Formula 1 2021 - General Discussion Thread (Read 1st post rules)

Marshals were still on track clearing the crash. You have to wait until they report All Clear before you decide what to do with the safety car. Plus at that stage you'll have cars 2 laps behind who were lapped by cars 1 lap behind.....It's Just a big mess to be honest and if Carlos could have caught 4th in the championship (he couldn't BTW) by pushing for the win or second you can be sure that Ferrari would be doing what Mercedes-Benz are doing now.

But that was the agreement, they want to renege on it now that it didn't go their way?

They have a precedent for doing this already. Not that that matters to Masi.

That's right. And they added 2 new winners last year in Gasley and Perez. Great to see new winners but it would be even better to have a genuinely competitive grid where lots of drivers could beat all the others. The Ocon, Perez and Gasley wins all needed the big teams to be knocked out for one reason or another.

Yeah I was right in some elements and still totally wrong about the winner as Max won.

Lewis had the race pace, max left it to Lewis to avoid the collision at turn 1. Lewis getting track position wasn't race over though.

What were they supposed to do though? Throw away all precedent of how safety cars work just to ensure Hamilton was allowed to win?

A lot of people seem to have no experience of F1. Check out this video of Alonso's reaction on the radio to the initial announcement that they weren't going to let lapped cars past in order to help out Mercedes. This is a neutral third party who also happens to be arguably the most knowledgeable and highly respected F1 driver on the planet:

He's utterly incredulous at the idea the FIA would fix the race for Mercedes by not following the normal procedures of letting the lapped cars pass and getting the race going again. Fortunately they saw sense and eventually applied the correct rules. Due to being slow to do so there wasn't enough time to let all lapped cars through, but this was the lesser of two evils in the end.

Masi was put in a tough situation - he could submit to Toto's lobbying, ignore normal procedures, and guarantee a Hamilton victory, or he could follow the proper procedures, let them actually race without interference, and face the onslaught of the Mercedes PR machine, the British media and a large cohort of ignorant fans who aren't familiar with the rules and procedures of F1.

"a large cohort of ignorant fans who aren't familiar with the rules and procedures of F1."

Laughable comment, when the rules and procedures are over ridden ad hoc by the race director and the justification of it is - Race Director says so.

This has been spelled out repeatedly in the race thread so there's no point in repeating it here. All rules were followed, the correct procedures were applied as best as possible. All lapped cars would have been let through if they did it a little earlier, which they could have done if they hadn't had to waste so much time ealing with Toto's lobbying and considering throwing the rulebook out the window. Ultimately Mercedes wanted them to apply the correct procedure to 0% of cars, ideally they'd have applied the correct procedure to 100% of the cars, but they ended up applying the correct procedure to 80% of the cars as that was all that there was time to do after dealing with Mercedes lobbying them to fix the race, which is the only reasonable compromise by that point.

To move away from this tiresome debate, it's worth remarking on the amazing reliability this season. Not a single technical issue at any point for either title rival in the entire season. Red Bull would have made it without any engine penalties too if not for what Hamilton did at Silverstone, and Mercedes may have done too if they hadn't chosen to make tactical changes for performance gains.

Ferrari were kings though - not a single component change beyond allocation for any Haas or Alfa driver, and while the works drivers did both have engine changes, this was for a mixture of damage incurred at the hands of Bottas in Hungary and R&D on new components they wanted to do for 2022.

If you had the knowledge of F1 you claim, you'd know the number 1 rule is the Race Director can basically over-ride any rule if he wants, particularly when it comes to the safety car. Its his call when to bring in the safety car, unless you think it should be Toto Wolffs call, which seems to be what you and Wolff would like?

Honestly still can't believe some "fans" wanted this race ended on a safety car.

I mean this is exactly what would, and should have happened only for all the delays while he was dealing with Toto Wolff screaming down the radio at him. Mercedes have really dragged themselves and the sport through the mud with their behaviour at the end of that race.

I don't think Mercedes/Daimler HQ would be happy with Toto's shenanigans. They have enough bad PR with the emissions scandal without Toto dragging the Mercedes brand through the mud.

Couldn't they unlap via the pitlane? Either sending the lapped cars down the pitlane to come out at the back of the pack or sending the main pack down the pitlane to release the back markers. Ideally the should just drop back into correct position as they are circling the track that the marshals aren't on

But I've always felt it takes far too long to get a race going after the track has cleared, particularly if there is no debris on the track to cleared up.

I believe they could use 2 safety cars. One in front as normal, another picking up the rear of the field stopping a few hundred metres short of the accident site. As soon as train passes accident site, allow lapped cars to unlap. As the lapped cars drive around to catch up again, they will come upon the second safety car protecting scene of accident. Once past accident's 2nd safety car can return to pits.