Formula 1 Round 22 Abu Dhabi GP

With all the talk about rules the last day or two it's interesting to see that some people actually don't give a hoot about the actual rules when it doesn't benefit their point of view.

Yeah Max was happy to race and Raikkonen also wanted to race and said he’s raced in much worse conditions many times. Most drivers agreed that grip was fine and were just concerned about visibility, while many just didn’t comment.

Mercedes were the ones that lobbied hardest to have the race abandoned. I was surprised on the Saturday when they said that they were going with a dry set up into parc ferme despite the weather forecast - it’s clear their plan was to dominate if the rain didn’t come and to lobby to have the race cancelled if it did.

What should have happened is that they should have just stayed out behind the safety car long term like they have many times before - this would give a chance for a dry line to form and would also have allowed them to start racing immediately during lulls in the rain - because there were periods when it lightened, just not long enough for the whole 15 minute warning process when everyone is in the pits. If there had been a full race I’d say it was 90% chance that Max gained more points over Lewis than he did for the half race given that Mercedes gambled on a dry setup.

Ultimately the title was decided by a greater margin than Max scored over Lewis in Spa anyway so the race was irrelevant to the championship in the end, though it was huge for Williams and Russell.

Bottas is a rubbish driver, he’s just been a doormat for Lewis to walk all over.

Does anyone know why Perez was retired during the safety car?

He didn't seem to have an answer when he was asked in the interview after the race and seemed pretty surprised when he was told to retire at the time

Agree with your points. F1 is a sort of bottom up organisation or used to be in that the teams like to agree things. I think that is the basis of the Concorde agreement, unanimous decisions, etc. There's maybe too much democracy in it. As for improving the rules, there needs to be a clearing up of them. They are contradictory in parts. Was reading today that Hamilton was able to go off the track numerous times in one race before being warned about gaining an advantage. When Verstappen passed him at one point and went off the track, he was ordered to surrender the position. When Hamilton goes off and retains the lead in Abu Dhabi nothing is said. So if its ok for Hamilton to do it, why not everyone?

As for the last part its crazy that a frontrunner like Verstappen would end up behind a load of backmarkers under a safety car. He should be allowed pass them to regain his position in a controlled way, they drop back or else they unlap themselves.

It’s the right thing to do, in fairness.

The hypocrisy is breathtaking, the same lad said that Hamilton shunting Verstappen off the track wasn’t intentional. Such laughable nonsense.

I heard that telemetry showed a small oil leak, he most probably could have made it to the end but the team didn’t want to risk him breaking down and prolonging the safety car.

Totally agree with this, The back markers should have been allowed un-lap from the first/second SC lap. There had 70/80 % of the track distance to do this safely and the delay to allow this (Why?) meant they could only partially complete it then.

The video a few pages back with Alonso clearly demonstrates this and they did not want to be between Max and Lewis and though they should be un-lapping much sooner.

I also think in future it maybe better to leave the back markers fall back to the back of the pack instead, as this could be done a lot quicker? i.e. they do not need to try to speed around to re catch the rear.

Done grudgingly!

These last few pages would make even Toto blush at the straw clutching.

Lads do you see this yoke?

Lewis Hamilton's name has been etched on it 7 times, Micheal Schumachers name also 7 times there and in the next few days, if it hasn't been done already Max Verstappen's name is getting engraved on it for the first time and there is not a single thing any member of Boards.ie can do to change that.

I would imagine it’s the board of Merc, who are under enough pressure as it is.

they also have won the constructors, 8th in a row as well. So I doubt it Lewis who has had any kind of day in it.