Absolutely. Merc would have pulled the plug if there would have been any fiddling with the split turbo loophole. As long as they have it they stay and will win. So I do not understand the anger now.
Absolutely. Merc would have pulled the plug if there would have been any fiddling with the split turbo loophole. As long as they have it they stay and will win. So I do not understand the anger now.
If they had done that and conceded track position and then lost the WDC because of it, they’d have looked pretty stupid.DChemTech wrote: ↑13 Dec 2021, 09:50What surprises me most still is that MB did not pit Lewis during the safety car. What did they have to lose? If max did not pit, then Lewis should easily have passed Max on nearly new softs, and if both switched to soft Lewis should have been able to stay ahead. The only 'risk' was if Max stayed out and there was no restart, but with Masi it seemed to be a decent bet that he wants the race to end in flight. There's a lot to say about the whole SC procedure, but I can't help but think that MB did themselves no favors with this call.
I would rather expect that Toto takes a high role at AMG.
I agree on the entertainment first part, and in that sense, it didn't feel all good to be a Max fan yesterday. I do feel sorry for the way things were settled. Not just this one particular race, but the whole season. There have been disputable calls throughout, that in some case benefited one team and in the other case the other. So in that sense, I cannot call this one disputable moment the 'definitive moment that handed the championship to Max' - had it not happened and had Lewis won, other such moments could be brought forward. Whichever way the coin fell, there were plenty of justified statements on "well, in the end, it was FIA/steward decision X that handed the championship to team Y" that one could make this season - there would always be dispute. And that makes this season, for as entertaining and climactic as it was, tarnished as well. Shame, really, and I hope that in the future things will be better in that regard.Phil wrote: ↑13 Dec 2021, 12:07If they had done that and conceded track position and then lost the WDC because of it, they’d have looked pretty stupid.DChemTech wrote: ↑13 Dec 2021, 09:50What surprises me most still is that MB did not pit Lewis during the safety car. What did they have to lose? If max did not pit, then Lewis should easily have passed Max on nearly new softs, and if both switched to soft Lewis should have been able to stay ahead. The only 'risk' was if Max stayed out and there was no restart, but with Masi it seemed to be a decent bet that he wants the race to end in flight. There's a lot to say about the whole SC procedure, but I can't help but think that MB did themselves no favors with this call.
It was a no win situation either way. Well, it wasnt. The calamity is, that the team made its decision based on the process required by the rules and how much time that would take in their assessment - that being, getting the track cleaned up and allowing all lapped cars to unlap and then that the safety car would come in at the end of the next lap.
The math was solid. They did everything right. Had the crash happened two laps earlier, they would have come in, i’m sure - though after Jeddah, a potential red flag may have given an unfair advantage again to Max.
In the end, my issue with the whole thing isn’t Max, it isnt RedBull - it’s the sport that is putting entertainment first and sacrificing sporting values for it.
It must feel good to be a Max fan after yesterday - but had the roles been reversed, we’d never hear the end of it. This shows the issue when putting entertainment first. You are subjecting your sport to being a lottery and while some fans might like the unpredictability of such results, you’re devaluing the achievements and end up with hollow victories.
It devalued Hamiltons masterful drive yesterday in favour of a one lap race with one car on fresh tires and the other on old ones all in the name of “the show”.
At this point, from Hamiltons point of view, i wouldnt be surprised if he walks.
You mean that same unfair advantage hamilton enjoyed in Imola, allowing him to score 18 points instead of realistic maximum of 6? Season is 22 races, not just the last few ones.
Indeed. There is nothing else that Mercedes could have done differently yesterday in terms of strategy. But yesterday's farce has now set a new precedence that the director can play around with the rules whenever he wants. I am just curious if this situation plays into everybody's mind next year when there is a SC. Do they just call up Masi asking, "Hey. What do you plan to do with the SC this time?" and Masi replies, "I'll do what I want. You'll see.".Phil wrote: ↑13 Dec 2021, 12:07
If they had done that and conceded track position and then lost the WDC because of it, they’d have looked pretty stupid.
It was a no win situation either way. Well, it wasnt. The calamity is, that the team made its decision based on the process required by the rules and how much time that would take in their assessment - that being, getting the track cleaned up and allowing all lapped cars to unlap and then that the safety car would come in at the end of the next lap.
Yeah, too many experiments like sprint races as well that introduced uncertainty.Phil wrote: ↑13 Dec 2021, 12:29I'll just say to that DChemTech, that I don't agree with the sprint races, I don't agree with the red-flag and standing restarts one bit. Yes, they are there, by the rules to allow that sort of thing, but *I* don't like it - knowing full well, Lewis could (should) have profited of that very thing in Baku this year.
Where it stops, is where the race director throws all that out of the window and makes up new rules as it happens. There's no way I think this can put to rest in my eyes. Over the course of the year, yes, perhaps Max & RedBull is more deserving of the title. They maximized points they really shouldn't have and in my personal opinion, they've aced far more opportunities than Mercedes did. On some occasions, it was just luck of the draw too.
In that sense, maybe yesterday was too - but given how protocol was thrown out the window, it's not the kind of sport I'm proud of in the slightest. It feels like an utter sham and in my eyes, devalues the great achievement of Max (and Hamilton) over the entire course of 2021.
It's rather funny - in hindsight, when Perez blocked Hamilton and lost him around a 9 second, was really detrimental to Max's win. Had Hamilton had that in hand, it would have shaped the race very different - he would have had the delta to come in without losing position to Max.