New regulations new season....
Can redbull keep up the pace
Both teams tried to influence the race to their own advantage, Toto didn't want the SC when Giovanazi was going slow so he is equally as guilty in influencing the race at that time.
If Sky are doing anything, it is just to muster up numbers for the coming year. They can try and undermine RB and Max all they want but to say there is a conspiracy? After 8 years of dominance and only now the FIA and RB are in cahoots? Come off it, lads.
It is good press for the coming year. That is all.
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
Toto was only "professional" and "decent" when things were going his way. The second anything didn't go exactly the way he wants he becomes a spoilt petulant child.
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.
Ande he is gone
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'd be surprised if it isnt Gio, or does Fittipaldi have a ready made title sponsor attached to replace Uralkali.
Who will be the likely replacement? Will they just go with Fittipaldi given how close to the start of the season?
Ah, this stuff is overdone. The FIA made mistakes and Mercedes and Hamilton were shafted. The mistake decided the championship and they're very sour about it. I think that's fair enough. Toto didn't cover himself in glory and Hamilton thought discretion was the better part of valour and he was right.
The scale and the consequences of the mistake aren't trivial. Its normal to expect them to be very cross. Once the new season starts I don't expect Toto to keep going on about it unless journalists keep bringing it up.
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
Yeahbi was thinking the same myself. Having seen so much charity and cooperation over the Ukrainian situation, I would like to see it extend to cover the loss of Russian money for Haas. That's not really how F1 works.
Pedro Diniz 😉
If Orlen and Kubica could be prised away from Sauber then Haas would have a sponsor and a driver who already has some 2022 car milage done.
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
They were not shafted. Thats utter nonsense.
Was Max/RB shafted when Toto was ordering Masi not to bring out a Safety Car ?
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
Steiner seems very confident that Pietro can jump into the car without many problems, they're already backmarkers so what have they got to lose?
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
Don't think Pietro brings money. Would bet on a Andretti engagement sooner than later.
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.
When JW was onto Masi, Masi replied "just give us a moment until we clear the accident" or words to that effect. So he had, IMO already considered various options while the Latifi car was being cleared.
If its possible Masi was swayed by that suggestion then you have to accept he was swayed by Toto regarding the SC?
Both teams made suggestions which the RD implemented. However the focus is on the one which benefitted Max, not the one which benefitted Hamiltion even though it was what Merc/Toto demanded. This is a very deliberate attempt by Sky to discredit Max and his championship in every way possible.
Sky's entire focus is the Merc viewpoint.
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.
Yeah I think the first corner decision in Hamilton's favour shows that it's not a case of every decision going against Hamilton.
But even after the 1000s of laps, it ultimately did come down to the last few laps. Masi's decision would decide the outcome of the championship. There's no way around that. Masi's decisions would either mean the bloke who had sped away to build a 15 second lead would win, or the other bloke would win. And he went off script regarding the back markers unlapping themselves.
History will remember is as an extraordinary set of decisions and the race director lost his job over it.
There were many controversial decisions made over the 2021 season, I would argue that on balance more favoured Hamilton / Mercedes than Verstappen / Redbull. I find it amusing that Hamilton fans only want the decisions that suited Max to be revisited. Especially when in the very same race Hamilton did not have to give the place back when he illegally passed Verstappen by leaving and rejoining the track.
And rejoined way up the road. Not only did Hamilton fail to lose a position by going off track he also gained an huge advantage by rejoining seconds ahead of Max leaving no chance at getting Drs and then pulled away.
That was every bit a championship decider all on its own and it would have been a shame had lewis then driven it to the end in the lead.
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.
Based on what criteria?
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.
The reason Hamilton was able to do that was because he had a brand new ICE that Merc had seemingly been developing over a few races with Bottas as Guinea pig. I would like to see actual penalties for teams going over the parts limits.
If the FIA rule that you should be able to get through the season on 3 engines then first penalty should be 10 places, second 20 and championship points deductions for any engine required after that - if you require that many engines then something is fundamentally wrong with your design and you shouldn’t be able to spend your way out of it.
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.
