Championship showdown this weekend. Will Lewis win his eight title or will Max win his first? All will be revealed on Sunday.
TV Times:
Qualifying Live: 1PM. (Sky Sports)
Race Live: 1PM. (Sky Sports and Channel 4)
Bring! It! On!
Has anyone ever read the sporting regulations, they're intentionally complex. Wouldn't surprise me if there's a clause in there somewhere that will allow race directors discretion
It did seem odd how very close Max was just before they took off..
Didn't apply the rules properly in the first lap, or in other races either this season where bad calls were made that gave various drivers an advantage that they shouldn't have got. Whoever won the race today I'd be of same view. The referee's decision should be final in these matters,.
If you end up in a situation where legal challenges over referee decisions after races become the norm, it will only be negative for the sport.
Can you imagine if in football an offside goal was scored or someone who should have been sent off scored a goal, a team lodged a legal challenge and tried to reverse the result?
im delighted he didnt...
So why were only 5 cars unlapped?? Why not all of them? Its all or none.
The issue isn't that the lapped cars were allowed to unlap, its that ONLY the ones impacting max, that Lewis had to pass, were told to.
That is not in the rules
Hamilton didn't even have the option to ''accidentally '' take Max out when he over took him, as he'd still hand it to him on a plate. He had to be honest, and race.
It was quite funny on Sky pre-race earlier. Rosberg was asking Horner about pressure and how he feels and how he deals with it.
One comment from Rosberg was along the lines of 'do you struggle to sleep or get snappy with your wife?'
Horner was like do you know my wife.
Rosberg is brilliant in my opinion, Sky need him on as much as he can next season, he comes across to me as a neutral who is not afraid to speak his mind, call out opinions or upset people.
I actually think this is what Mercedes will be told. The spirit of the law is to allow safe racing, and Masi chose to clear the space between 2 cars to allow the last race to end by racing while maintaining safety.
The communication of this, like a lot of the decisions, was poor though.
If Merc appeal the result then Max still wins it. If they are appealing it with the goal of having the race finish one lap earlier then they can. But I really dont see them changing it now. Imagine the unholy crap show that would be.
Since Mercedes are saying that the decisions of the race director can be over-ruled after the race, hopefully Red Bull will now appeal every single decision all season long which didn't go their way that appeared to be against the rulebook.
If Mercedes win this appeal then it will set a dangerous president, to use a football analogy, that the referees decision can be over-turned after the match has finished. You don't see matches being replayed in any sport if the referee/umpire made a mistake, so why in F1?
Mercedes have to be careful here too. Their reputation outside the UK and Germany has took a massive dive in recent months, especially with the dirty money they have recently taken. If they resort to this kind of game then everyone else will be even more against them.
I think so but there two hopes of that happening.
Exactly this. The standard procedure is that lapped cars can overtake, Toto wanted them to throw that out the window to give a buffer but they just did what was standard. It was unusual circumstances being late in the race and all cars didn’t come through quick enough (which they would have had time to do if not for the call being made so late due to Toto whinging to Masi on the radio) but it would have had no impact on the outcome.
Latifi’s crash meant a safety car was inevitable. Red Bull then made the better strategy call. The FIA considered throwing all precedent out the window just because Toto demanded it but ultimately good sense prevailed and procedures were followed as best as possible, then Max pulled off a brilliant overtake to earn the world championship on the track.
I saw him get very close but I don’t think he passed him. If this leads to some clearing up of some the rules then maybe there is some good to come from a messy end to the season.
Lol
Sporting regulations are all about the "spirit" of racing. Getting lapped cars out of the way is part of that. Can easily argue the ones that weren't allowed weren't disadvantaged sine they wouldn't have caught the pack before the restart anyway.
As I said the only problem with the decision is that it went against a previous decision which shouldn't have been made.
If that's for the weaving on the back straight, then they have a point but I'd imagine he'd only get a reprimand and a fine. No way could you strip a title for that.
If they stuck to their original decision Max had a good shot at the win despite been out raced by Hamilton. He got the new tyres and gained 7 or 8 seconds due to the safety car. The slower cars would have been out of the way fairly quickly and would have been within 5 seconds of Hamilton. No one would be complaining about this as that's the way it rolls sometimes and it would have been a genuine finish regardless of who won.
Masi made up rules here.
Its not a case of a subjective decision going against you, the race director clearly, unambiguously, did not follow the rules. He made up stuff and shafted one of the teams.
Would you be OK if Masi said 5 second penalty for verstappen for pitting under safety car? Race director can do whatever he wants?
Why do you think Christian Horner was always telling Max to ZIG A ZIGGA in front of Lewis 😂😂
They are claiming Max overtook Hamilton under the safety car I think. He can alongside him alright but didn't overtake him.
Disappointingly the only winners at the end will be lawyers.
Mercedes have appealed the driving of Max Verstappen as well.
All this talk of clauses and the protest. Are they hoping the FIA to DQ themselves?
There is interpreting racing incidents within the rules..
..and there is a race director doing something that is blatantly not following the rules at all.
I'm pretty sure the rule states that all the lapped cars are to overtake and the safety car them comes in on the following lap.
Neither thing happened there
Some cars unlapped and safety car came in same lap
Mercedes lodging an appeal will not go down well with anyone. Take it on the chin and move on.
You'd swear George was a Mercedes driver.
You could put asterisks beside a lot of world championships down the years. I'm delighted with the results but there does seem to be a little bit of quick manipulation from race control to manufacture the last lap shoot out. Just the 4 drivers between Lewis and Max. That's all about the show, nobody can be in doubt about that.
Most important of all Vettel won the overtaking championship! 😀
https://streamable.com/mqhp3z
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