10 votes

Max Verstappen bests Lewis Hamilton to claim first career world F1 championship

9 comments

  1. [2]
    mycketforvirrad
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    Mercedes have protested "against the classification established at the end of the Competition", relating to alleged breaches of Articles 48.8 and 48.12 of the FIA Sporting Regulations Twitter:...
    5 votes
    1. vektor
      (edited )
      Link Parent
      Denied and Denied Imo rightfully. The "alongside" complaint is almost ridiculous, if you ask me. The other one... well, I believe the FIA needs some degree of latitude in how they direct races....

      Denied and Denied

      Imo rightfully. The "alongside" complaint is almost ridiculous, if you ask me. The other one... well, I believe the FIA needs some degree of latitude in how they direct races. Whether you think this was the right call or not, you can't prescribe a there-is-only-ever-one-answer rulebook for... basically anything like refereeing sports. Ergo Masi needs the power to make calls like this. I also don't think he tried to fix the result either direction, I think his actions were consistent with making the event (1) safe and (2) competetive. Still not quite happy with the concrete decision here.

      5 votes
  2. [5]
    Liru
    Link
    An amazing race, marred by a ridiculous ending. I enjoyed it, but having the entire race decided by a single lap following a selective safety car is... offputting.

    An amazing race, marred by a ridiculous ending. I enjoyed it, but having the entire race decided by a single lap following a selective safety car is... offputting.

    3 votes
    1. [4]
      vektor
      Link Parent
      TBF, the alternative would have been to either hand the win to lewis under the SC (or buffered by backmarkers for the one lap of racing they could squeeze in). Or they could've red-flagged it too,...

      TBF, the alternative would have been to either hand the win to lewis under the SC (or buffered by backmarkers for the one lap of racing they could squeeze in). Or they could've red-flagged it too, if they realized sooner where this was headed. Kind of a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation, far as I can tell.

      Overall, and maybe I'm biased here because I've seen about enough of Lewis cruising to an easy WDC, I don't think over the course of the season that the stewards/Masi gave Verstappen an unfair advantage. In fact, I think they've unfairly penalized him a fair bit. Either way though, great racing for the season, either driver would've deserved it.

      Also, Checo is my driver of the day. What a monster defense.

      4 votes
      1. [2]
        Comment deleted by author
        Link Parent
        1. vektor
          Link Parent
          This part? Yikes, yeah, that sounds pretty clear. Well, it's not the first time the FIA goes against their own rules this year. And I don't think sticking to the rules would have made it any...

          48.12 If the clerk of the course considers it safe to do so, and the message "LAPPED CARS MAY NOW OVERTAKE" has been sent to all Competitors via the official messaging system, any cars that have been lapped by the leader will be required to pass the cars on the lead lap ad the safety car.

          This part? Yikes, yeah, that sounds pretty clear.

          Well, it's not the first time the FIA goes against their own rules this year. And I don't think sticking to the rules would have made it any better, depending on the situation. Maybe they should've started unlapping cars sooner and then done what they did, but even then... Nothing here would've made everyone happy; even a neutral observer would find themselves in a pickle here regarding what is fair; even following the rules to the letter wouldn't be fair, because the rules are too vague to actually prescribe the right course of action here. (That is to say, the rules describe what is the wrong course of action, but don't actually give deterministic procedures of what is the uniquely right thing to do.)

          4 votes
      2. [2]
        Liru
        Link Parent
        Thinking about it a bit more, I see your point. There's not much that could've been done at that point in the race that would be considered satisfying in terms of racecraft. I definitely agree...

        Kind of a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation, far as I can tell.

        Thinking about it a bit more, I see your point. There's not much that could've been done at that point in the race that would be considered satisfying in terms of racecraft.

        I don't think over the course of the season that the stewards/Masi gave Verstappen an unfair advantage. In fact, I think they've unfairly penalized him a fair bit.

        I definitely agree with this, for the record. I think Max absolutely deserved the WDC win over the course of the season, considering everything that happened, but that one final lap is just going to be controversial for years to come.

        Still, it's hard to imagine that the miracle Christian Horner was talking about came from Nicholas Latifi, of all people. (As I was writing this post, Horner himself even said it when interviewed by Sky Sports.)

        3 votes
        1. vektor
          Link Parent
          Latifi mad that Merc promoted Russell instead of him? Only reason I can come up with. :D Seriously though, if this was an Alpha Tauri that caused that safety car, we'd never hear the end of it.

          Latifi mad that Merc promoted Russell instead of him? Only reason I can come up with. :D

          Seriously though, if this was an Alpha Tauri that caused that safety car, we'd never hear the end of it.

          5 votes
  3. Bullmaestro
    Link
    After the time Hamilton thought it was NASCAR and punted Verstappen out of the race, this honestly feels like karmic retribution.

    After the time Hamilton thought it was NASCAR and punted Verstappen out of the race, this honestly feels like karmic retribution.

    3 votes
  4. andre
    Link
    Lewis deserved the race win, Max deserved WDC.

    Lewis deserved the race win, Max deserved WDC.

    3 votes