F1 2021 Season

I wold expect nothing else, Horner would have done the same if Lewis had won.
The picture is classic Toto, but he was not going to be smiling was he.

We don't know when that photo was taken. Probably a stock photo.
I do think that this is the most sensible outcome i e. making the best out of a bad job.
Most serious people understand what has happened and it is now time to put all of that behind us and move on to 2022.
My main hope is that Masi gets a very severe bollicking from the FIA and the rules are tightened up to prevent any further manipulating of a race outcome.
 
Well I don't think it was ever going to CAS, but going to appeal in the FIA courts would mean they would be forced to explain the dirty laundry in public. You have to have an appeal result and a detailed explanation.

With the statement from the FIA last night, it looks they admit the situation was not perfect and are going to explain themselves anyway. So I guess in hindsight, Mercedes no longer need to appeal. Still it would have been nice to see the FIA take a side on this in legal black and white, about whether they support race fixing for TV or not.

Whatever.
 
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Yeah I'm really disappointed with Mercedes about this - I know Lewis was pushing not to drag this out, but frankly the fans deserve a lot better, and need assurance that it's worth tuning in to the races, rather than just catching the last lap of the last race to see who Masi has decided is gonna win.
 
Yes boys come on! I bet Lewis pressured Mercedes not to appeal. He's been a class act since straight after the race. Max didn't deserve the WDC to be taken from him. Lewis deserved better as well during the race so big respect to him. His fans could learn from him.
Are you an infant?
 
Yes boys come on! I bet Lewis pressured Mercedes not to appeal. He's been a class act since straight after the race. Max didn't deserve the WDC to be taken from him. Lewis deserved better as well during the race so big respect to him. His fans could learn from him.

:lol: If Lewis didn’t come out and act classy all hell would have broke loose. Being classy is literally the only thing he could have done to not look like a sore loser (which he wouldn’t have been if he did object).
 
Nah I'm just saying this is obviously a massive exercise in face-saving all round, from FIA and Mercedes.

"We had an unbeatable case but Hamilton didn't want us to" is better than "we were going to lose at the FIA court and weren't even allowed by the regs to take it any further than that."

If they had an unbeatable case according to their own lawyer and were able to take it to a higher court they would have.
Obviously the likelihood of getting a fair judgement must have weighed in. I don't understand how you, or single journalists, can categorically rule out CAS involvement when CAS has been relied upon to settle disputes in the past. I understand that the teams have signed a waiver to settle things infront if ICA instead, however I don't see why that waiver itself couldn't be challenged infront of CAS. What else would the point of CAS be?

If anything this waiver has made F1, FIA and their race director even more shady to me. Why would you ask your business partners to waive the possibility to challenge your judgements if you weren't planning on using them with impunity?

F1 as a sport is dying. Maybe Max is the first winner of a new era. Net flix.
 
:lol: If Lewis didn’t come out and act classy all hell would have broke loose. Being classy is literally the only thing he could have done to not look like a sore loser (which he wouldn’t have been if he did object).

Hamilton is a true competitor who doesn't want to win his record 8th title with appeals I presume.
 
What a joke. Masi and FIA now have carte blanche to apply the rules as they see fit.

I wouldn't mind seeing Merc getting screwed over by them again. They'd deserve it.
 
Hamilton is a true competitor who doesn't want to win his record 8th title with appeals I presume.
Unlike Max who doesn't seem to have any problems with the way he was handed the title.

He'll likely win a few more in the future but this one will always be referred to as THAT one title.
 
If anything this waiver has made F1, FIA and their race director even more shady to me. Why would you ask your business partners to waive the possibility to challenge your judgements if you weren't planning on using them with impunity?

F1 as a sport is dying. Maybe Max is the first winner of a new era. Net flix.
Net Fix.
 
Obviously the likelihood of getting a fair judgement must have weighed in. I don't understand how you, or single journalists, can categorically rule out CAS involvement when CAS has been relied upon to settle disputes in the past. I understand that the teams have signed a waiver to settle things infront if ICA instead, however I don't see why that waiver itself couldn't be challenged infront of CAS. What else would the point of CAS be?

If anything this waiver has made F1, FIA and their race director even more shady to me. Why would you ask your business partners to waive the possibility to challenge your judgements if you weren't planning on using them with impunity?

F1 as a sport is dying. Maybe Max is the first winner of a new era. Net flix.

Exactly this, any agreement that says they can't go to CAS would be superceded by their intrinsic rights. All sporting teams have the opportunity to take their ruling bodies to CAS, but there are a plethora of reasons why they might not anyway.
 
Unlike Max who doesn't seem to have any problems with the way he was handed the title.

He'll likely win a few more in the future but this one will always be referred to as THAT one title.

Not for us Dutch folk and many others judging by YouTube comments. He won the race on track. Dubious circumstances sure, but for once he had luck and he gets to enjoy it like our whole nation is. Lewis was lucky a couple times this season, let's not forget. This time it -finally - went Verstappen's way. In the UK his title might have an asterisk, but the rest of the world is mostly happy for Max.
 
I can only laugh at people so gullible, or biased I guess, to believe this had anything to do with Lewis wanting it dropped or lack of a case :lol:

It's a pretty frame is all.

Anyway, now what some of us have been saying since the moment the race ended has finally been confirmed, time to move on.
 
Not for us Dutch folk and many others judging by YouTube comments. He won the race on track. Dubious circumstances sure, but for once he had luck and he gets to enjoy it like our whole nation is. Lewis was lucky a couple times this season, let's not forget. This time it -finally - went Verstappen's way. In the UK his title might have an asterisk, but the rest of the world is mostly happy for Max.
As someone pointed out earlier, there's a big difference between luck and the fabrication that happened on Sunday.
 
As someone pointed out earlier, there's a big difference between luck and the fabrication that happened on Sunday.

Mistakes were made like many times before in F1. It's a shame it had to end in controversy, but my friends and I went crazy celebrating after that last lap. Something I will never forget.
 
Glad to see the statement by Mercedes. Must say, if there's any more hints of this nonsense by FIA I'm done with F1. There's a reason I stopped watching wrestling when I reached 8 years old.
 
As someone pointed out earlier, there's a big difference between luck and the fabrication that happened on Sunday.

I wouldn't waste your time.

If people want to celebrate blatant rule changing as if it is the same as any other mistake like that, let them. They'll soon be moaning again when it comes back around.
 
Mistakes were made like many times before in F1. It's a shame it had to end in controversy, but my friends and I went crazy celebrating after that last lap. Something I will never forget.
The potential problem is when these mistakes start to happen so often that it gets a WWE vibe to it, and then people stop taking it seriously.
 
Not for us Dutch folk and many others judging by YouTube comments. He won the race on track. Dubious circumstances sure, but for once he had luck and he gets to enjoy it like our whole nation is. Lewis was lucky a couple times this season, let's not forget. This time it -finally - went Verstappen's way. In the UK his title might have an asterisk, but the rest of the world is mostly happy for Max.

This is not bad luck. Bad luck is if Lewis had a tyre puncture or engine blowout on the last lap and Max won. That is bad luck.

This is a thoughtful, contrived, conscious, human intervention to change something in the race.
 
Mistakes were made like many times before in F1. It's a shame it had to end in controversy, but my friends and I went crazy celebrating after that last lap. Something I will never forget.
I'm sure it was memorable.
I do think it was a mistake also. I don't think pre race he wondered how to help max win, and he could have easily done the same if Lewis was behind Max. It simply exposed how out of his depth he is.
What I don't want to see is red flags called most races for "unsafe conditions" to set up 5 lap sprints. That's where I think this is heading.
 
The potential problem is when these mistakes start to happen so often that it gets a WWE vibe to it, and then people stop taking it seriously.

True, FIA definitely have to sort this shit out. My solution would be the cars running with a little excess fuel so they can add another lap or 2 under SC, when necessary.
 
I'm sure it was memorable.
I do think it was a mistake also. I don't think pre race he wondered how to help max win, and he could have easily done the same if Lewis was behind Max. It simply exposed how out of his depth he is.
What I don't want to see is red flags called most races for "unsafe conditions" to set up 5 lap sprints. That's where I think this is heading.

I completely agree.
 
True, FIA definitely have to sort this shit out. My solution would be the cars running with a little excess fuel so they can add another lap or 2 under SC, when necessary.

They can absolutely not do that, oh dear god. If they can add laps at will, they can also easily take laps away. No one wants to see Masi with that power.
 
They can absolutely not do that, oh dear god. If they can add laps at will, they can also easily take laps away. No one wants to see Masi with that power.

Well it's better than a GP ending under SC. Imagine they would've ended last race under SC? Are we fans of racing or what?
 
If Masi has any self respect he should resign. Shame it ended this way for max and lewis.
 
Not for us Dutch folk and many others judging by YouTube comments. He won the race on track. Dubious circumstances sure, but for once he had luck and he gets to enjoy it like our whole nation is. Lewis was lucky a couple times this season, let's not forget. This time it -finally - went Verstappen's way. In the UK his title might have an asterisk, but the rest of the world is mostly happy for Max.
:lol:
 
Well it's better than a GP ending under SC. Imagine they would've ended last race under SC? Are we fans of racing or what?

Man, this will not have been the first race or the last race to end under the safety car. It has happened many times before and will happen again in the future. Why should this race be special? The situation? The fact that it was show time at Abu Dhabi?

This is the moral problem I think, we are all wrestling with. That limit of making races exciting but without compromising the integrity of everything.
 
Man, this will not have been the first race or the last race to end under the safety car. It has happened many times before and will happen again in the future. Why should this race be special? The situation? The fact that it was show time at Abu Dhabi?

This is the moral problem I think, we are all wrestling with. That limit of making races exciting but without compromising the integrity of everything.

My entire point is a race should not end under SC. Not last race, not before that, not ever. The team leaders also agreed FIA should try everything to prevent that from happening.
 
My entire point is a race should not end under SC. Not last race, not now, not ever.

If you have a bad accident in the last lap, or even last 2 laps, of any race, it will end under a safety car. I guarantee it.
 
Well it's better than a GP ending under SC. Imagine they would've ended last race under SC? Are we fans of racing or what?
:lol:

It would have been a race if the SC stayed out. The person who done the racedistance fastest would have one. One artificial lap at the end is not a race. It's a fix.
 
Well it's better than a GP ending under SC. Imagine they would've ended last race under SC? Are we fans of racing or what?
We're fans of the sport, which sometimes involves a SC. Saying "you cannot end a race under SC" is akin to saying "you cannot end a game 0-0". Following the rules and maintaining integrity is significantly more important than manufacturing a final lap shootout. And by the way, the final lap wasn't actually racing. You might have found it exciting, but it wasn't racing. Its like watching a heavyweight beat up a flyweight thinking "this is great boxing".

By the way, just for clarity, if this race had ended under the SC they would actually have done something different. The SC would probably have come in at the start of the last lap but there would be a VSC in place. This means that the shots of the cars coming over the line would be just be the F1 cars. Yes it wouldn't be racing, but I think one of the reasons people were so concerned would be the literal optics of a SC leading Lewis over the line.
 
:lol:

So people are now no longer fans of racing because they don't want to see rules broken/changed to suit TV audiences.

I also love how that last lap is being painted as a true race. The mental gymnastics on display is outstanding entertainment. Masi himself couldn't script it better!