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warspite1 -> RE: New Grand Prix Season Is Almost Upon Us!!! (12/15/2021 3:12:30 AM)
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..and so we come to the end of one of the closest, hardest fought and hugely controversial F1 seasons in many, many years.
As I write Mercedes have yet to decide on whether to pursue their appeal. I suspect they won’t – not because they believe they have a strong case, but because they have a corporate image to protect and they don’t want to be seen as sore losers. But either way, I strongly suspect that the FIA are not going to overturn the result – they are embarrassed enough by what happened in Abu Dhabi, without making it even worse.
So congratulations to Max Verstappen, the 2021 World Champion.
Did he deserve the title? Well yes, he is an immense talent and he drove superbly. His car control and his commitment are phenomenal. It could also be argued that he was also the slightly unluckier of the two title contenders – at least until Abu Dhabi.
That said Max, like those other great champions – Senna and Schumacher – will always polarise opinion because of his overly aggressive and frankly unfair driving style. Verstappen’s approach is quite simple; if I am ahead you can try and overtake, but there will be an accident because I am not giving way. If I am behind then I am coming through, now, what do you want to do? Sadly, the FIA has allowed this to continue.
The FIA is at fault here. Max – like Senna, like Schumacher - will do what he can get away with (witness his dangerous moves to defend when he first arrived in the sport). This season, like never before, the FIA needed to set clear limits to what is and isn’t acceptable. But they failed to do so. At the start of the season Max and Lewis thankfully didn’t crash into each other – but there was a reason. Lewis kept giving way. Barcelona was a case in point. Even Red Bull boss Christian Horner admitted that if Lewis hadn’t conceded, there would have been an aircraft accident.
Lewis’ fair approach could not continue. And it didn’t. At Silverstone, his home race, Lewis decided that he wasn’t going to give way and would drive in the uncompromising way that Max had. Max however, didn’t give way…..
The accident was rightly judged to be largely Lewis’ fault and he got a penalty. There was then a lot of noise and hot air because of the speed of the crash, but this should be disregarded for what it was. When the two reversed roles in Italy, and Max was adjudged the guiltier of the two, there was not so much background noise because it was a low speed accident. However, slow speed or not, it was only thanks to the Halo that Lewis wasn’t killed.
In between times (and regularly thereafter), tempers were boiling over with thinly veiled accusations of cheating being thrown at Red Bull by Mercedes and Mercedes by Red Bull. While I don’t think this behaviour can be held against the FIA – perhaps a firm ‘put up or shut up’ announcement would have been sensible.
But what was very definitely a problem for the FIA and specifically the race director, was the total farce of Spa where the race director sent the field out for two laps behind the safety car. This gave a race win and half points to Max when a race hadn’t even taken place. More controversy.
And so with four races left, assuming no trouble for Max, Lewis needed to win all four essentially. In the first of these – at Sao Paulo – the stewards got it all wrong again and allowed a dubious move by Max to go unpunished. They failed to clarify things at the next race and all the drivers were left bemused by what was going on and that essentially their understanding of what was permissible was being thrown out of the window.
This inability by those in charge to get a grip led to the nonsense of Jeddah. Lewis survived every effort by Max to take him out and somehow, despite everything, the race to be the world champion came down to the last race of the season.
Whatever one thinks of any of the above, the fact was, Max had nothing to do with the controversy that meant Lewis was not crowned world champion. That was entirely courtesy of the race director. Absolutely shocking decisions taken, then untaken and…… Five laps to go, Lewis is in the lead and heading serenely to WDC no.8. Then a safety car comes out. If the race director follows the rule book – and he made quite clear in 2020 what needs to happen – then the laps tick down and Lewis is world champion, there is simply insufficient time to follow the process and get any more racing laps in. But the race director decides to take a different approach so there could be a one lap shoot out – except of course there is no one lap shoot out because Max is on sticky soft tyres and Lewis is on old hard tyres. Lewis is a sitting duck and Max wins the race and the championship. Absolutely shocking.
So what of Sir Lewis Hamilton. Well it’s quite simple. Had Nicolas Latifi not crashed with 5 laps to go (or if the race director had done his job), then we would be hailing Lewis’ outright record of 8 World Championships. And, like Max, he would have thoroughly deserved it. It would have been 9 wins apiece (or 9-8 to Lewis if you discount the nonsense that was Spa). But the racing gods – or at least the race director - decreed otherwise.
What was wonderful to see was that despite the controversy, despite Lewis having just been robbed of the title, Sir Lewis was able to conduct himself like a true champion at the end of the race and congratulated Max both in words and deed.
That was some F1 season. Next year it’s a clean slate with a new formula and new cars. Roll on March 2022.
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