F1 2021 Season

Toys out the pram then.

Maybe Merc should make a championship with only Merc cars Merc engines and Merc sponsored drivers. Then they can never lose.
Perhaps... or maybe they should expect rules are enforced and if not use their full commercial power to react.. lawsuit withdrawing from next year abs taking engines away as well
 
I didn't understand that either. He's contradicting his own argument.
Well a poster claimed earlier it wasn’t communicated to all teams so the rules weren’t broken.
I could guess the majority of F1 fans would have voted against VAR if this is their usual Sunday.
 
Versus the same champ for a decade?(hypetbole) . Sure.

Yeah they will. Good for the sport. No such thing as bad PR

There was an inconsistent call at the start. I doubt they overturn this. I’m not a huge F1 fan but yeah.

Sport or media depends on viewers. Long standing fans seemed like they needed more.

Agree. T20 cricket. Etc. It’s all headed to the “quick consumer”.
Now you're just being deliberately facetious so no real point debating.
 
Great great point by Rosberg that Mercedes were making their decisions based on the rules and so changing the rules is messed up in that way as well
 
2 big decisions by masi that has effected the championship

max not getting a tougher sanction for saudi

not following their own rule book just to make it a spectacle
 
Why do other fans influence who you support? I'm surprised you're a United fan then.

I don't. But I don't support an individual driver anyway. The best period of F1 for me was 2006-2010 when there was a different winner every season.
 
Ending in a SC when Lewis totally dominated the race and had the right tire strategy? Races ending in a SC is racing. That is part of it and the integrity of F1.
Mh, yeah, poor turn of phrase from me. It's just, Max was chasing Lewis, it was unlikely but you never know. To see that taken away, in a race like this, in a season like this, i dunno, it would have felt wrong somehow

Completely undoing the laws of the sport and rewriting it on the last lap of the season to determine a winner is not racing and there's zero integrity.
Yep, 100%
 
How can you not like the season though? Brilliant drama and two superbly talented and driven men going at it and decided by the last lap. What's not to like.

Both had their luck and rules go their way. If you dont see it that way, it's sad.
Regardless which driver won. I hate to see F1 turn into a farce. Its about the integrity of the sport. That's the sad thing.

If you like WWE you will like F1 under the rule of Masi.
 
Getting more traction online than ever before so the sport will certainly grow viewers from it.

It's still way down on what it was back in the 90s and early 2000s though.

I've watched every F1 race since '93, but the sport just doesn't occupy the same place in the public consciousness that it once did.
 
fiat can’t let mercedes protest stand. mercedes won’t take it on the chin. going to be a long break of posturing.
 
Great great point by Rosberg that Mercedes were making their decisions based on the rules and so changing the rules is messed up in that way as well
Absolutely they didn't need to do anything after they said that the cars wouldn't be allowed to pass. You can't then suddenly change that decision minutes later for nothing other than dramatic effect.
 
Surely, since they clearly care a lot about the spectacle, they can easily market a LEWIS v MAX winner takes all with only two of them on the track to settle this once and for all.

Hamilton clearly the Better driver on championship day which makes him a far more deserving winner. He drove spectacularly on those tyres for so long, and max couldn’t get close to him even with brand new ones. To be so far ahead, and so obviously about to win, then to have it taken away like that… it’s just not fair. The stewards should restart the race with the exact time gaps between each racer when the accident happened. You lose a race because another driver didn’t do his job, and crashed? Come on.
 
I'm not denying that decision today, it was horrendous.

But a championship IS NOT one race is it.

I'll repeat again, I'm saying this as a Lewis fan. It is an absolute load of rubbish and the race really should have ended under the safety car, but the winner (Max/Lewis) fully deserves the championship.
How about combining today's decision with the half points awarded in Spa for a non race? Which also benefited Max and Red Bull.
 
I've not said it is Max's fault?
He took Hamilton cleanly because the rules weren't followed. The only reason.


I think we can agree that today's race was not fair, based on the fact rules were broken.

Just answer my question now.

Based on the fact rules were broken (not a bit of luck, not a bit of excellent driving) that absolutely favoured Max at the most crucial time of the season, does that take away any of the merit?
Yeah exactly, it's not Max's fault, so how's he undeserving if there's nothing he could have done there? What do you expect him to do in the last lap, slow down and let Lewis WIN the championship because he was the faster driver on the day?

Yeah, it does takeaway some merit, but that doesn't change the fact that he DESERVES the championship, 1 race IS NOT a championship, it's made up of 20+ races.
 
It's still way down on what it was back in the 90s and early 2000s though.

I've watched every F1 race since '93, but the sport just doesn't occupy the same place in the public consciousness that it once did.
Leaving bbc may have something to do with that in the UK
 
Imagine if Hamilton had won it like that, I think the whole of Holland would have invaded Stevenage (or Monaco).
 
The more I think about it, the more I think if they wanted to go down the “let them race” route, they should have red flagged it.

yep. 5 laps, both on fresh softs. it would have been immense.
 
Imagine a marathon runner 5 minutes ahead gets told to stop with 200 meters to go and it's a sprint finish to decide the winner.
 
It's still way down on what it was back in the 90s and early 2000s though.

I've watched every F1 race since '93, but the sport just doesn't occupy the same place in the public consciousness that it once did.

That's what I'm saying though, events like this put it more in the public consciousness. Right or wrong decision, Twitter is popping off, Reddit going mad, here going crazy...it'll monopolize the papers for a while. Its a long road back to the halcyon days of Eddie Irvine and Ralf Schumacher but events like these are how you get there.

Dunno how snooker gets back into vogue like the 90's though, there's just not the same potential for drama creation there!
 
How about combining today's decision with the half points awarded in Spa for a non race? Which also benefited Max and Red Bull.
Again, not Max's fault. He's not the one making that decision. He deserves the championship there's no arguing that. Whether they should have won is a different question, take away these results and sure, Lewis should be winning.

My argument here is both Max and Lewis have deserved this championship as my original post states.

I'll make myself clear, I absolutely cannot stand Max and my post history in this thread show that. But he's fully deserving of being a champion this year.
 
Leaving bbc may have something to do with that in the UK

Leaving free-to-air TV has definitely done that.

And I'm amazed that it's continued on satellite TV as long as it has. The viewership is paltry.
 
BBC

Article 39.12 of sporting regs says: "If clerk of the course considers it safe to do so, and the message "LAPPED CARS MAY NOW OVERTAKE" has been sent to all teams, any cars that have been lapped by leader will be required to pass the cars on the lead lap and the safety car."

In this case, only Norris, Alonso, Ocon, Leclerc and Vettel were allowed to overtake it - they were the cars between Hamilton and Verstappen. Ricciardo, Stroll and Schumacher were not."
And a follow up from BBC...

'There is also this part of that 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.'
 
With the wave of new fans they getting because of this "entertainment" I'm not sure they want to. At least not enough to change anything that happened today.
New regs coming in next season though, that will be interesting.
If the regs are implemented inconsistently or to favour "drama" or the best "story" then it is contrived. Serious changes needed at the FIA.
 
It's funny watching people just accept what happened there as part of the sport.

Personally I've not been more glued to an F1 race in years. So in that the farce it has become has worked.

But people actually arguing that it's good that rules can be changed on the fly to suit the tv/sponsors/teams and anyone questioning it is just "salt" seems incredibly odd and sellout to me.

Imagine this kind of on the fly rule changing in football. Bad enough when referees make bad calls, but imagine deciding to change the laws to suit what Sky want, or a manager in the earpiece?

F1 has no integrity. And it sucks as the drivers themselves, dicks or not, are incredible.
 
that was a car/tyre issue. Shit happens. Spa was the deciding factor in the end.Massively disappointed

I agree. People that are arguing that the season couldn’t finish under a safety car, im assuming, had no issue with max winning a “race“ that was completely under a safety car for its entirety.
 
That's not Max's fault though is it? He's just the driver and at the end of the day, he overtook Hamilton cleanly (never thought I'd say that).

When Drogba scored an offside goal at Old Trafford that won the title for Chelsea, it wasn't his fault that the linesman didn't apply the rules correctly. At the end of the day, he scored a goal that was given as legal.

Max has driven brilliantly when he was in the faster car, Lewis has done the same. The idea of "whoever wins this race deserves the title" only works if this race wasn't a robbery.
 
It's funny watching people just accept what happened there as part of the sport.

Personally I've not been more glued to an F1 race in years. So in that the farce it has become has worked.

But people actually arguing that it's good that rules can be changed on the fly to suit the tv/sponsors/teams and anyone questioning it is just "salt" seems incredibly odd and sellout to me.

Imagine this kind of on the fly rule changing in football. Bad enough when referees make bad calls, but imagine deciding to change the laws to suit what Sky want, or a manager in the earpiece?

F1 has no integrity. And it sucks as the drivers themselves, dicks or not, are incredible.
This has happened in football with Zidane red card in the final and Clattenburg reffing by narrative in the Chelsea v Spurs game
 
It's funny watching people just accept what happened there as part of the sport.

Personally I've not been more glued to an F1 race in years. So in that the farce it has become has worked.

But people actually arguing that it's good that rules can be changed on the fly to suit the tv/sponsors/teams and anyone questioning it is just "salt" seems incredibly odd and sellout to me.

Imagine this kind of on the fly rule changing in football. Bad enough when referees make bad calls, but imagine deciding to change the laws to suit what Sky want, or a manager in the earpiece?

F1 has no integrity. And it sucks as the drivers themselves, dicks or not, are incredible.
Agree with all of that well said.
 
The more I think about it, the more I think if they wanted to go down the “let them race” route, they should have red flagged it.
Yeah, but that would've been a bit artificial also I think. It was exactly the kind of incident that usually is a full Safety Car but no more. Car crashed not too hard but is stranded on the racing line + debris strewn around. If it had happened 2-3 laps earlier we'd just have to accept that RB gets massively lucky, but what was messed up was the FIA not following prescribed procedure to end the SC.
 
Look, the title isn’t won in one race. So over a season, Max has done amazingly well and is deserving of his title just as Lewis would have been. Let’s get that straight as I think it’s fair.

But, the way this race has ended is just not right. If they wanted to reset and let them race they should have red flagged it. The way it was done wiped out a lead Lewis had worked on for the whole race to build. And it isn’t a strategy call because Lewis couldn’t have pitted. If he had, Max might not have and then what happens if they don’t start racing again? He loses. Turned out to work against them, but as I said all along I just wanted this race to be won on merit. In the end all of Hamilton’s work was undone because of dubious decisions and bad luck.
 
How far back were the other unlapped cars? I saw some were in the pit and almost a minute behind. I’d have hated to see it finish under a safety car. A red flag was probably the best option.