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!
On the plus side, if he does retire there's a good chance you'll be watching 2 Dutch World Champions race each other at Zandvoort.
Leclerc has Covid after returning from Abu Dhabi.
Hopefully he makes a quick recovery. With the way omicron is going there'll barely be anybody in the paddock who hasn't had it by the start of next season. Fortunate that relatively few races were missed by anyone during the year.
The Austrian "would very much hope Lewis continues racing" but also suggested Hamilton "will never overcome the pain and the distress that was caused on Sunday".
Total pile of $hite, he knows full well that Lewis is going nowhere and is just trying to milk all he can from it.
Last season Lewis himself was saying no guarantee of returning for 2021 and of course he came back. Don’t think he’s the type to finish on such a close loss, one shy of the record when still close to his peak.
Think Merc just want Masi’s head to roll which may already be in the pipeline for all we know.
Load of crap. Massa kept going after 08, Vettel has kept going, Alonso, Webber,Button etc. Toto is not a well man right now.
Nobody, Lineker included thinks Abu Dhabi was the entire championship...Lineker simply used one race/GP/incident to make a point, albeit a point that was too balck and white....but it was deliberately black and white. He's no fool. Filks reading too much int his deliberate/intentional exaggeration
Not sure how either him or Shearer have any credibility the way they glossed over Sterling's dive in the euros this summer.
He is a double crossing little turd he too k the knee for BLM & then took the same knee to Prince Charles for a knighthood. the sirs & the lords i believe were the original slavers and colonial ists .. He needs to decide which knee is telling the truth !! Ha ha ha i love a woke hypocrite they debunk every movement when its about sugar lumps for themselves. |Champagne socialist living in Monaco so glad they tricked him out of the title he was a pain in the ass with his politics, and his knight hood proves it was all for show.
We have a Let's Talk about Lewis thread for throwing sh1t at Lewis's personal life. This thread is for the Abu Dhabi racing alone.
With all due respect this post is a pile of turd!
You don't see the irony of focusing on one contentious incident in a very black and white way, rather than the game as a whole?
Not really no, that was an incident during a knock out game, not an incident during a league game. If it were the last game of a premiership season then I could see irony.
Yeah I agree that it doesn't sit right and the chosen approach seems odd. I think masi was in a tough position and didn't know what to do, hence all the confusion around un lapping or not. I don't think he was purposefully trying to manipulate the race for a show.
With hindsight, the fairest solution was a red flag. The crash didn't merit a red flag and in that context alone the call was correct. When we then learn about the implications for the championship then that changes. Hard to blame him for that, although all subsequent decisions are on his shoulders
The race director got the track clear and the race ended under green flag as had previously been agreed by everyone.
If Hamilton didn't spend two laps behind Checo on old soft tyres he would have had a chance to pit under either the VSC or SC
As for manipulation, Toto telling Masi over race radio not to use the SC when Gio parked up on the outside of a corner was manipulation. Like the time when Hamilton put Max in the wall and Toto was sending emails to the RD explaining why he thought that was all fine.
The "fairest solution" nonsense needs stop. Masi isn't there to be fair to everyone in these circumstances. His job is to get the track clear and the motor race back under way. Safety cars are the great unknown.
If Latifi didn't bin it, Hamilton coasts to a win. But yeah it was manipulated by Masi against Hamilton. That's the way Hamilton and Merc will want this to be remembered.
Wouldn't agree that it has been manipulated. I do agree that his job is to get the race underway. Standard procedure is always fair and your point stands in that context. Normal safety car procedure in the middle of the race would have been fair without question, safety car to the end would have been fair without question.
He did take a different approach than usual so it appears that it is his job to use his judgement to achieve that. And judgment has to be fair, otherwise you are in the realm of being open to clearly biased decision making. In this case it is not clear that the judgment was fair. I'm a max fan and trying to be as objective as possible
I think fair would have been to give the last lap and a bit as racing, but to not let cars unlap (as per RDs original decision). This seems fair to both Lewis and Max. Gives Max less a chance to take Lewis, and Lewis a fairer chance to hold Max off. Lewis being on well-worn tyres compared to Max on fresh ones…the cars between Lewis and Max are blue flagged!!!
I have a feeling he's going to quit.
Hope Im wrong.
He signed a new 2 year contract for £120m in July. No chance he walks from that. This is all just Mercedes PR bluster.
It's not about "being fair" to anyone.
Each party had the same options to pit or not. It should be about getting racing as soon as possible. Which it was.
I said it as soon as they signed russell. George was a strange sign as he wont want to be a #2 to lewis otherwise.
If he had won on Sunday then I’m certain he’d have done a Rosberg and retired that night! Now he’ll have the weigh up what next years car is going to be like. If he thinks he has a chance at #8 then he stays!
Before they signed Russell I said there was zero chance of Bottas being replaced until Lewis retired, which is why I was shocked when they announced the signing. I didn't forsee Lewis actually retiring in response, but it does make sense now looking back. He was hoping to go out on a high as 8 time world champion, but having been beaten it's a harder decision, and any announcement would of course look like he's running away from a challenge. The fiction Mercedes have constructed around the FIA being against them has been a good way to create an excuse for that.
A lot of the decision will come down to how the 2022 car is progressing in the simulator and what he thinks their prospects are for next year I'd imagine.
He wont???
He finished 15th with 16 points.
I know hes going to the team with the best car, and will improve on 4 points finishes, but hes not going to challenge Hamilton!
In fairness, when he jumped into the car last year, he was soundly beating Bottas despite not even know how to operate the functions on the wheel before the race.
I think Russel will be much more on Hamiltons pace than Bottas ever was.
How do you know that?
How do you know who the best driver in F1 is?
There was one car miles ahead of everybody, now there's two close together at the top and a mile back to everybody else. The best driver could be Mick Schumacher or Giovonazzi or Norris. There's no way to know unless you put them in cars that can compete with each other.
GIOVINAZZI !?!?!?!?!! 😂 😂
Ahh come on - he hasnt even a drive in f1 for next season! So hes hardly the best ...
Norris - ok he COULD be, and Schumacher to a lesser extent .... But Gio !!!????
Russell will not finish in the top 3 next season........ *Save this .
Bottas isnt a very good barometer is he tho? Going on the season he had, never really shown the pace the car had.
Russell , i think, will be similar to Bottas next year..
Time will tell, I guess. I'd have Russel in a different class of driver to Bottas, and with the right car I think he will show us that.
