The 2021 F1 Season.

[matt j]

Mercedes flew barrister Paul Harris, QC, over to Abu Dhabi in anticipation of a controversial incident which could have determined the outcome of the Formula One title title. very sporting of them

On the evidence of what we saw, seems like a sound move!

 

[Tony L]

Mercedes flew barrister Paul Harris, QC, over to Abu Dhabi in anticipation of a controversial incident which could have determined the outcome of the Formula One title title. very sporting of them

Very sensible of them IMO. I’m really not tribal, I was happy for the best driver/team to win today, but I really don’t think we got to see that. The rules are the rules. They have to be. They are fully documented in order to be as unambiguous and easy to interpret as possible. It is clear they were not followed at the end of this race and at other times in this season. That is 100% on the race director. I don’t think the situation can be reversed at this point, but the result is obviously tainted and the race director’s position untenable.

 

[Bob McC]

Barristers!
Pathetic.

 

[flutteringwow]

Adding on to the rules extract I posted earlier, (@Bob McC says the rules were wrong that were cut and pasted direct from the FIA) there is also this extension to the article

"Unless clerk of the course considers the presence of the safety car is still necessary, once the last lapped car has passed the leader the safety car will return to the pits at the end of the following lap."

There was no lap in between.

So it quite understandable why a team would involve a lawyer when there is such a punitive abuse of power by an official which directly strips them of their earned position.

 

[Curtis]

I think the rules must be general or rules of thumb going by this year.

 

[Cereal Killer]

The whole thing is disgrace and has made F1 nothing but a complete joke, its now the WWF of motorsport

 

[flutteringwow]

I think the rules must be general or rules of thumb going by this year.

I mean, Max was clearly more than 0.2mm ahead of Lewis at one point in the restart...0.2mm used to matter to the FIA!

 

[matt j]

Twitter is rotting my brain, I need to bin it off but it's like a car crash that you can't turn away from.

 

[Rodrat]

The only fair outcome would be to share the title if either of the Mercedes challenges are proven. Not a great outcome but then no other

 

[Ellenor]

imagine Merc pulling out of the “sport”. That would drop F1 in it. I wonder how much leverage they have.

 

[tiggers]

The only fair outcome would be to share the title if either of the Mercedes challenges are proven. Not a great outcome but then no other

That’s not a bad idea!

 

[Tantris]

I'd be very surprised if the result was overturned in favour of Lewis this evening, as that would also entail, of necessity, the resignation of several FIA officials.

Mercedes' options will then be to sue the FIA, and / or seek an injunction on the result of the season. On the face of it, they would seem to have a strong case, but RB would also defend their position strongly. However, if it did get to this point, and the same FIA officials are in place at the start of next season, it will be interesting to see how Mercedes proceed at that time. This could drag on for some time. A shame, as it could have been avoided by better race control.

 

[IanW]

fair enough, but they would save fuel do the lower speed behind the safety car,

They might be able to save a lap's worth of fuel with a long safety car run.

These cars are optimised to be most efficient at maximum acceleration and so running a bit slower does not save that much fuel.

 

[Curtis]

I assume shuffling the pack so the cars at the back of the race are no longer at the front behind the safety car.

That is not the definition of un lapping.
It would require all the people who have been lapped to overtake the leader & the safety car and rejoin the pack surely?

 

[kenniGT]

Whatever happens F1 is a joke.

 

[clivem2]

Joint WDC is one way forward

 

[Heckyman]

Shame Lewis just couldn't hold Max off on the final lap. Watching the replay he appeared to go slightly wide which opened a small gap which Max jumped at brilliantly.

 

[tiggers]

The more I think about this and recent other behaviour from Masi and sometimes the stewards the more it seem the rules are being bent to give us a show rather than pure racing. If the rules had been applied properly today the race would have finished behind the safety car and Lewis would be WC … again! For the sport’ s worldwide exposure today’s event are gold dust however, so it makes you wonder if Masi has been given that type of remit from Liberty Media! This will be talked about all winter now… what better for the money men?

 

[monstrous lie]

Should’ve just run the safety car till the end. There was no way Max was winning that until the crash. That was the fairest thing they could have done and they wouldn’t be stuck in a shit storm now if they had

That a bit like saying " It's not fair, Driver X would have won if it hadn't started raining".
The teams need to be able to cope with anything that the race throws at them, whether it is weather, crashes, adverse stewards' decisions, or whatever. RBR have consistently shown themselves to be better at doing that than Mercedes. They took some difficult gambles; some haven't paid off, but this one did.

It's tough on Lewis, certainly, but I'm sure he wouldn't have enjoyed knowing that he'd finished-up as champion solely as a result of punting his opponent out at Copse Corner in the season's least well executed manoeuvre (which would have been the natural - and arithmetically accurate - conclusion to draw).
ML

 

[tiggers]

Barristers!
Pathetic.

I don't know, I quite fancy a coffee!