F1 drivers championship goes to the last race

Quoted from Ipswin

Don't worry the little excrement will buy himself out of it with a few fat brown envelopes. He's been in the FIA's pocket all season. No one is allowed to beat Lewis

What an odd comment with literally no substance or evidence, in fact you’d argue the very opposite of todays anything to go by…

Quoted from Stadium

Both protests rejected by the FIA.
How you assume Hamilton is in the FIA' s" pocket" is pretty spectacular, you seem very bitter?
As it stand he did get beaten, would have been great to see a Briton became an eight time world champion but congratulations Max.

If you know owt about Swin, he has an affinity for the Dutch, though Verstappen is only sort of Dutch.

I can't watch F1 myself, find it incredibly tedious, but each to their own. From a sporting viewpoint, it did have a lot of people gripped that don't normally bother. Even Mrs G watched it, but I went out for a walk on t'Prom.

Hadn't watched F1 for years but that last couple of minutes was great tv

All seemed a bit harsh to me, fella dominates race but loses because another fella at the back of the field crashed and wrecked the track. But I guess it's not just about the racing part but loads of other things such as going in the pits at the right time and Hamiltons team bombed him out on that front.

But hey ho, like others, I don't really know anything about Formula 1, I can't even drive a car and I'm not fussed either way but good bit of drama for a Sunday afternoon.

Yes Lewis dominated the race, but he never got in the position that a safety car wouldn’t damage him (I.e. he never had a pit stop of time advantage over Max in 2nd). Unfortunately for Lewis for both the VSC & the full SC Max had enough of an advantage over the 3rd placed driver  to make those 2 extra stops. That has been the way of F1 since safety cars were introduced 30 odd years ago.

There is no fool proof way of neutralising the race so that nobody can gain an advantage and nobody loses out.

And remember F1 is a team sport. Perez got himself into 3rd and gave his entire race to helping Max. Bottas was well off the pace and was no help whatsoever to Lewis.

I watched the whole race and after the VSC I was thinking from lap 38 or whenever it ended “a full safety car & Max wins this”. And that’s exactly what happened.

Mercedes constantly play it safe and if you do that you leave yourself exposed to being done by a team who will gamble (especially when that gamble has no consequence).

Personally I’m delighted that Max won despite being a Lewis fan. F1 needed the Mercedes dominance to be broken. It’s not healthy having endless years of the same outcome.

I’m also hugely disappointed in Toto Wolff’s lack of class in defeat. He’s had it his own way for years and it would have been nice if (like Lewis) he was magnanimous in defeat even if he was fuming inside.

A good summary.
However I believe they "manipulated" the rules to provide the spectacle of the one lap shoot out.
That would never had occurred in a race with nothing at stake.
Respect to both drivers, fantastic season for Max and a worthy champion.

Quoted from Stadium

A good summary.
However I believe they "manipulated" the rules to provide the spectacle of the one lap shoot out.
That would never had occurred in a race with nothing at stake.
Respect to both drivers, fantastic season for Max and a worthy champion.

Yes 100% it was manipulated for TV.  Any other race in the season would have finished under the safety car, but that would have been an anti-climax and not the box office hit that the FIA want.   If the FIA was operating to the rules then why weren't the lapped cars between Verstappen and Sainz told to up lap themselves and let Sainz fight for the win too ?

The biggest loser yesterday wasn't Hamilton it was F1.....

Quoted from Squinter

Yes 100% it was manipulated for TV.  Any other race in the season would have finished under the safety car, but that would have been an anti-climax and not the box office hit that the FIA want.   If the FIA was operating to the rules then why weren't the lapped cars between Verstappen and Sainz told to up lap themselves and let Sainz fight for the win too ?

The biggest loser yesterday wasn't Hamilton it was F1.....

Apart from they red flagged the Baku GP with 2 laps remaining when they could have just finished behind the safety car to ensure they could have a 2 lap race.

Quoted from Stadium

A good summary.
However I believe they "manipulated" the rules to provide the spectacle of the one lap shoot out.
That would never had occurred in a race with nothing at stake.
Respect to both drivers, fantastic season for Max and a worthy champion.

The rules have been open to interpretation (at best) or ambiguous/contradictory (at worst) since the sport started. Everyone knows that. Nobody (Mercedes included) have done anything to tighten the rules so they are clear, coherent or precise, so nobody can complain when, as usual, the rule is interpreted slightly differently.

And that’s all it was. A slight difference. Even if all lapped cars were able to unlap themselves and not just the ones between Lewis & Max they would have all been far enough up the road  to not interfere with a one lap sprint.

Here’s some simply changes I would make to F1 to help with SC fairness:-
VSC- pit Lane is closed for the entirety.
SC - pit Lane is closed for 1 minute  from SC being called.
SC - if SC period is ending with less than 10% of race left then lapped runners have to just fall to back of grid rather than unlap themselves.
SC - maximum time period/amount of laps for SC before automatic red flag.

People attend/watch F1 to see racing. Everything should be done to allow that to happen.

Quoted from GollyGTFC

The rules have been open to interpretation (at best) or ambiguous/contradictory (at worst) since the sport started. Everyone knows that. Nobody (Mercedes included) have done anything to tighten the rules so they are clear, coherent or precise, so nobody can complain when, as usual, the rule is interpreted slightly differently.

And that’s all it was. A slight difference. Even if all lapped cars were able to unlap themselves and not just the ones between Lewis & Max they would have all been far enough up the road  to not interfere with a one lap sprint.

Here’s some simply changes I would make to F1 to help with SC fairness:-
VSC- pit Lane is closed for the entirety.
SC - pit Lane is closed for 1 minute  from SC being called.
SC - if SC period is ending with less than 10% of race left then lapped runners have to just fall to back of grid rather than unlap themselves.
SC - maximum time period/amount of laps for SC before automatic red flag.

People attend/watch F1 to see racing. Everything should be done to allow that to happen.

Agree with most of that Golly, something does need to be done to stop drivers gaining an advantage when there's a VCS or SC.  Like you say we all watch to see proper racing and the best man win.     I'm pretty neutral when watching F1, but I did feel a tad sorry for Hamilton in how it transpired for him to lose.   If LH had stopped for new tires under the safety car just before MV,  MV would have stayed out and gained track position, then sod's law ( possibly manipulation ) the race would have finished under the safety and Verstappen would have won anyway.