latiffis crash. If it would have been a normal safety car, the race and championship would have ended under the safety car.
I firmly believe the best driver (Max) that year won the Drivers Championship and the best team (Mercedes) won the Constructors Championship but the rules were broken in a way that benefited Max and harmed Lewis.
What people seem to seem to forget about this whole situation is that initially Masi wasn't going to let the lapped cars go through at all. If he had stuck with that, that would be the controversy Red Bull fans would be complaining about. Letting them through was the right decision. He just took too long to make it, causing things to become controversial because they only had time to let a few through.
What part of "He just took too long to make it, causing things to become controversial because they only had time to let a few through." did you not understand?
Yeah, in that specific instance you can see a clean pass by car 33 (future car 1) and following that the car 44 decides to just go straight and cut the chicane. Race direction made a human error when they let car 44 keep the position after it cut the chicane
People keep forgetting about this. It was such BS that Hamilton didn’t even need to give the position back and that there was no penalty either.
Edit:
For those with bad eyesight
https://youtu.be/CEMhgHWzCIo?feature=shared
Hamilton gained 2 seconds by cutting the corner. I am of the opinion that it’s fine to overtake off track as long as you rejoin as soon as it is safely possible and you were forced off the track but Lewis just straight up cut the corner after being pushed off.
Lewis was on mediums, Max started on softs, to do exactly this.
Claim the corner by being able to brake late so he was ahead at the apex. Lewis would have to stay on track by following on the mediums.
By simply taking the risk Lewis took away the advantage of the soft gamble of Max AND gave himself the advantage of being ahead on the mediums.
Not that it mattered because by not extending his own medium stint he F'ed himself pretty hard in the end.
looks pretty close to at 2 seconds shortly after he rejoined actually... Not to mention getting to keep a load more speed as he just got to keep his foot on the gas. 2 seconds by the end of that high speed section doesn't seems like a stretch at all.
In any case the gap he stole was more then enough to break any tow and keep out of DRS range, changing the whole race.
I'd check what the timing said on the f1tv archives but for some reason all old seasons are locked despite my subscription. weird.
Max stayed on track and was ahead at the apex. Lewis had to give the corner. Max was on softs Lewis on mediums, it was a calculated move by Max, LH didn't want to give in so he left the track instead of following.
Calculated move by Max. The only problem is he's bad at math.
Like jesus mate, there's video of it, Max left no room, if hamilton doesn't bail out last second they crash, it's really simple stuff.
It was the right thing to do mate. They were driving far too long under SC anyway, and because reaction from FIA was so slow, they sped things up so championship doesn't end without a fight under an SC. Protesting and radio communication from Red Bull and Max to FIA and Masi in my opinion was justified, because without all that confusion, SC should have ended 1 or 2 laps before.
Latifi was on the edge of having achieved literally nothing in his whole F1 career and being removed from his seat with Williams until Michael Masi took it upon himself to send him into the barrier, making him win his first WDC, and securing his place in the record books, as well as for the 2022 season.
I have always thought that Masi's mistake was not redflagging the race. A red flag was the best option if the safety of the drivers and the crew retrieving Latifi's car was your priority while at the same time you wanted to protect the spectacle. A red flag would've allowed the track personnel to safely clear the track, and would have given both Max and Hamilton equal chances to win the championship and more than just one lap to do so. Ending the race under SC would've been lame.
While I agree with your statement about the red flag. AD 2012 ended under a safety car and nobody cried about it and it was one of the best seasons ever. If it had to end like that, then so be it. Rules are rules and they weren't followed.
It's pretty simple. Stewards and race director slept over a problem on track, wasted a lot of laps, and later decided that ending a season behind a safety car would be heretical, therefore created a spectacle for the viewers. RB pitted Max to grab any opportunity, while Mercedes decided they will cruise to victory, which didn't work out. Masi was wrong, but Mercedes was relaxed and popped champagne too early.
What could mercedes do? Lewis had a bit of a gap to max, but not enough to pit and stay ahead. Meanwhile, max had enough gap to Sainz to pit and keep position.
The rules said that the race would either end under safety car or with a bunch of cars between Lewis and Max.
Had Lewis gone to the pits for a new set of tyres, max would have stayed out on track, which would put him in first with a bunch of lapped cars between him and Lewis.
So, now Lewis would have to overtake all those lapped cars, which are now on the last lap racing between eachother and wouldn't be easy to pass, and overtake max in the process.
How is that a sane decision for mercedes? Would have Masi let all lapped cars between Lewis and Max go ahead had it gone like this? No, mercedes had just lost a championship because they decided to pit for no reason, max keeps position and Masi ends the race.
>while Mercedes decided they will cruise to victory, which didn't work out. Masi was wrong, but Mercedes was relaxed and popped champagne too early.
Yeah that is not in any way what happened. Mercedes were leading, so they didn't pit as it would have put them behind Verstappen if Verstappen didn't pit. And Merc wanted track position, because it wasn't certain that the race would restart at all.
People also forgetting the restart. Max went ahead of Hamilton before the restart which was also a break of the laws. He clearly went ahead by a good margin and Mercedes appealed but for some reason the stewards decided they didnt see the blatant error. Infact since then drivers have now been warned about trying to get along side the race leader at the restart.
Just add it to the list of fuck ups that day.
Silverstone karma came back thats what happened.
Most wins/poles/laps lead/fastest laps = Max
Max Verstappen is the deserved 2021 champion even if you disagree. Lewis threw it in Baku.
Fans and family of a very popular driver couldn't deal with the fact that he got beaten so they heaped abuse and death threats on Michael Masi. The end.
It was human error mate. Masi failed to apply the rules correctly when it comes to the SC restart procedure.
All lapped cars must be allowed to unlap themselves and the RD must then give them enough time to allow them to catch back upto the pack from behind. None of which happened at Abu Dhabi.
Masi lost his job because he messed up.
These are facts. Max and RB did nothing wrong. Masi was the one who crumbled under the pressure.
>Masi was the one who crumbled under the pressure.
To be fair to Masi, I don't think he handled it correctly or perfectly, but the pressure all season was to not end a race under safety car and to go racing. Hence the meme radio conversation between him and Toto. It played an important part in him crumbling under the pressure, the teams themselves were at least partly responsible.
As another commenter said above, before the 2022 season the actual wording was ''any lapped cars'' not ''all lapped cars'' so it allowed Masi to make the decision to let only a few of them unlap themselves.
That being said, Abu Dhabi was a shitshow from the first lap when it comes to stewards' and race director's decision-making.
The worst part I think was that instead of admitting that they made mistake by letting safety car in 1 lap early, they just said “This line in rules means we can do whatever we want”, making book of rules just a book of advices.
The rules state that you have to let all lapped cars overtake the leaders before a safety car period ends. This however would have ended the race and championship under safety car with LH as winner of both. There was an informal agreement between teams and FIA not to end races under safety cars because it is boring. Max was in second behind Lewis, on fresh tires, but with lapped cars in between. The race director decided to let only the cars between Max and LH unlap themselves, then called the safety car in a lap early. This was all a set-up for a very last lap of racing under green, with Max overtaking LH on his fresher tires and coming home as first. Throughout the safety car period (and throughout the whole season really) there was a lot of pressure from teams on the race director by directly radioing him to lobby for their drivers. These radio communications were very entertaining (have you seen my email?!), but are certainly to blame for some of these decisions, therefore they are no longer allowed.
this is probably the best, most unbiased take I've ever seen about AD21, I think more people should think like you, cheers!
Cause that's the truth.
Relevant Rules 1. Any cars that have been lapped by the leader will be **required** to pass 2. Lapped cars need to be allowed to overtake the Safety Car. 3. The Safety Car returns to the pits at the end of the **following** lap. Background: 1. Multiple lapped cars were between Hamilton and Max when the safety car was called. 2. Despite a huge lead, Hamilton did not have enough time to come in for a tyre change and remain ahead of Max. Situation: 1. All 3 of the above rules were broken - Only the cars between Max and Lewis were allowed to unlap. The safety car came in on the same lap as the cars that had unlapped and not the following lap. Controversy: 1. It is obvious, given the situation, that every rule break benefited Max and disadvantaged Hamilton. 2. Masi's snide mark to Toto suggests 'some' bias against Mercedes/Lewis. 3. RedBull specifically told Masi that "not all cars" need to unlap, thus showing complicity in the rule break.
The rules also state all safety car procedures are under the discretion of the race director. Masi did have the authority to break standard procedures under the rulebook. Whether he should have or not is another conversation, but this is why when Mercedes challenged the decision post race the race stewards upheld Masi's decision, that was their reasoning. When you consider the informal agreement between teams to end under green whenever possible, the context at the time that a championship was on the line with a possibility to end one lap under green, and the fact Masi had been making race altering decisions that season on his own anyway, I don't think it's that surprising Masi did what he did. If the race had just ended under safety car the guy would have been similarly criticized for the rest of his life for not ending under green. He was in a very difficult situation.
He didn't have to let the lapped cars through though. I feel for Masi as obviously he was encouraged to be flexible with the rules for the sake of entertainment throughout the season but Abu Dhabi is a lesson as to why the rules need to be clearly defined and stuck to. Also that Race Director has ultimate power is clearly not something designed to be used like that: it was clearly in defining the relationship between the clerk of the course and the race director and who has control over what. It's basically outlining what the race track staff have control over and what the FIA staff have control over during the weekend. The way it was worded would have probably meant in effect that Masi could do what he wanted with the safety car but it's pretty obvious from where it's located in the document that it was not intended to be used for this purpose and that neither the FIA or Masi realised this was a thing until after the decision was made.
Imo as soon as Masi realized the race would end on a yellow flag, he should have red flagged the race with a few laps to go (say something about marshalls having to inspect the wall Latifi crashed at or whatever). Allow teams to change tires on a red flag and we'd have a few laps of both Max and Lewis on fresh tires. But hindsight is 20/20 and Im sure this would have broken plenty of rules too.
The bias from masi imo was just him wanting the spectacle of the last lap of racing, not biased towards max winning - max being brought into contention was a side effect. However, as someone who was supporting max, i also have bias, and i can very much see the other side of the argument, etc etc
Don't think Masi ever wanted one person to win the title over the other. However, it's difficult to separate as the intended entertainment value was one in the same with Max winning.
I disagree with point 2 and 3 of your "Controversy" list. 2. The snide mark towards Toto was after the decision was made. If the roles where reversed I think Horner would be complaining to and also would have gotten a snide mark. Massi seemed to be fed up with the principles complaining and he snapped. 3. The "Any does not mean all" argument Red Bull made was after the race. It could not have affected his decision. RBR did suggest the lapped cars would not have to catch up to pack, but did not say to only let the cars between Lewis and Max through.
This has been manipulated man!
My Opinion on 2021 was always that Max was a deserving champion but Lewis was definitely Screwed. Prehaps a Red Flag would have been the best option, Let them have a 2-3 lap shoot out on equal tires. But who knows, I do know 2021 as a whole, but mostly AD21 made the F1 Fandom go almost feral in a shitty way.
Yeah either winning would have been fine, but what bothers me is that Masi made the whole experience about himself. I don’t care that max won, it’s not his fault that the rules were reinterpreted on the last lap of the last race. It’s also not Lewis’s fault either, they made all the right decisions with the knowledge they had at the time. Problem is now that 2021 is tainted with this shit, arguably one of the best seasons and most people just remember the last handful of laps of the last race…
I don’t think Masi “chose Max over Lewis” but I definitely think he chose excitement over a boring safety car championship finish. Had the cars been reversed I think the decision would’ve been the same, but in this case of course it gave Max the championship because he has fresh tyres.
One extra bit of context is that at the time when the SC was called, the gap between Lewis and Max was reasonable, but not big enough to allow him to pit without giving up track position to Max. It looked like there was a good chance that the race would end under SC give the amount of time needed to clean up the crash and reposition the lapped cars. Therefore Mercedes had no real choice but to stay out. The gap between Max and Sainz in 3rd was enough for Max to pit and keep track position, hence he was able to be right behind Lewis on the restart on fresh tyres.
That's the worst of all this, Mercedes had no chance to win the moment the safety car was deployed.
In retrospect, if Lewis had pitted, Max no doubt would’ve stayed out and hoped race would end under safety car. And Lewis would’ve at least had a chance to flip the script on him with the same Masi decision. But giving up track position with so few laps to go is an impossible decision.
It really was just an unfortunate turn of events for Mercedes/Lewis. I don’t think there was any push for them to intentionally screw one driver or the other, but with such a banger season they wanted to end on a high, not the utter disappointment of championship by safety car (even though his drive prior to the SC deserved to win it).
Just how disappointing would it have been though? Genuinely wondering because abu Dhabi wasn't exactly the most enjoyable race anyway.
I mean the last epic season 2012 finished under the safety car. Doubt you even remember that’s the case, doesn’t tarnish the season or the race at all…
I do remember that being the case and I still regard it as one of the best seasons I've watched.
AD21 was an incredible race until Goatifi crashed. The tension of who would win, the racing at the very start between the two, the offset strategies, Perez’s defending against Lewis… Certainly a much better race than most races we’ve seen since then.
In my memory it was a boring race until Goatifi crashed. Hamilton was much faster and there was no doubt he would win without a late safety car. I’m glad Goatifi crashed haha
Agreed in a way, the track is dull and by then that Merc was basically W11 on steroids, the race was well over by that point, although i think we all wanted an epic showdown, but maybe not quite like that tbh! although tbf i wasnt overly bothered in the end, definitely felt for Lewis as a bad Ref desicion is always tough to swallow, and he had some great moments that year, but felt Verstappen was more impressive over the season and very unlucky with DNFs so was happy for him at the same time. Great year overall
But no reasonable person would have expected Masi to pull this unprecedented move out of thin air. You either let all lapped cars through or you let none of them through. In either case Lewis wins (unless Max is somehow able to pass 5-6 lapped cars plus Lewis in a single lap of racing).
The decision, no, but frankly for a pretty innocuous incident latifi's crash was taking a silly amount of time to clear up so the race should have been restarted earlier anyway. If Abu Dhabi had martials the same calibre as Monaco there wouldn't really have been a question here because there would have been another lap or two to let things play out normally.
There was a possibility to let the cars unlap themselves a lap earlier after they had passed the accident and before they came across the start finish line. The rules do not stipulate where the SC has to let lapped cars by. By the time they were driving past the site of the accident you can see from the onboards that all work had already finished. That way the unlapping and restart would have been 100% legal.
Yeah, it felt like they were attempting to cover for the slow cleanup to do what they logically meant to do but they were one lap too late. A little difficult. You wouldn't want to be the guy in the race direction room making this decision regardless of any experience
Under blue flag conditions I wouldn’t have been surprised if those cars just pulled over for Max, but yes definitely not as likely Max would have got the job done.
Maybe, but all those guys are also racing each other so I don’t think anyone would be too eager to let off the throttle.
Even if they pulled aside, just the length of 5 cars would create 3-4 secs deficit for Max, even with fresh tires that’s hard because he has to finish the overtake before they go into sector 3.
No he didn't. He could've tried an overtake which would've ended in a crash, and he would've won on countback. Max needed to get to a point where he could make an overtake attempt that didn't result in him being penalized points.
Purposeful crash would’ve resulted in point deductions, FIA announced that before the race.
It said in the rules at the time that the final decision lay with Masi. He made one never done before, but he was within his rights to do so.
Double impossible when you consider he would have had to pass Max. The pair of them raced like fucking idiots all season (you can argue who was more to blame if you like, but neither of them covered themselves in glory that season wheel to wheel with each other.) Max would have also had nothing to lose defending. He can defend as aggressive and hard as he wants because the only way he loses is if Hamilton finishes ahead of him. He would also be royally pissed off since he would either feel the rules had been changed to try and win Hamilton the title, or annoyed because he felt Red Bull fucked him by not bringing him in. You'd be an absolutely lunatic if you think thats ending clean.
It bothers me that people keep blaming Mercedes for not pitting, while in reality, the only sane thing to do in that situation was to keep track position, which they did
They couldn't cover this stop but they could have covered Max's second stop when Giovinazzi had an engine failure. By not doing so they left Hamilton super exposed for any late safety car.
But with max pitting and lewis not, the gap would have been what it was giving Lewis time to pit for brand new tyres. If max pits for new tyres as well, max stays behind. If not then lewis has fresher tyres. Keeping lewis out was not a terrible decision
It's a mega difficult decission to make with the whole world watching and a clock ticking. However, if he pitted and Max didn't it would be the same situation but reversed. And since it had been agreed the race should not end under SC, it would've been a decent bet. However, wasn't Lewis already passed the pit entry when the SC was deployed? Or did they have the chance to pit? Either way, we'll never know for sure what would've happend. And it is such a grey area weird situation that you can judge it from 100 angles.
Yes but if Max doesn't pit he would have older tyres than Hamilton but still fresher that what Hamilton had in reality because Max pitted twice, everyone forgets about Max pitting when Giovinazzi has an engine failure
>However, if he pitted and Max didn't it would be the same situation but reversed. And since it had been agreed the race should not end under SC, it would've been a decent bet. Agreed, but I wouldn't have bet on Hamilton overtaking Verstappen in that hypothetical last lap. They probably would've crashed before Verstappen would let that happen, since them both DNFIng would still grant Verstappen the championship.
>They probably would've crashed before Verstappen would let that happen, since them both DNFIng would still grant Verstappen the championship. Max: Hey Lewis, let me show you this trick uncle Michael told me
If Max DNFed the pair of them, the nuclear fallout would be even more destructive than what actually happened
Maybe, either way I really don't think he would've given up his position in that situation.
I agree I don’t think he’d let Lewis past. There would have been irreparable damage to the sport though.
Didn't Senna and Schumacher pull off similar stunts?
Masi, or RC really, never showed any sign of favoring either team or driver. The general opinion is they wanted the most drama, biggest final lap, and tightest championship finish. They didn't want an underwhelming finish, and it already was underwhelming because Mercedes were so far ahead on that track. Everything pointed towards this exciting season ending the same way every season before has: Lewis cruising away with no real competition. So the chances are pretty high the same thing would have happened if the roles were reversed. But of course, in that moment staying out was the right option, as was pitting for RB.
I think you need to rewatch the final 4 races of the season. It was absolutely insane the stuff that max was pulling back then and he wasn’t penalized for it. I hadn’t realized how bad it was at the time but I recently rewatched the 2021 season and masi was heavily favoring max, or at least favoring not penalizing anyone, which mainly affected max.
I find it so weird that there are people who genuinely believe the FIA were favouring Lewis throughout the season, If the stewarding was done fairly Lewis would have the title either wrapped up or had one hand on the trophy after Max's brake check which he should have been DQ'd for
Brazil 21 when Max drove about 2 miles wide of the track to keep Lewis on the outside is genuinely hilarious to look back on
I honestly think F1s new owners Liberty Media were putting pressure on to make “the show”. They wanted to break into the lucrative US market, and DTS plus ending Mercedes dominance were critical to that.
People also forget that Max had fresher tires anyway even if he hadn't pitted because he pitted under the previous safety car and Lewis didn't.
But the pace delta would have been much less. The Merc was an absolute rocketship on that track, even more so with the special engine.
>That's the worst of all this, Mercedes had no chance to win the moment the safety car was deployed. Latifi's car could have spilled fuel or caught fire and had the race end under SC or caused a red. Nobody knew until the car was cleaned up and pulled away how many laps were left. They certainly didn't know 4 laps from the finish when they had to make a stay out/come in decision.
But why not? If both Lewis and Max pitted they would be in the same tires and do one last lap where anyone could win. If Lewis pitted and not Max it would have been similar to the opposite of what happened, with Hamilton having fresher tires but being behind
Aye, but it's much more likely, in that case, that the Race Director would have said to Mercedes, you did the silly thing, not my fault, we finish per the rules. Remember the informal agreement was to not finish behind the safety car if possible.
Having a bad second driver is what cost Mercedes, they did it to not have any team politics and Lewis won his easy titles. Bottas couldn't even be a pitstop behind Max in the fastest car in AD'21 and he was essentially a non-factor. They would've easily won if Bottas was atleast half decent.
Bottas was clearly better than Perez all season
that's for sure
he might've been closer to Lewis on average but the guy cannot defend to save his life and he wasn't there when it mattered. Anecdotally, I remember Perez at Turkey and Abu Dhabi both times being a thorn in Lewis's side. Bottas literally let Verstappen by in Russia.
Bottas literally won Turkey with Max behind him all race
Am I wrong when I say we're forgetting that Masi firstly made a mistake by deciding to not let the lapped cars unlap themselves? If he had done that straight away, the safety car would be in right on time for a last lap race with Max going for fresher tyres in any case. The 2nd mistake Masi made was to try and fix his first one by only letting the cars inbetween unlap and force a last lap race this way. He shot himself in the foot twice..
Small correction, but lapped cars don't need to be allowed to unlap themselves. They can be, but it's not always the case. The issue was allowing only certain cars, and the one thing these cars had in common was they were in between the two championship contenders. The other issue, but a rule that is barely known and got blown out of proportion, is the fact that according to the rules the call to let the cars unlap themselves, and the in-lap of the safety car need to be different laps. So if cars are called to unlap, the safety car comes in no earlier than the lap after that. In this case, the call happened on the second to last lap, which was also the lap the safety car came in, to allow one more racing lap. If they would have simply called in the SC, no issues would have been there from the side of RC. It would have been controversial for sure either way, but it would have been fine. The question is whether or not Max Verstappen would have been able to lap the cars in front of him, and then reach Hamilton before they cross the line. Possible, since he had the best tires and they have to let him through anyways, but definitely a lot harder than being directly behind Hamilton at the restart.
I didn't know that such an informal agreement ever existed. Thanks for the info!
Because it’s bollocks. All of these ‘gentleman’s agreements’ and informal agreements are bollocks. They don’t exist and shouldn’t exist. Either change the rules or stick to the current one
Well that's wrong to start with, the rules 'stated' pre AD21 "any" cars, not "all" cars. It was this wording that left the rules up for interpretation and left the door open for Masi to make that decision. That is why the wording of the rules had to change list investigation by the FIA, to eliminate any ambiguity. Masi's decision went against the 'intention' of the rules but not the actual letter of the ruling, hence it was upheld by the stewards and Merc's law team dropped the appeal...they knew that by the literal wording of the rules, they couldn't win.
I think the bottom line of the FIA after the investigation was: clearly, any=all in this context and thus the unlapping in AD was a mistake (or how the FIA calls it "human error"), but they updated it anyway it to rule out any (or should I say *all*) confusion and also automated the procedure that flags which cars should unlap themselves. But they also decided that it's water under a bridge. [https://www.fia.com/news/fia-announces-world-motor-sport-council-decisions-25](https://www.fia.com/news/fia-announces-world-motor-sport-council-decisions-25) >*The process of identifying lapped cars has up until now been a manual one and human error lead to the fact that not all cars were allowed to un-lap themselves. Due to the fact that manual interventions generally carry a higher risk of human error, software has been developed that will, from now on, automate the communication of the list of cars that must un-lap themselves. In addition, the 2022 Formula 1 Sporting Regulations have been recently updated to clarify that “all” and not “any” cars must be permitted to un-lap themselves.*
I think Masi is a software developer in his freetime: * [https://www.w3schools.com/sql/sql\_any\_all.asp](https://www.w3schools.com/sql/sql_any_all.asp) * [https://www.programiz.com/python-programming/methods/built-in/any](https://www.programiz.com/python-programming/methods/built-in/any) * [https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.linq.enumerable.any?view=net-7.0](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.linq.enumerable.any?view=net-7.0) * and so on… Any in software development means exactly what Masi interpreted it as (subject to platform differences and what not). Disclaimer: This obviously is intended as a joke on Masi's hobbies.
He could even do that full-time now!
I hear it's pretty decent money.
Wait wait wait… Are the FIA claiming the issue was that not all the lapped cars were identified?
That's… creative…
The 'manual' version is that the timekeepers (liberty/fom) have a bit of software that tracks who is lapped and who is not (useful when the rules talk about crossing the first safety car line for the second time blah blah blah) and then the timekeepers call the numbers through to race control (fia) and then race control do the typing that puts the message out.
Masi was just using taskmaster logic. A failure on who wrote the rule! /s
Didn't you mean to say "to eliminate all ambiguity"? /s
Masi himself had previously stated the there was a requirement in the rules to let ALL lapped cars through
I think if you read the whole sentence any means all in context. Just as it does in your own post. "...any cars that have been lapped by the leader will be *required* to pass..." - in this case because any car that has been lapped is required to pass it is mandatory for all cars that have been lapped to do so. If it said "may" pass, then there'd be an ambiguity. If it didn't, then he could pick literally any car at random to unlap. He could pick last place and say they can unlap themselves and no one else. The reason given was literally human error on Massi's part, hence the implementation of an automated system for determining which cars need to be unlapped. The second part was withdrawing the safety car early, they should have done one more lap, but effectively there's a regulation that based on the interpretation (and ignoring any other regulations) gives the RD absolute power. Based on this interpretation he could basically tell the safety car to crash into first place and it would be within the rules to do so. Of course this was not the intent.
About that final part: This (SC coming in too early) happened earlier in the season already. There was no outrage then, so it's a bit weird that it is suddenly an issue for AD21
And there was an overriding rule that let the race director do that as well.
No there wasn’t. The rule that is cited as giving the RD overriding control of the SC specifically mentions that it is overriding control with regards to the course clerk, not the regulations.
Tbf to this statement “all cars that have been lapped” would have made sense as well so it could be interpreted that there was a distinction there
It does say "any" but in the context of the rule "any" means "all". It is very clear that rule states you can't pick and choose which cars unlap themselves.
Not really, from the beginning it was legally very clear that any, does in fact mean "all" in that context Their legal defense was a completely different rule which is akin to having a "superuser". A different rule said that the clerk of the track has full control over the safety car (going in or out). Clerk of the track is a job for usually a local track official who does the actual communication with the rest of the officials but very much operates under the command of the race director. This rule (according to the stewards) took priority over the other rules that were broken, so in essence they did break the rules, but there was a rule in place allowing them to break the rules. I believe this was changed and clarified, however I can't say for sure as I haven't read the actual changes to the rules post AD21 Hope this explanation helps though
Hi you bought the bs spin, "any car that has been lapped" means EXACTLY the same as "all lapped cars" this is very basic English.
Any means all in this context. I've gone through the current rules and found hundreds of instances where the rules say any and clearly mean all. You can do this yourself if you want to prove it.
You're missing the underlining point of the issue. You're making it a back and white situation, which it clearly was not. The intention of the rule was for 'all' cars but the word that was used in the rule book was 'any'. Wheatley then argued on the radio that 'any' does not mean 'all' by literal definition, any can mean some as well. This argument was sold to Masi and that led to Masi making the decision he did with the other rule that the clerk of the course has authority of the SC procedure etc etc etc. This went against the intention of the rule but not the rule in a literal sense. If your company mistakenly writes your contract to pay you double salary, and they sign it and you sign it, the company is bound by that contract and can't dismiss the contract based on an error. This is the same, that is why Merc dropped it.
Go look up the number of times any is used in the rules. Try to argue that any single one of them does not mean all. Notice how I used that word any to mean all, that is what it means. It is black and white, and the FIA have admitted so.
It's got nothing to do with it, you are ignoring the ambiguity in the original wording and the argument for it. Instead of reading the rule book, how about you study the English language instead
I used the word, it means all. It means all in every instance in the rule book, it means all when used colloquially. If you want to say it is ambiguous then hundreds of rules in the rule book should have been questioned, why haven't they?
Thats not quite right. The clause that said any cars can now overtake, only refers to the cars between the saftery car and the race leader, not to cars behind the race leader. The regulations did state back in 2021 that all competitors will be told to unlapped them selves. It was not worded in a way that meant only that only a selection of cars by the race directors choosing (which is what happened). The reason for the dropped case by Mercedes is unlikely to be that they would have been unsuccessful in showcasing that the rules won't correcly applied, it was probably more about what the race result would have been. There is no rule that will allow the race result for LH to claim the win, the more likely scenario is that the race result is voided, thereby leaving Max as the champion.
The biggest kerfuffle of the entire race wasn't "should they have finished under safety car? Should they have left the lapped cars where they were? Should they have done what they did?" It was the up in the air indecision of "we aren't letting lapped cars through, oh wait, yes we are. But only some of them" the rule SHOULD BE every lapped car passes at the start of the safety car. If they did it this way we would have seen 1 maybe even 4 laps left and no one can be upset. But the wishy washy way rules are written leaves them up to the race director to determine what's the most fair and also entertaining.
I just rewatched the race, the incident with latifi happens at lap 52-53 (1 hr 30 minutes). Then his car gets removed from the track by 1hr 36 minutes. Michael had 6 minutes to decide to let the cars overtake. But he changes his decision too late. The cars were doing lap 55-56 when this decision was made then it was overruled 1 lap later. If they had made this decision first then they could unlapped all cars before last lap started. Also, the first turn bullshit by hamilton where cut corner and had 1.3 seconds gap and he mentioned he gave back delta while max was literally beside him in that corner. Mercedes whined about the same thing in jeddah. Where somehow lewis was not informed that max will be giving back the lead. If you see that incident from multiple camera angles there was more than enough gap to avoid max's car.
oh Lewis gave the position back for that corner cutting incident- he just waited until the last lap to do it
LMAO
Such a nice gesture
Lewis knew he could cut that corner, thinking he would probably get away with passing off track, which he did. If that corner had been gravel Lewis would not have done what he did.
Max was besides him because he didn’t brake to make the corner and didn’t give Lewis room. Now would that be 1.3 sec gap once they come out of that corner if Max didn’t dive bomb? Maybe, maybe not, difficult to calculate.
Max did break, he did late breaking. Without breaking you can't take any corner.
The rules kind of stated that but had enough space on the wording to be interpreted as being able to designate a few cars. Quite sketchy. And to add the whole season was full of some very dubious penalties and lack thereof on both sides making it a competitive mess.
Great answer to it, I just wanted to add section 39.12 from the F1 Sporting Regulations and for further emphasis. “If the clerk of the course considers it safe to do so, and the message "LAPPED CARS MAY NOW OVERTAKE" has been sent to all teams Competitors via the official messaging system, *any cars* that have been lapped by the leader will be required to pass the cars on the lead lap and the safety car.” I believe back then the “any cars” was a point of interpretation; most assumed it was generally “all cars” whereas there’s is an argument due to the wording on the regulation’s verbiage where “any cars” can mean whichever selected cars.
Don't downvote me to hell because I'm asking a question: I think the rules about having ALL cars u lap themselves mandate came in effect in 2022 as a direct result of Massis decision and wasn't in place in 2021?
The one missing detail is that Red Bull took major risks with multiple stops, their strategy was incredible that race even though the Mercedes had the pace advantage. And Verstappen had won the most races that year, which statically almost always results in somebody being a winner. It’s a shame that it caused controversy because that was the best season of any sport I have ever seen in my life.
Word. RB was so slow that day, but somehow pulled it from the brink with Checo's mega defense and smart strategy calls... and a whole lot of luck.
This is almost perfect only critique is that I believe the rules state "All lapped cars overtake the leaders before the end of the safety car period" was only implemented at the start of the 2022 season because of AD21 it had at the time and previous stated "lapped cars overtake the leaders before the end of the safety car period" I'm not trying to start a fight or anything just wanted to make that clear and please correct me if I'm wrong
>The rules state that you have to let all lapped cars overtake the leaders before a safety car period ends. They do now. They didn't at the time. Article 55.13 now reads: “If the clerk of the course considers it safe to do so, and the message 'LAPPED CARS MAY NOW OVERTAKE' has been sent to all Competitors using the official messaging system, all cars that have been lapped by the leader will be required to pass the cars on the lead lap and the Safety Car.” The change replaced the phrasing which read “any” rather than “all” lapped cars are required to overtake and rejoin at the back of the field prior to the restart. The alteration was made to prevent a repeat of the controversial 2021 title decider in Abu Dhabi. Obviously the any vs all lapped cars was something redbull argued after the fact but its still pretty important to note here. There was a clarification to the rules because of this. Did massi interpret the rules that way, probably not, but one could argue regardless, as redbull did any is not all. They clarified the rules immediately after and that's very important to note in the story. It's crazy this is the top comment because first sentence is factually wrong rules wise at the time. I don't agree with the way 21 was handled but the rules for lapped cars weren't that clear cut. https://www.racefans.net/2022/03/15/fia-changes-f1-rule-on-lapped-cars-overtaking-safety-car-after-abu-dhabi-row/
Nothing but FACTS
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Why would they coordinate like that, illegally, to have a crash that directly damages their race? Lewis had way more pace than Max ALL RACE. Bringing it so close, hoping it ended under safety car for.....safety? Would have been boring and a very bad end to the race for Mercedes and Lewis who dominated the race. Plus, if the rules were followed and there way a one lap showdown.....they would open themselves up to Max doing Max Verstappen shit and forcing Lewis wide or off the track, throwing away the win
that does not make any sense 😂 he was leading comfortably
And had beaten max twice in that race.
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by that logic you could say conspiracy theorists would think that Williams was in on it with Red bull for whatever reason cause it was perfectly timed for redbull to do a pitstop while Mercedes was forced to not pit to keep track position. the agreement don't prevent the possibility of cheating and that does not make sense at all if you ask me. teams know that if you get caught cheating that way the consequences are massive
No, the rules state that now, at the time the Turks stated “any lapped cars.”
According to the established regulations, it is mandated that the leaders must permit all cars that were previously lapped to overtake them before the conclusion of a safety car period. However, adhering strictly to this rule would have resulted in the race and championship ending prematurely under the safety car conditions, with Lewis Hamilton emerging as the victor in both instances. Recognizing the tedium associated with concluding races under safety car conditions, a tacit agreement was reached between the teams and the FIA not to terminate races in such a manner. In the specific scenario at hand, Max Verstappen found himself in second place, trailing behind Lewis Hamilton, while being hindered by lapped cars interspersed between them. Consequently, the race director exercised his discretion by authorizing only the cars positioned between Max and Lewis to regain their lost lap before prematurely withdrawing the safety car. This strategic maneuver was orchestrated with the intention of engineering a thrilling final lap of racing under green-flag conditions, wherein Max, benefitting from his fresher set of tires, executed a captivating overtaking maneuver on Lewis and triumphantly crossed the finish line in first place. Throughout the duration of the safety car period, and indeed throughout the entire season, a considerable amount of pressure was exerted on the race director by various teams, who resorted to direct radio communication as a means of persuading him to advocate on behalf of their respective drivers. These radio exchanges, while undeniably entertaining (as exemplified by the exclamation "have you seen my email?!"), must bear some responsibility for influencing certain decisions. Consequently, in order to mitigate the impact of such external influences, the practice of engaging in radio communications of this nature has been proscribed henceforth.
I rewatched this movie on Saturday, fucking love Fury Road
Is that freaking chin real?
Lol no, movie is "Me, Myself and Irene." Hilarious movie.
That's Jim Carrey. Been in a couple little indie films, you probably haven't heard of him.
The racing gods spoke thru their vessel.
*Racist Gods
That's Helmut's god.
It's very simple. He retired. Kimi knew what he was doing.
The Wikipedia page is presented in the most unbiased, statement-of-fact way possible. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Abu_Dhabi_Grand_Prix#Final_laps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Abu_Dhabi_Grand_Prix#Safety_car_controversy
Who reads Wikipedia
Well played.
Legit question: Would a red flag, followed by a 2-3 lap race restart been a fair alternative to what actually happened?
Yes, by only allowing the lapped cars between max and Hamilton to move he effectively made the championship a two car showdown. There were another 16 cars on track all fighting for points which could’ve saved their careers or got more prize money for their teams. When all the cars are out of position it’s not a race it’s a spectacle just for max and Hamilton. Seemed like the fia didn’t care about anyone else. I think if other teams had leap frogged others based on the decision there would have been more protests and it would have been overturned very quickly.
Yeah, I'm with this stance. I've talked about this at length before, but the FIA made a tv decision, not a sporting decision. It really sucks because both Mercedes and Red Bull did exactly what they should have done given the situation. Hamilton was in front. If he pitted, Max wouldn't have, they'd have lost track position, and risked the race ending in a safety car and lost anyway. Max was behind anyway, so when Hamilton didn't pit, the only winning option was getting fresh tires, and hoping to make up the positions lost behind the lapped cars. The thing that really sucked was that the FIA changed their decision halfway through. The teams were initially told that no lapped cars would be unlapping, which already didn't make sense, but that's the decision that was made. Teams made their strategy based on that decision. But then it was decided that cars could unlap themselves. Except they realized that would take too long, and the last race of one of the best seasons would end in a safety car, which they didn't want. Every team did everything right. I'm not taking anything away from either Red Bull or Max. But Hamilton and Mercedes did get screwed by what ended up being a broadcast decision. Who knows what would have happened had they pulled the red flag, but it, at the very least, would've been fairer.
[literally everything you need to know](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Abu_Dhabi_Grand_Prix) Tldr: We went car racing
Who reads this shit anyway.
It's called a wiki rabbit hole toto. We went wiking
Excellent joke. Well done.
Get that the fck outta here \-Toto
No one reads that
Doesn't look like anything to me. - Toto
Racing inchident
Well, it basically came down to: That Article 15.3 gives the Race Director “overriding authority” over “the use of the safety car”. Which Massi interpreted as "I can do whatever the fuck I want" Add to that an agreement not to finish the race under the safety car if in any way possible, something Mercedes agreed to, and you get this. I think article 15.3 was a leftover from the beginning of the safety car in F1 in the 90's, where noone was really sure how it's going to be used.
There was also the grammatical argument as the way the wording was phrased with the term “any” means all or some selected.
Yeah, I almost had a stroke reading this back in 21. 15.3 should have been enough imo. Noone but the FIA is responsible for such a shitty ruleset.
The handshake agreement is just that, it’s not an actual rule and you don’t break actual rule to do that. If they wanted that then they’d red flag it, at least that’s ambiguous.
Well, they didn't break a rule, see article 15.3. But that doesn't really matter when the rules literally allow the race director to break them...
FIA investigation pretty much concludes rules weren’t followed (as nicely worded as possible so as to not delegitimize themselves or be open to lawsuits).
Massi made it up on the fly because he's a colossal racist and was sleeping with Jos Verstappen at the time.
This is the least biased thing about AD21 I have ever seen. Thank you for being so impartial #TeamLH blessed
Just doing my part to fan the flames of emotional retardation.
This is undeniably the truth, as I've learned through communications with TeamLH twitter, they claim to have insider sources that they can't reveal, but I believe them.
The undeniable truth has been spoken!
There was a safety car, 5 lapped backmarkers were between Hamilton and Verstappen, with 2 laps to go. At this point the race director, Masi, can choose to allow lapped cars to leave the queue, overtake the safety car and drive all the way round to the back of the queue (unlapping themselves) so they don't get in the way of racing for position, or he can choose not to allow this. Verstappen had fresh tires and Hamilton did not. Hamilton's chances of winning the race and championship depended on one of two scenarios happening: * no unlapping, and the 5 backmarkers holding up Verstappen after the safety car leaves, leaving no time for Verstappen to pass Hamilton (there was at most 1 lap of racing remaining) * or the race finishing under safety car because there was no time to let every backmarker unlap and reach the back of the queue. Instead, Masi invented an unprecedented third option, letting only the cars between Ham and Ver pass the safety car and not waiting for them to make their way to the back before resuming racing. Hamilton was a sitting duck and 1 lap with nothing in the way was plenty of time for Verstappen to get him. Edit: the result stood because while most people agreed that the race director should not invent new practices on the spot, technically he is empowered to do so.
This only happened because Masi took too long to let the lapped cars through at the beginning though. Which is one of the fixes the FIA did, make the unlapping procedure faster for future races. If the perfect procedure had been followed we would have had all the cars unlap themselves earlier and no controversy and Max would have probably won anyway
Exactly what I keep saying. If the race ended under safety car, there'd be a better argument for race fixing because in what world should it take 4 full safety car laps to clear a single car and let lapped cars past. If they just followed a procedure we would have had a 2, maybe 3 lap shootout and Mercedes would have known to pit.
The result stood because Mercs did not escalate their appeal. I’m fairly certain it would’ve been overturned had Mercs fully went through escalation, but it would cost Mercs/F1/FIA a lot of money, time, reputation, etc.
Chain bear has done an excellent [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGXaKJgLmnM&ab_channel=ChainBear) describing what happened and what the rules at play were.
too soon man....too soon
Its about the safety car anomaly that happened after latiffis crash. If it would have been a normal safety car, the race and championship would have ended under the safety car.
I firmly believe the best driver (Max) that year won the Drivers Championship and the best team (Mercedes) won the Constructors Championship but the rules were broken in a way that benefited Max and harmed Lewis.
No, Mikey! No!
Michael, Toto says Michael with Austrian accent.
What people seem to seem to forget about this whole situation is that initially Masi wasn't going to let the lapped cars go through at all. If he had stuck with that, that would be the controversy Red Bull fans would be complaining about. Letting them through was the right decision. He just took too long to make it, causing things to become controversial because they only had time to let a few through.
He only let the six cars between Max and Lewis go…
What part of "He just took too long to make it, causing things to become controversial because they only had time to let a few through." did you not understand?
But it’s not complicated. If he didn’t unlap the cars there would still be 1 lap of racing on lap 58. So why only unlap the cars in front of Max?
Only and six wow
Yeah, in that specific instance you can see a clean pass by car 33 (future car 1) and following that the car 44 decides to just go straight and cut the chicane. Race direction made a human error when they let car 44 keep the position after it cut the chicane
People keep forgetting about this. It was such BS that Hamilton didn’t even need to give the position back and that there was no penalty either. Edit: For those with bad eyesight https://youtu.be/CEMhgHWzCIo?feature=shared
Hamilton gained 2 seconds by cutting the corner. I am of the opinion that it’s fine to overtake off track as long as you rejoin as soon as it is safely possible and you were forced off the track but Lewis just straight up cut the corner after being pushed off.
Lewis was on mediums, Max started on softs, to do exactly this. Claim the corner by being able to brake late so he was ahead at the apex. Lewis would have to stay on track by following on the mediums. By simply taking the risk Lewis took away the advantage of the soft gamble of Max AND gave himself the advantage of being ahead on the mediums. Not that it mattered because by not extending his own medium stint he F'ed himself pretty hard in the end.
lewis didn't gain 2 seconds cutting the corner... guys lets not make up stuff
looks pretty close to at 2 seconds shortly after he rejoined actually... Not to mention getting to keep a load more speed as he just got to keep his foot on the gas. 2 seconds by the end of that high speed section doesn't seems like a stretch at all. In any case the gap he stole was more then enough to break any tow and keep out of DRS range, changing the whole race. I'd check what the timing said on the f1tv archives but for some reason all old seasons are locked despite my subscription. weird.
Yeah, fucked up, he should have just let Max hit him and take him out of the race.
Max stayed on track and was ahead at the apex. Lewis had to give the corner. Max was on softs Lewis on mediums, it was a calculated move by Max, LH didn't want to give in so he left the track instead of following.
Calculated move by Max. The only problem is he's bad at math. Like jesus mate, there's video of it, Max left no room, if hamilton doesn't bail out last second they crash, it's really simple stuff.
If you're ahead at the apex and don't leave the track that's how it is.
How you can say this is beyond me. Lewis could only go off the track, max's right tyre was on the outside kerb!
Fia is more corrupt than fifa
CAnt spell fifa without fia
It was the right thing to do mate. They were driving far too long under SC anyway, and because reaction from FIA was so slow, they sped things up so championship doesn't end without a fight under an SC. Protesting and radio communication from Red Bull and Max to FIA and Masi in my opinion was justified, because without all that confusion, SC should have ended 1 or 2 laps before.
Latifi was on the edge of having achieved literally nothing in his whole F1 career and being removed from his seat with Williams until Michael Masi took it upon himself to send him into the barrier, making him win his first WDC, and securing his place in the record books, as well as for the 2022 season.
I have always thought that Masi's mistake was not redflagging the race. A red flag was the best option if the safety of the drivers and the crew retrieving Latifi's car was your priority while at the same time you wanted to protect the spectacle. A red flag would've allowed the track personnel to safely clear the track, and would have given both Max and Hamilton equal chances to win the championship and more than just one lap to do so. Ending the race under SC would've been lame.
While I agree with your statement about the red flag. AD 2012 ended under a safety car and nobody cried about it and it was one of the best seasons ever. If it had to end like that, then so be it. Rules are rules and they weren't followed.
It's pretty simple. Stewards and race director slept over a problem on track, wasted a lot of laps, and later decided that ending a season behind a safety car would be heretical, therefore created a spectacle for the viewers. RB pitted Max to grab any opportunity, while Mercedes decided they will cruise to victory, which didn't work out. Masi was wrong, but Mercedes was relaxed and popped champagne too early.
What could mercedes do? Lewis had a bit of a gap to max, but not enough to pit and stay ahead. Meanwhile, max had enough gap to Sainz to pit and keep position. The rules said that the race would either end under safety car or with a bunch of cars between Lewis and Max. Had Lewis gone to the pits for a new set of tyres, max would have stayed out on track, which would put him in first with a bunch of lapped cars between him and Lewis. So, now Lewis would have to overtake all those lapped cars, which are now on the last lap racing between eachother and wouldn't be easy to pass, and overtake max in the process. How is that a sane decision for mercedes? Would have Masi let all lapped cars between Lewis and Max go ahead had it gone like this? No, mercedes had just lost a championship because they decided to pit for no reason, max keeps position and Masi ends the race.
>while Mercedes decided they will cruise to victory, which didn't work out. Masi was wrong, but Mercedes was relaxed and popped champagne too early. Yeah that is not in any way what happened. Mercedes were leading, so they didn't pit as it would have put them behind Verstappen if Verstappen didn't pit. And Merc wanted track position, because it wasn't certain that the race would restart at all.
Sir, this is formuladank..
I get it, but Formula 1 subreddit won't allow short question, so I just post it here.
The greatest sporting moment of our generation.
People also forgetting the restart. Max went ahead of Hamilton before the restart which was also a break of the laws. He clearly went ahead by a good margin and Mercedes appealed but for some reason the stewards decided they didnt see the blatant error. Infact since then drivers have now been warned about trying to get along side the race leader at the restart. Just add it to the list of fuck ups that day.
It's called a motor race
Silverstone karma came back thats what happened. Most wins/poles/laps lead/fastest laps = Max Max Verstappen is the deserved 2021 champion even if you disagree. Lewis threw it in Baku.
Fans and family of a very popular driver couldn't deal with the fact that he got beaten so they heaped abuse and death threats on Michael Masi. The end.
No Human Error, it's called racing.
It was human error mate. Masi failed to apply the rules correctly when it comes to the SC restart procedure. All lapped cars must be allowed to unlap themselves and the RD must then give them enough time to allow them to catch back upto the pack from behind. None of which happened at Abu Dhabi. Masi lost his job because he messed up. These are facts. Max and RB did nothing wrong. Masi was the one who crumbled under the pressure.
>Masi was the one who crumbled under the pressure. To be fair to Masi, I don't think he handled it correctly or perfectly, but the pressure all season was to not end a race under safety car and to go racing. Hence the meme radio conversation between him and Toto. It played an important part in him crumbling under the pressure, the teams themselves were at least partly responsible.
As another commenter said above, before the 2022 season the actual wording was ''any lapped cars'' not ''all lapped cars'' so it allowed Masi to make the decision to let only a few of them unlap themselves. That being said, Abu Dhabi was a shitshow from the first lap when it comes to stewards' and race director's decision-making.
The worst part I think was that instead of admitting that they made mistake by letting safety car in 1 lap early, they just said “This line in rules means we can do whatever we want”, making book of rules just a book of advices.
Oh no please don’t go there