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!
Alonso ... Hero 🤣
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGvtbDl3rcI
It was on a whim, because he decided earlier that no lapped cars would overtake so they could get that one lap at the end, and then halfway around lap 57 decided to go back on that and the cars between Hamilton and Verstappen overtake and bring the SC in.
I have been following & attending GPs for a very long time :)
Not if they allowed them through at the same time as those between Lewis and Max. They were on the back straight then. Still half a lap to go behind the SC.
Masi has completely went on a whim with this and, as I pointed out earlier, everyone is talking about him and what he did rather than what Max did.
No sport should ever be about the officials - across the board. Especially crucial events like this one.
Max won and that should be it, but Masi's incompetence and indecisiveness has ruined it.
And the time Hamilton list meant he was nowhere near able to pit under VSC or SC
Oh I do agree on that arguement. It wouldn't have changed who was between Max and Lewis though, as that poster was alluding to. (Regardless of the race needing another lap to clear them)
Big shout out to Perez.
Best moment of the season his duel with Hamilton. That is until the last lap of course.
Im not sure it was on a whim - apparently in the pre race meeting the drivers were told that they will be looking to finish the race under a green flag if at all possible, so Mercedes would have certainly been aware of this as a possibility.
Their problem was because they didn’t bring Hamilton into pit under the VSC earlier, any safety car meant they were doomed at that point, really.
Will Toto be appearing outside a 4 seasons tomorrow to claim its fixed
They wanted a race to the finish. Letting them all through would have meant it finished under the safety car I think?
After beating Hamilton? The British media wouldn't want that! You'd think Rachel Blackmore would win that
This was my first time watching an F1 race in years. I have to say that the end of the race goes down as one of the most exciting sports events I've witnessed. I was on the edge of my seat, clapping like a maniac as Verstappen pulled it off.
Ultimately events such as today will bring F1 into the minds of an even wider audience, which won't be a bad thing for the sport.
On a sporting level, from my untutored eye it seems that Hamilton could have been penalised for his start, and the race director may have sought to manufacture a one lap race by his decision at the end. In fairness he was under intense pressure from both sides throughout the race, and probably didn't want a safety car conclusion to the season.
Whatever about the intricacies of how we got there, that last lap consumed me like few other sporting events over the past decade.
F1 may be the ultimate winners from today...
Yeah Toto is channeling his inner Trump on this. It's very amusing.
But then why not get the two cars between Sainz and Verstappen out of the way as well?
It broke an hour ago that the stewards rejected the protest and not the fia. That outcome was then appealed to the FIA….
But it appears the daily mail have just confused themselves anyway and are saying the FIA have dismissed the matter when they should be saying the stewards (it’s gone to the FIA now)
No the Stewards rejected the appeal an hour ago, the next step is the FIA.
2 things on this.
1 They can't remove backmarkers in front of Lewis, so would only apply to Max.
2 That's normal rules, that backmarkers are moved out of the way. So whether it's 2, 5 or 18 it's still the same thing. Max would still have nobody in front of him.
Daily Fail late to the party. That broke an hour ago.
Mercedes will make another few dozen I'm sure.
I think he will live to regret that shouting "Michael noooooo" - it will be the soundtrack of this Championship - which is a shame.
Sky have given himself and Horner soapboxes all season which has in my opinion fuelled this kind of carry on.
Reminds me of Trump's "Stop the count!"
Daily Mail saying FIA have now rejected Mercedes’ appeal.
EDIT: it seems they’re confused and are reporting on the “stewards” rejecting both protests and not the appeal to the FIA being dismissed
Maybe it’s the boardroom directing Toto!
Max must be a shoo in for Overseas bbc sports personality of 2021
In fairness I'd love to hear what he says. It would be box office television watching him trying to keep calm and composed and eventually going off on a rant before smashing the microphone off the chair.
Actually in all the shouting about Hamilton, Versappen, Mercedes etc. everyone is forgetting about the real hero today Nicholas Latifi whos driving gave us one of the most exciting races in years.
Legend of a driver
I'm not a fan of the way the season ended.
Max was handed the win by the race director deciding on a whim to do something that has never been done before (to my knowledge). And probably will never be done again. Clearing back markers from in front of one guy only.
No matter who I support, that's not a good thing.
The Mercedes proposal to just ignore the last lap and hand it to Hamilton is actually comical but also very dangerous. They think it's ok to restrospectively shorten a race so that their guy wins. That's indicative of a massive sense of entitlement which probably stems from everything going their way since the start of the hybrid era. Toto and the lawyers at Mercedes can't quite believe this one didn't go their way and so they're massive sense of entitlement and egotism can't accept it.
Yeah it was anything but a foregone conclusion - Perez put up that fight while on much older tyres than Lewis and the Mercedes was significantly faster than the Red Bull (thanks mainly to a fresher engine which people don't mention the way they mention fresher tyres). Mercedes could have pit if they wanted and assuming Max stayed out they'd be in the position to attack, but they thought track position was superior to new tyres.
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