F1 2022 thread - see post 1 for rules

Absolutely this. For all the skullduggery that went on, Toto was up to his neck in it. His comments today about never wanting to speak to Masi again I thought were poor. I always thought Toto was a shrewd operator with how he ran that team, but it seems he's not good in the face of adversity, really gone down in my opinion last season.

I actually feel F1 got so toxic over the last few seasons. Ive said it on here before, but so many fans now have that partisan football type attitude now where my guy = good and your guy = bad. I wonder if it's down to Drive to Survive and how they have invented drama and rivalries. It's bound to ramp up again next week with that release too.

On that note, haven't seen this posted here but FLoz has a new season review out and honestly his videos are better put together than DTS where he tells the stories of each season with video clips. He did a great one on the silver war between Hamilton and Rosberg, amongst others. Just started this now for my Friday evening viewing!

https://youtu.be/uH3KPDA1jQ4

Still rumours but can't see Fittipaldi in as he hasn't convinced anywhere.

Rumour is that Ferrari wants giovanazzi in, Alpine might want to give gp2 champ piastri experience.

Had to be done. As a driver he's no real loss to the sport and team in any case. The loss of the sponsorship could be a problem tho.

I think it would be amazing to see the other teams do a whip around to keep HAAS afloat until they get a new main sponsor, if they need funding.

Not sure how that would work legally but I think it would be great support from teams, let's be honest it's not like the other teams are keeping a genuine contender in contention

Pedro Diniz 😉

I kind of feel sorry for Mazepin losing his seat but it was inevitable. Reports are that Fittipaldi is to get the seat but I think Gio would be a better option especially how Haas basically wrote off last season because they were focused on the 2022 season

Absolutely no point going over it. The history will remember it as the time Hamilton was 15seconds clear and coasting to the race ans championship win until an extraordinary set of decisions led to Max winning the race and the championship

Yeah but all the focus is on the RB/Masi conversations. Nobody is questioning Toto on his demanding no SC and why that's acceptable.

The whole narrative from Sky is Lewis was robbed, and they are giving Merc all the angles to discredit Max

Because the problem was not with RBR (Jonathan Wheatley in this case) making a suggestion to race control for how to handle the lapped cars and the safety car restart in a way that massively benefitted Max over all the other drivers, the problem was with Masi following that suggestion without any consideration of whether it was the right or fair thing to do, and then putting Toto's objections down with a sarcastic comment repeating Wheatley's own words about a motor race was also very foolish. I can only presume Masi did not use the safety car earlier in the race because he didn't think it was necessary, I don't think he would let Toto sway him over a matter of safety.

Its not just Sky and Toto who think that Masi shafted Hamilton and Mercedes, it seems to be quite a widely held view. This quote from Helmut Marko - "If Masi had everything they are going to enter now at his disposal, it would have been easier for him to decide, a video referee and an advisor by his side." - would suggest even he doesn't think Masi got it right.

Over the course of the year, there were several decisions that were debateable.

Even in the last race, Hamilton benefited from staying in front.

While you don't win a race in the first corner, but can lose it. You are not winning a championship in the last three laps. There were 1000s before.

How would people feel about the FIA bringing in a weighted penalty system, so that any infringement that would normally cost a team like Williams a one place grid penalty would cost Mercedes-Benz 3 places, a 10 second penalty for Bottas would be a 30 second penalty for Hamilton etc.

Time gaps from the last session. Basically it's a farce that Lewis Hamilton can win a Grand Prix after a 24 place penalty while any other team on the grid would struggle to get back into the lower point scoring position. He needs to be kept to a stricter standard and be taken down harshly if they put a toe out of line.

I don't agree with the idea of weighted penalties at all. Bigger penalties for everyone is the way to go. The 5-10s penalties are meaningless if you have one or two very dominant teams. Hopefully the pack will have closed so this conversation becomes irrelevant but they used to give much harsher penalties in the past that actually meant something. Hamilton in Spa 2008 springs to mind. 25s penalty that dropped him from 1st to 3rd. Grosjean got a race ban after Spa 2012.