A very exciting and controversial race at the F1 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix today.

So many incidents where do you start?

Hamilton gets the win which means he will head into the final race of the season in Abu Dhabi next weekend locked level on points with Verstappen at the top of the standings.

Looking forward to watching it, winner takes all.

Would not be surprised if Max takes Lewis out at the 1st corner and becomes champion because he won one race more.

It's been done before.

Schumacher got excluded from the championship in 1997 when crashing into Villeneuve so they can do that should any incident occur.
Also, if I was Hamilton I'd be more worried about Red Bull using Perez as a battering ram should he be close enough at the start.
Or even Gasly / Tsunoda, seeing as AlphaTauri is owned by Red Bull as well.

Do we mean that there's actually going to be an F1 race that isn't as dull as ditchwater?

Blimey you'll be saying Hamilton only wins because he has the best car next. ::)

Quoted from Stadium

Blimey you'll be saying Hamilton only wins because he has the best car next. ::)

Best car? I didn't think cars were invloved.

Surely it's just who has the biggest balls to drive a computer on wheels as fast as they can.  ;)

Quoted from Les Brechin

Do we mean that there's actually going to be an F1 race that isn't as dull as ditchwater?

Nope!

It will still be as dull as ditchwater. More boring than golf and that takes some doing.

Quoted from ginnywings

Nope!

It will still be as dull as ditchwater. More boring than golf and that takes some doing.

Yep,each race only has around 85m watching.

Quoted from Stadium

Yep,each race only has around 85m watching.

Millions of people buy Take That! albums.

Quoted from grimsby pete

Would not be surprised if Max takes Lewis out at the 1st corner and becomes champion because he won one race more.

It's been done before.

Oh I do hope so Pete

Quoted from Stadium

Schumacher got excluded from the championship in 1997 when crashing into Villeneuve so they can do that should any incident occur.
Also, if I was Hamilton I'd be more worried about Red Bull using Perez as a battering ram should he be close enough at the start.
Or even Gasly / Tsunoda, seeing as AlphaTauri is owned by Red Bull as well.

Great plan(s) !

Quoted from ginnywings

Millions of people buy Take That! albums.

Never Forget that.

F1this season has been an exciting battle of wills and skill.  I am not a great fan of F1 but you have to appreciate this sporting battle.  Highlights last Sun were breathtaking.  A dead heat after 21 races.

Just another afternoon of boring F1 racing.

The result will not change but it makes you think they make the rules up as they go along.

They were never going to allow the race to finish under the safety car.
The lawyers will be looking at it now,

I’ve just started working with a team who are big into F1 so I’ve watched bits of the previous two races and today in full so I at least attempt to talk about something other than work with them. Anyway - as a new viewer I don’t know how I feel about that ending. Obviously it was an exciting end to the race but it was forced. If the cars aren’t let past the safety car then surely Hamilton wins? The safety car ultimately renders the previous laps redundant but Mercedes must have some regrets about not changing Hamilton’s tyres too?

Re golf/f1 being more boring: watching golf: mostly dull. Playing golf: mostly frustrating but if you do there is one shot a round that keeps you going back and if there isn’t it’s not for you. It’s more grounding than following Town and that’s saying something.

Gutted for Hamilton, he was robbed, was hoping he was going to win a record 8th world title.

Quoted from promotion plaice

Gutted for Hamilton, he was robbed, was hoping he was going to win a record 8th world title.

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

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

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 become an eight time world champion but congratulations Max.

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.  
  

I haven’t been interested in F1 since the days of Nigel Mansel, the odd times I have watched it seems that whoever gets in front usually stays there for 70 odd laps boring as hell. I had a quick look to see Hamilton in the lead before quickly switching over, so it came as a great surprise to hear that he’d lost… who knew God watches F1 😀

Quoted from Squinter

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.  
  

But like I said, F1 is a team sport. If Bottas had done a better job and used the potential of his car he would have been close enough behind Max to have stopped Max being able to pit during SC as Max would have fallen behind Bottas & Hamilton would have had a blocker for that 1 lap shoot out.

Luck played a big part, but Red Bull having both drivers in position to effect things during the entire race is the biggest reason Red Bull won & Mercedes lost.

The deployment of the safety car isn't the issue - that was fair and consistent with the severity of the crash.  The problem was how the SC was withdrawn, which contravened a pretty clear article of the sporting regulations which spells out the procedure.  The race was manipulated to ensure a green flag finish, and to do so in the most important motor race in the world is outrageous.  

But hey, at least it overshadowed my disappointment with Town this weekend.

Quoted from GollyGTFC

But like I said, F1 is a team sport. If Bottas had done a better job and used the potential of his car he would have been close enough behind Max to have stopped Max being able to pit during SC as Max would have fallen behind Bottas & Hamilton would have had a blocker for that 1 lap shoot out.

Luck played a big part, but Red Bull having both drivers in position to effect things during the entire race is the biggest reason Red Bull won & Mercedes lost.

Yep, again completely agree with you, Bottas has been pretty much a waste of space since Merc anounced Russell will be given the drive for next year.    Amazing what Cheko did for Verstappen yesterday, he effectively gained 10 seconds for him.

Luck forward to seeing what Russell can do next year.

Quoted from MarinerDevil

The deployment of the safety car isn't the issue - that was fair and consistent with the severity of the crash.  The problem was how the SC was withdrawn, which contravened a pretty clear article of the sporting regulations which spells out the procedure.  The race was manipulated to ensure a green flag finish, and to do so in the most important motor race in the world is outrageous.  

But hey, at least it overshadowed my disappointment with Town this weekend.

It’s not a clear article though is it? The rules allow for discretion and are open to interpretation.

The rule states lapped runners may be allowed to unlap themselves at the discretion of the race director. He chose to allow 5 lapped runners to unlap themselves and not allow the last 3 lapped runners to unlap themselves. There is no mention of “ALL LAPPED RUNNERS” in the regulations so clearly the rule is open to interpretation and isn’t clear and concise.

It isn’t a black and white that everyone unlaps themselves or nobody unlaps themselves. Michael Masi chose a middle ground of only allowing 5 of the 8 lapped runners to unlap themselves. I don’t see how the wording of the regulation forbids that even if it’s not been done before.

Agreed Bottas wasn't much help on Sunday but from Toto's message to him in qualifying, I figured it was obvious he didn't have the strongest engine.

Max also won more races than Lewis but yet Marcedes won the constructors championship over Red Bull. Surely means Bottas was pulling his weight a little more than Perez.

Quoted from GollyGTFC

It’s not a clear article though is it? The rules allow for discretion and are open to interpretation.

The rule states lapped runners may be allowed to unlap themselves at the discretion of the race director. He chose to allow 5 lapped runners to unlap themselves and not allow the last 3 lapped runners to unlap themselves. There is no mention of “ALL LAPPED RUNNERS” in the regulations so clearly the rule is open to interpretation and isn’t clear and concise.

It isn’t a black and white that everyone unlaps themselves or nobody unlaps themselves. Michael Masi chose a middle ground of only allowing 5 of the 8 lapped runners to unlap themselves. I don’t see how the wording of the regulation forbids that even if it’s not been done before.

This is total nonsense.  Even if you were to interpret 'any lapped cars' to not mean 'all lapped cars' (which is a bad interpretation for many reasons), the article further states that, should any lapped cars be allowed through, the safety car should be withdrawn on the following lap.  There is no ambiguity in that at all.  If the equivalent happened in any other sport, it would be a scandal.  But because the FIA is the cartel of motor-racing - and act as their own arbiter - they cannot be questioned.  I've seen many controversies in my 18 years of watching the sport, some of them completely scandalous, but I've never seen race control clearly and deliberately manipulate a race like that.  If this is the way the sport will be run henceforth, I'm done.

Quoted from MarinerDevil

  If the equivalent happened in any other sport, it would be a scandal.  But because the FIA is the cartel of motor-racing - and act as their own arbiter - they cannot be questioned.  I've seen many controversies in my 18 years of watching the sport, some of them completely scandalous, but I've never seen race control clearly and deliberately manipulate a race like that.  If this is the way the sport will be run henceforth, I'm done.

By then Mr Hamilton

Quoted from Ipswin

By then Mr Hamilton

What a strange response once again.
Have you realised Verstappen actually won or did you turn off before the SC came onto track?
The FIA manipulated the rules to ensure a one lap shoot out.
Both drivers were worthy of winning the title, you seem obsessed by Hamilton controlling the FIA ??
Sad view really after a great season

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

It's Sir Lewis now Swin   ;)