Formula 1 Round 22 Abu Dhabi GP

I think we all look forward to the first safety car next year when we have a few cars lapped. I expect they'll rewrite the rules before then but lets hope not and Masi is in charge and see what he decides to do.

If the teams had agreed in advance to finish under a green flag if at all possible, then shouldn't Mercedes have expected that the safety car would be cleared and at least one lap of racing?

Yep, track position trumps fresher tyres when you only need to hold it for one or two laps. Perez showed it’s doable, and should be even more doable with a Mercedes engine in your car.

I get the impression whichever way Mercedes went Verstappen was going to win, either by holding on with older tyres or overtaking with newer ones - he showed on lap 1 that he’s more than capable of out racing Lewis who had to resort to taking a shortcut.

This thread is like this 😂

Reminds me a bit of the Leinster final between Louth and Meath a few years back.

You can't throw the ball into the net yet that's what Joe Sheridan done. Referee allowed the goal end of.

Now Louth huffed and puffed out of them that they should of had a replay or been awarded the title.

What they should have been talking about is how in injury time, when they had possession of the ball, did they give Meath the chance.

They weren't good enough. Dublin or an Ulster team, a point up in injury time would have just kept possession.

Similar, Hamilton wasn't good enough. He wasn't good enough to stay ahead on the last lap END OF

Are you suggesting Perez is a better driver then Hamilton because he did something to Lewis earlier in the race that Lewis didn't do to Max on the last lap?

Mercedes made the right call for the safety car, but the wrong (or conservative) call to immediately cover Max during the first window, and also to not pit during the VSC. They had a clear pace advantage and a more durable tyre, but chose to pit early to preserve track position.

And it's not like a late safety car was out or the question -- the last race of a gruellling season with a lot of parts at end-of-life, and a fair few tyre failures this season.

Was Max’s overtake manoeuvre on final lap a DRS move?

No it wasn't in a DRS zone.

There's an online petition doing the rounds to have the result over turned.

I said by the time the field passed the Marshalls were off track - you then countered this with an image before the field had fully passed - you know full well that within 3 seconds of the frame you took all those marshalls were behind the barrier and well outside of the firing line - if lapped cars were allowed to go after they passed this spot the marshalls would certainly have comfortably been long gone by the time they got around a lap later.

And, as I mentioned, when the actual blockage is cleared and there's nothing on the racing line, it is perfectly normal for cars to go at VSC speeds, as happens on many occasions. This is why people like Vettel and Alonso who know what they're talking about were so confused and incredulous on their radio at normal procedure not being followed.

Bourdais holds a long standing grudge against Christian Horner from when he was sacked by Red Bull so there's no surprise there. I wonder since he was so appalled by Perez having the audacity to defend in racing conditions, how he felt about Bottas deliberately slowing down behind the safety car to delay Verstappen and allow Hamilton a free stop in the previous race - something that was, unlike what Perez did, completely against the rules.