Formula 1 Round 22 Abu Dhabi GP

Hard disagree.

Remove the safety car strategy and then it’s just fastest car wins(your solution probably favours the lead car even more as having everyone else stop and wait means they’ll lose more tire temp)

What was interesting going into last week is that if Hamilton and Verstappen were at all close, Verstappen had one advantage, which was that he could afford contact - which shaped Mercedes race strategy, avoid racing Verstappen if at all possible, which meant maintaining track position and distance, and gambling that there’d be no safety car.

Mercedes could have pitted and given track position to Max and chased him down. Would have meant they were in a much better position should a late safety car happen but Verstappen would have made it difficult to pass and they’d be kicking themselves if they ended in a DNF(but really had that happened they’d be in a much better position to get RB penalised and the result overturned).

All of the decisions made between Mercedes, Red Bull and Masi contributed to that finale was saw.

Having a system to maintain distances between cars would remove that element of strategy and would mean track position is king, and you’re completely safe once you’re out in front, and races wouldn’t be worth watching to the end.

So I can understand people being unhappy with drama being created outside of the teams and drivers, but a lot of these suggestions just serve to remove any enjoyment from racing.

Is it really an element of strategy if it is pot luck wether some dude smashes into a wall? And brings out a safety car?

and the luck of wether that Masi didn’t decide what he decided?

If people want this because it brings excitement then the rest of the sport has issues.

and just your comment about favouring the lead driver, well that’s what being in the lead is , there has got be some incentive.

Of course it is. Had Hamilton decided to go on fresh tires earlier the safety car is largely irrelevant. He chose not to do that to stay away from Max.

Safety cars are known entities that strategies are built around. It doesn’t automatically hand the race to the driver behind you.

If you want to have races without any strategy or incident at all then why don’t we just have teams do a few practice laps and then AWS can tell us who the race winner will be.

Look, I don’t watch F1 so not really up to speed, but watching that race the weekend it’s obvious the sport is broken.

my comment about safety cars was just a quick thought.

the most exciting things going in that race was TOTO crying on the radio like a baby, and whatever else was going on around the track bar the racing itself.

its obvious something needs to be done, but how the race finished was a joke.

They used to do that, but people found aggregate racing too confusing... See Suzuka 1994 for an an example.

Eh its actually what happened. Your making a judgement on 6 laps of Race 22. If your logic applied, Max carries a 12 point lead into Sundays race. So that last lap under green is irrelevant

No I don't. Safety cars are part of the sport. What exactly was a farce, that the race director got the race back underway?

That the race director just decided whatever he wanted?

nobody knew what was happening.

the commentators were shocked when the safety came in when it did.

the other points in the season where you say Hamilton gained an advantage were rules and procedures followed or was discretion applied?

nobody knew if cars were gonna unlap themselves,

nobody knew if the safety car would come in.

why did Masi decide it was only first and second that could fight and why didn’t he let 3rd place close up?

did he make a mockery of the rules in all the other races throughout the year?

a lot of issues there, anyway I don’t have the knowledge of F1 and the season to be really debating it.

i may be wrong I may not be.

just from watching that it was a bit ridiculous that the top tier in motorsport racing can end in a sh*tshow like that.😁

The decision to only clear the cars between max and Lewis wasn't about getting the green flag. That decision was very unusual and it was all about the drama.

I'm happy with the outcome as I was supporting Max, but I think you need to acknowledge that the decision to only clear the cars between max and Lewis was all about showbiz. If it was all about getting the race underway and finishing under green flag, then not clearing any cars would have been simpler and faster.

So there are no rules then basically?

whatever the race director says is what happens.

it was a sh*tshow relying on pitlane drama , Toto crying and the drama of not knowing what the race director is gonna do to make it exciting.

anything bar the racing itself.

It was a combination of serendipitous crash and the need for safety car, manufactured drama AND racing. I don't think it was about "anything bar the racing itself".

There are rules and procedures. It turns out the race director can override the rules if they want to. I certainly didn't know that and I think most others didn't know that either. It almost never comes up. But it came up in this instance and it resulted in the most dramatic finish to the season finale in decades

That’s a bit of a stretch ,

“sporting moments of all time”

maybe

“manufactured sporting moments of all time”

Well the safety car would have been an intervention within the rules, I just can’t get my head around the race director making stuff up.

maybe they will learn something from it .

Overall it's Toto's fault. He could have told bottas at the restart to park the car in the middle of the track. Safety car cannot end, Lewis is champion. Multi 21 ...

What if Bottas was to stop the car cause of a crippling migraine and he couldnt go on?

Surely there’s nothing that could be done in that case