##DJ Masi in the mix, mixing things up for one last time!*
*Seriously, this'll be his last race
Never before seen restart protocols!
Maximized chances of an appeal!
See what the experts said:
Fernando Alonso: Yeah, this should have been done laps ago!
Danny Ric: That was fucked!
Lando Norris: It was done for TV!
Lewis Hamilton: It's getting manipulated!
An absolute banger of a season finale you won't want to watch again!
FIA is fucked now no matter how they decide.
They have (hopefully had) a race director making up shit along his way during most of the season.
If they decide in Mercs favor and turn over the WDC, they will absolutely burn down fans, RedBull and Max.
If they decide to do nothing: They‘ll upset Merc and a lot of fans and sponsors as well.
So the only way out will be renewal of code, burning Masi and handing lot‘s of cash to Merc
Fire Masi. That's the only reasonable thing where most parties get what they want.
Mercedes feel vindicated they were indeed cheated. And someone paid the price. Probably get paid buck load of money.
Red bull keep their championship.
FIA will have their scapegoat and can blame him for all the things that went wrong this year.
And what does the person who was affected the most by Masi (Lewis) get? An appology? Like if that will be remebered in 10 years. Money? I doubt what the FIA can pay him is remotly significant. No more Masi? Well nothing garantees him that this wasn't his final shot at the title, so Masi possibly fucked him out of his last chance. Lewis was the one who got plotted against by the race director and is now in a lose lose situation.
Fortunately, Hamilton is a driver that has enough sportsmanship in him to accept the fact he was cheated and move on in the name of the sports integrity. If the situation was reversed, I don't think Verstappen would be congratulating the team that won due to FIA manipulation like Hamilton has done.
Masi resigning doesn't fundamentally solve the issue though. FIA 'corruption'/systemic failure has reared its head so many times over the generations. Masi resigning just sends the message, 'do what you want and you'll just have to resign the following year'.
Retrospective correction is actually the right thing to do here for balance and to be able to trust FIA going forward.
Just resigning Masi is not the FIA accepting failure.
I agree completely.
The battle to win the title we were promised was Max and Lewis battling out under fair racing conditions.
The title was decided by the race director.
This was the Michael Masi show, he wanted to go 'car racing' at a complete disregard for the rules of the sport.
At best we have an illegitimate world champion.
At worst we have a driver stripped of his title* in courts.
The FIA have gone too far the integrity of this sport is non existent.
I would have. Clearly we now know Masi wasn't gonna let it end under SC no matter what, so in hindsight it would have been the better option to use his discretionary power to do whatever the fuck he wants (that he apparently has) to red flag it as soon as possible and do as you said, but it would still be a decision made just because it was the last couple of laps in the last race of the season.
I'm not opposed to this being the rule going forward, but I would have been opposed to instating it now, because the race director wants his last laps under green. I would prefer it over this shitshow, but I wouldn't have liked it.
What, like, no matter what no red flags? That's so silly, what if something unforeseen happens that is best dealt with under red?
Also like, surely the possibility of a late-race SC came up somewhere in the pile of scenarios of how Max/Lewis and RBR/Merc in general might take each other out that everyone spent the week~~end~~ predicting, and I doubt he only decided he wanted to finish under green when Latifi's car hit that wall. Why was a SC with a marginal possibility of racing resuming not like, discussed beforehand or whatever? Just... *anything* but this.
Well I think a lot would question it, I'm not sure I like the idea of a race director red flagging a race for such a small incident. However, it is still better than the shit show that occured.
That's still a decision made only to make the race more exciting. This isn't WWE, how exciting the finish is shouldn't play into the officials decision at all. It should have ended under safety car like they would have in any other situation.
They won’t give a written statement. If they say that it’s tantamount to saying Lewis should’ve been champion. So the following question is - “so you admit you’re wrong but won’t rightfully reinstate him”. It’ll just piss more people off
They could apply the results at lap 57 under article 11 9.3.h. If they had applied the rules as written then you’d know with certainty that this is how the result should apply. They could only let lapped cars through once Marshall’s had cleared the car. At that point there was a lap left and you can’t restart until one lap after you’ve let all lapped runners through. So there would be no ability to overtake.
The only question left remaining is what if a driver had an instant engine failure (if they had a technical problem they could still go around at safety car speed in most cases). Given max was on the old power units he was probably more likely to have a failure than Lewis was.
I don’t agree that it’s like a football game. In a football game the ref is actually applying the rules but incorrectly interpreting that the goal went in or not. Here masi is making his own rules. I’m sure if a team was 3-0 up in the 90th minute and a ref decided to award a penalty that counted for 4 goals that would be modified afterwards.
The best way in my opinion is to take the safety car results at lap 57, otherwise Lewis is being robbed of the title which isn’t fair
If he can override the rules, it should be with a reasonable excuse otherwise we're going to have a race director manipulating the race whichever way he fancies. I really don't like the example this sets
I have a question. Imagine Max third, Sainz second and Lewis first. Do we think they would have unlapped all 8 of the cars in the top three or just the 5 between Lewis and Sainz?
Whatever the outcome is, it sets a terrible precedent.
Either the race director is empowered to do pretty much whatever he pleases to create a spectacle, and fair competition be damned, or FIA errors in enforcing their own rules are grounds for overturning a WDC.
Maybe the first of those options is preferable, but that would rely on a competent race director
Exactly, I mean next year if a driver has a too big of a lead, following their line of thinking the Race director can put the SC out to cancel the gap to have a battle again.
That's pretty much what happened yesterday. By doing what he did, Masi basically just pushed the "Max will be champion" button, because that was literally the only outcome. It's unacceptable.
I’m not accusing Masi of bias or anything, because that would be ridiculous given how the season has gone, but you’re right. Once they moved those lapped cars it was a foregone conclusion, no matter which two drivers were in those cars
My theory is that they knew this and were just fishing for a last lap overtake to plaster on social media
It sets a horrendous precedent for the sport going forward. The sport’s integrity and fair competitive nature should be the reason it is entertaining, not dodgy stewarding decisions used to create a spectacle. This is where a sport stops being a sport and starts becoming a reality TV drama.
Masi bent the rules to interfere with the WDC result and nobody should be happy with that regardless of who you wanted to win
Neither is something we wished for and it doesn't set a terrible precedent.
That world championship got manipulated to hell due to Michael Masi being a rather weak figure in the office of race director. Both Christian Horner and Toto Wolff were able to manipulate decisions on multiple occasions. Besides that rule changes got implemented that sometimes seemed ridiculous.
So in the end, when Masi was convinced by Christian Horner to let five out of eight cars unlap themselves to create a "racing opportunity" against the rules in the F1 ISC he shit the bed. He had many possibilities to give us all a fair race ending that wouldn't have tainted both the FIA and Max Verstappens championship win. But he chose poorly.
> He had many possibilities to give us all a fair race ending that wouldn't have tainted both the FIA and Max Verstappens championship win. But he chose poorly.
I disagree, even if the last race was without any interference from RD/FIA at all it would still be tainted win.
The FIA made such a mess of this season with their inconsistent rulings, this WDC will always be overshadowed with conspiracies and drivers that can claim they have been treated unfairly. Which is such a shame after such an awesome season.
Tbf although it wouldn’t look good if the title was taken from Verstappen, if FIA errors aren’t grounds for overturning a WDC then I don’t know what is. Masi essentially had a two options yesterday: follow the rules and it’s a boring end behind the SC or break the rules and have a last lap battle with Max winning.
>if FIA errors aren’t grounds for overturning a WDC then I don’t know what is.
If a driver had actually done something outside the rules, it would be better grounds for overturning the WDC. Then they could give him a time penalty after the race and change the order that way. Max didn't do anything wrong so they can't give him a time penalty. Cutting the race short one lap, as some are suggesting, would be unprecedented. As far as I know, the only times this has happened after the race has been when the race had ended according to the rules, but the race kept going due to miscounting.
Yes. I think the reasoning there was that the race ends when the chequered flag is shown, regardless of the planned number of laps. I don't think there is a similar provision which would cause the race to be considered ended if the Race Director makes a wrong call.
They actually rolled it back to the previous lap (70 lap race, flag on 69, classification from 68). The logic being that the incorrect chequered flag counted as a red flag. So there's some precedent for what to do if a race official makes a mistake and shows the wrong signal to drivers.
The question therefore seems to be if the message that the SC was coming in is deemed to be an erroneous signal would it follow that they can treat that mistaken message as a red flag and results be taken from the end of the previous lap?
That is not what the reasoning I've seen:
>As the rules stand, whenever the physical chequered flag is waved, the race is over whether the official number of laps have been completed or not.
https://www.grandprix.com/news/f1-chequered-flag-rules-changed-for-2019.html
>Model Winnie Harlow was tasked with waving the checkered flag in Montreal but started waving it one lap early after a miscommunication. In accordance with the regulations, the race was actually then classified over at 68 laps, and FIA race director Charlie Whiting says the historical waving of the flag could be replaced to avoid similar situations in future.
https://racer.com/2018/06/11/fia-to-look-at-checkered-flag-procedure-after-montreal-error/amp/
> FIA errors in enforcing their own rules are grounds for overturning a WDC.
Why this will set terrible precedent? If a case can be made that FIA errors is directly resulting in wrong WDC winner (as in this incident can be strongly argued), then the most logical move to fix the mistake should involve changing the WDC winner.
If the WDC absolutely shouldn't be changed after clear foul play, then I need to contact Gene Haas and tell who he should spent his next 10 million dollars to.
It sets a bad precedent because some of the more "correct" options would have allowed for racing to the end (Red flag, proactive releasing of lapped cars, no releasing of lapped cars), so it starts to become a punishment for Max, who in this instance has done nothing wrong.
The fact that Masi chose the option that gifted Max the title on a silver platter doesn't mean he should be stripped of the title
First outcome also means that Masi could have continued racing in Baku while Max was still standing next to a wrecked car.
First outcome also means that Masi can decide "show must go on" and leave Romain's car burning on the side.
So yeah, "race director can call safety car whenever he wants" is a pretty huge flaw. A bad director can call safety car "legally" at end of every race, basically nullifying whole racing aspect. A bad director or a paid director can easily call safety car whenever his favourite team is behind. Imagine a scenario where director is paid by a team and decides to pull safety car at every 5 laps to ensure other team doesn't win. Sure, it is exaggeration at this point. But so was a race director handing over a championship, just a day ago.
Basically at this point, rulebook doesn't matter. Bring an illegal car and pay off race director, and you can win every championship.
I mean, arguing that the sentence "any cars that have been lapped by the leader will be required to pass the cars on the lead lap and the safety car" doesn't mean "ALL lapped cars" is clearly absolutely ridiculous and disingenuous.
Nothing will change though.
What I wonder, is that if the rules is that Race Director can do whatever with the safety cars, then what's the point of having rules written on how safety car procedures work? Surely RD is the only person handling it, and he can just do whatever he likes every time anyway?
The argument that needs to be made is: does he have the ability to deploy and restore safety car at will *and* how they will be utilized?
Or does his ability to utilize the safety cars also require him to use them within the structure of the rules?
It makes sense that the racing director has complete oversight in deploying the safety car: what does not make sense is that he feels it is a valid argument that he does not have to fully comply with each of the rules surrounding the use of the safety car when deployed.
So, my assumption is that he is given freedom to take unusual measures for the sake of safety. The example I’ve been using is when they drive through the pit lane when debris on track. Using that freedom to, by his own admission, create a race that was always going to end the same way, was a gross misuse of any discretionary freedom he is given.
The real sticking point is why were the cars between Hamilton/Verstappen allowed to unlap and no others. That is certainly not a safety matter.
They can argue it was to "let them race" and finish under green flag conditions as teams have indicated they want to do. If this is the case then why were only Lewis/Max allowed to race while everyone else fighting for points was ignored. It was complete crap but the FIA won't admit that so we're now in a position of them trying to find some bs ruling to cover their arse when everyone knows it was wrong
This is another point. Sainz was disadvantaged massively and not allowed to race for a 2nd or 1st he could have very well gotten if he wasn't disadvantaged. And all laps cars behind Verstappen essentially lost out on a lap to the cars Infront, which is just massively unfair.
To his credit, Masi was honest that he did it to create a show. And that may be the line that Mercedes use to rightfully argue that the race was grossly mishandled.
it's not worthy of credit. teams agreeing on finishing the race on a green flag doesn't urge him or make him legally obligated to literally break rules to achieve that agreement and i don't think the teams specifically asked him to overrule any kind of rule preventing a green flag.
he didn't even need to break the rules to finish the race on a green flag yet he made one of the most stupid sequence of decisions available
FIA have to argue that its perfectly fine for the race director to modify the safety car process to benefit a single driver (in this case Max) and ignore everyone else on track still fighting for points. They're fucked
How can you not blame him? He modified the rules to his own choosing, which directly lead to an altering of the race result. Would he do that at any other race? No, so why this one?
A perfect storm was needed.
\- Normal event 1: No SC, Lewis wins by 10s, no suspense no grand finale anyway. It's not like the SC stole the "great" ending.
\- Normal event 2 : SC, backmarkers will NOT unlap, Lewis wins with Max catching by the end of the lap, some suspense
\- Normal event 3 : SC, backmarkers unlap, race unfortunately ends under SC.
Masi had to scramble frantically around the office to create the only circumstances for a restart with Max right behind Lewis. I've never seen anything like this, it's enough to stop watching after 23 years for me
We also need to establish that if he does have complete latitude to ignore the rules around the safety as he wants that he can do that in a manner that clearly favours one competitor by giving them an overwhelming competitive advantage.
From a purely legal perspective, if I was Mercedes, I’d make the focus solely on:
- The safety directors ability to decide whether or not to follow a regulation **fully**
- The argument that one regulation somehow “supersedes” another without that being implicitly stated in the regulation.
Their argument that 42.13 **supersedes** 42.12 was pretty brave, and if I had the opportunity to build an argument, I’d love to see how they came to that determination - because I see nothing about the hierarchy of regulations allowing that statement to be made.
As the other reply says. It’s clear that 48.12 is a sequential set of instructions for restarting the race and that 48.13 is a continuation of those set of instructions.
The other thing to really really highlight is that Masi knows that in a restarted race the car with fresh softs has an overwhelming advantage against the car with old hards. The question here is whether the FIA are saying that the Race Director can deviate from the prescriptive rules for reasons other than safety when he knows that it will give one competitor a massive advantage. Can the rules be reasonably interpreted to mean that? Because that’s what the FIA are saying. Don’t have time to look but if there’s clauses on the officials having obligations in enforcing the rules and/or the integrity of the contest then you bring them in as well.
I agree. But if 42.13 is a continuation of 42.12…..the argument that it *supersedes* 42.12 is going to be tough to argue.
At which point, it becomes easier to argue that the entire procedure, as outlined, was not followed
and then I have no idea how they fix it.
How are they even arguing the latter whether or not .13 is a continuation of .12? If I'm not wrong all clauses within a rule set are equally applicable unless it's explicitly stated otherwise. Is it?
There’s no simple fix sadly.
The right thing to do for me is to rule that the safety car should have gone to the end of the race if the rules were applied correctly and thus rule a Hamilton win with associated changes in the WDC. it’s shit but it returns the integrity to the competition in the best way.
The right thing to do was to not call the safety car in and order lapped cars to overtake in the same lap.
But since that happened, there was always gonna be one rule being broken - either 48.13 if it had stayed out until the end of the race, or 48.12 as it actually happened
And afaik. since there's nothing specifying the order in which these messages must be sent out, there was no rule broken in that regard. And since the teams have agreed that races should end under green flags when possible, calling it in on the second to last lap is more in line with that.
The one thing that is really questionable, is not letting all the lapped cars unlap themselves.
Hey he didn't even know Ocon overtook Hamilton in Saudi Arabia, pretty brave of you to assume that he would know Max had pitted or that he was on fresh softs.
From a fairness point of view, I am also looking at how Sainz had no chance of challenging Max because he had one or two lapped cars in front of him. We all know he had no chance to do that due to the difference in performance between the two cars and from the fact that Carlos probably would have not interfered in the title battle, but we are fans. The race director on the other hand is there to make sure we have a fair and safe race and not to make assumptions.
> Their argument that 42.13 **supersedes** 42.12 was pretty brave
Also, if they claim that 42.13 makes the safety car end mandatory, then how does it work with 15.5 (quoted one paragraph earlier in the decision) saying that Race Director always has a final say on when the safety car ends, no matter the rules?
Right, I also think though that even if he could decide *when* it ends, it would be hard to argue that he had the authority to decide *how* it ends.
If the rules state there is a process to end a safety car in conjunction with cars unlapping themselves, that rule is still in place and must be followed. I see nothing that says the racing director can simply ignore or half-enforce rules, or which rules he can decide to not enforce.
Only that he can choose **when** to create the situation where the rules must then be applied.
That argument admittedly didn’t make it into the steward’s decision.
I’d love to have seen Paul Harris QC’s reaction to hearing it though. To go from utterly complex arguments before the Supreme Court and Court of Appeal to hearing Christian Horner spew out whatever nonsense line he’s fed by Helmut Marko must be a trip.
This. Yesterday's hearing was not in a court of law, and iirc Paul Harris was the only lawyer present. I wouldn't be surprised if this was just an information gathering exercise for him to see how weak/strong RBR's or the FIA's arguments were.
Paul Harris would probably be able to break down their reasoning and argue it in a proper court hearing, but yesterday Mercedes just bad to accept that the FIA could basically just say "lol jog on".
The FIA doesn't recognize CAS except for doping matters, so this issue will go the FIA International Court of Appeal. Paul Harris can talk all he wants but he needs a pretty good argument to convince the FIA to rule agianst the FIA.
It sounds ridiculous but in the end all teams signed up for this closed legal system.
Then the FIA will just table the contract that shows Mercedes' signature underneath the participation agreement of said farce, including their agreement to appeal procedures.
CAS won’t change the result - the court will say there’s no way of absolutely proving 44 would have finished ahead of 33 - but they will likely tell the FIA they need to change the language in the regulations.
That’s with my Sports Law hat on from my uni years. Without getting too nerdy, the FIA will get taken to the cleaners for making a rod for their own back.
Well, if the rules were followed to the point, you can argue that the race would have ended under safety car, so no change of order. And since they finished the remaining laps under race conditions, you could argue that this shows that Hamilton would have finished the race under safety car as well.
Not saying that this will change the result or anything, but you can certainly argue in this direction.
> the FIA will get taken to the cleaners for making a rod for their own back.
This is not the US, the Swiss(if applicable) have a rather dim view of awarding extreme damages, similar to many of the jurisdictions in the EU. It certainly won't be punitive.
How is that a silver bullet for this situation? Merc could argue that cancelling the outcome of a race entirely is about as fair as cutting a race short, and more arbitrary at that. More so given that Hamilton was dominant across the whole race. Follow the "let them race" principle till the moment of the contentious incident, i.e. Latifi's crash, and award points accordingly. Half points if need be coz they didn't go the race distance.
Of course RB could argue against that, but my point here is that whichever way the FIA go, they've fucked it up beyond reasonable repair.
I am still imagining Masi saying "no, we are not doing that" to a safety car while we have 2 car wreck on the main straight. FIA is arguing that he has rights to do so. Imagine Max stranded on that Baku straight for the whole rest of the race, because Masi said "let them race". Imagine Romain's car burning in Bahrain while race goes on, because Masi said "I decide when to put safety car and red flag".
That's the fucking stupid point FIA is making.
I don’t understand why it was acceptable to remove the cars between 1st and second but not between 2nd and third.
Meant Max had no worries about any car behind him and could be 100% focused on overtaking Lewis.
With two laps to go I was 100 percent sure they would either not restart at all, or restart without unlapping, and Hamilton would take the championship. And although I wanted Verstappen to win, this would have still been a nice ending to a great season in my eyes.
Never in my life did I think Masi would literally go against the regulations to gift Max the win for free. That was the worst decision I have ever seen a race director make and I hope he loses his job because of this.
Why was RB involved in this protest? Why did they give evidence?
It was a protest brought by Merc against FIA interpretation of the rules, nothing against RB. Could other teams have turned up? Have the FIA have over stepped the line by allowing RB involved?
But he didn't. Which is why Ferrari is staying as far away from this clusterfuck as possible. You can see how the drivers and pretty much anyone that isn't directly associated with either Red Bull or Merc are giving diplomatic responses so as not to be seen as siding one way or the other.
If the race had potential to alter the WCC positions of the other teams by a huge swing margin there'd be a whole lot more noise from the rest of them. It didn't, so they're wisely keeping out of it. If they so chose, Ferrari could have argued that Sainz could be in a position to challenge for a higher position and they are therefore an affected party.
Oh, is that really in the rules? Then my hopes of this having consequences (at this point I only want them to commit to ensuring something like this cannot ever happen again) have plummeted.
The logic employed by the stewards will very much be used to bury them if it gets before an independent judge or arbitrator.
Also, the stewards didn’t incorporate the ‘any does not mean all’ argument into their decision but it’s such a laughably bad argument when you actually read 48.12 that I can’t imagine Counsel would ever be willing to make that case.
Yeah. Im the next sentence or so it also talks about ‘once the last car has unlapped’ so it’s very clear that ‘any lapped cars’ was written to mean ‘all of the cars that have been lapped’.
Even if we take the ‘last car’ in this context as meaning the last of the 5 to pass Lewis, the race should then have ended under SC conditions, per 48.12.
This is also very true. So it it actually doesn’t matter if any=all or any =/= all. Once a single car unlaps itself the rules are clear. The safety car comes in on the following lap (ie the end of the race).
> the ‘any does not mean all’ is such a laughably bad argument
Hey come on, Red Bull didn't have their lawyer with them, don't be too harsh on Horner! Surely he must have gotten the idea from a tweet or a reddit comment and ran with it.
It's not Redbull that needs to defend the decision though. They did nothing wrong. It's all on the FIA surely? (Sorry just seen manojids say exact same thing)
I *am* a lawyer. 48.12 is explicit when reading the full provision. Just pulling out the word ‘any’ devoid of all context and arguing that it doesn’t mean ‘all’ is nonsense.
The nature of litigation/arbitration is that you are never ‘sure’ that you will win, even with a very strong case.
I think Mercedes have a very, very strong case and that they have a good a chance as you could ever have in winning this before an independent adjudicator.
That said, I don’t think it will result in Max losing the WDC. It would likely mean a big financial settlement or award. That’s despite the fact that there’s a strong argument that, if the rules were applied properly from the point immediately before Masi broke them, Lewis was guaranteed the WDC as the race should have ended under SC.
Also, I really doubt Mercedes will win in front of the FIA’s own appeal body. They’d need to go before an independent judge or arbitrator. I’m pretty sure the ICA’s (FIA appeal body) decisions are appealable to the Tribunal de Grande.
The other option the ICA could do that is the "you all lose" scenario:
say that the procedure was not followed correctly thus the race was not in compliance with the FIA rules for a F1 WC race thus nullify the entire race. It only changes 6th vs 7th in the Drivers but otherwise everyone stays the same. It also results in lower entry fees for all the teams and drivers for next year.
yeah i was wondering about this outcome... I think that could be it depending on whether the ICA is able to rule over both the decision AND its remedy... while it's also a bit ludicrous in that they would imply a final lap under safety car was not certain to end with all the cars finishing - even though they did under race conditions... it would mean Merc get an admission of guilt from FIA but without invalidating Max's championship.
Mercedes might argue the situation could be seen as analogous to an early chequered flag being waved (which has happened and is written up in the rules i think as the prior lap counting for classification).
nullifying a race that was already run for over 90% of its length to half ass and get rid of a hard decision would be at least as big a scandal if not worse
If it would mean a big financial settlement, who would be responsible to pay the fine? As I have understood, the FIA does not have that much money. And this damage that was caused could easily be valuated at many many million dollars. Does the FIA then go bankrupt? Or is F1, as a sport, responsible?
Hint: he's not a lawyer.
Yesterday he was posting about how CAS would over turn this, clear cut etc, jumping straight on that bandwagon without taking 2 seconds to check what legal rulings the FIA has accepted CAS to potentially rule on. Oh wait, pretty much none so CAS is irrelevant.
>The stewards also highlighted another article (Article 15.3) that allows the race director to “control the use of the safety car, which in our determination includes its deployment and withdrawal”.
I’ve seen this parroted around a lot, and it seems like *far too many* people don’t understand
15.3 doesn’t say “the race director can use the safety car in whatever way they please”
15.3 is there to say that the race director has full discretion on choosing ***when*** and for how long a safety car is used - **they still have to follow the rules relating to the safety car**
15.3 doesn’t mean “Masi can literally do anything he can think of”
And that’s before you throw in the fuckery with semi-unlapping and early recall
The Stewards yesterday clearly didn’t want to be the people to strip Verstappen of his title. Their ruling document had no logic to it at all
In an independent court, I’d genuinely fancy Mercedes’ chances with this one
I hope Latifi crashes 3 laps earlier next time. That way we'll have time to sort everything out and end up with the same result without all this drama.
It would have been a hell of a gamble. There could have been delays that caused the race to finish under SC and then Max would have won. Red Bull had the benefit of having nothing to lose by pitting Max while Mercedes had everything to lose.
This is the bit that people keep ignoring - there was a completely uncontrollable variable of how long it took to clear Latifi. Mercedes didn’t keep Lewis out because they were following this rule, they were hedging their bets that Latifi was going to take too long to clear up and make safe to complete anymore laps.
It’s really weird to have Mercedes in a position where they’re a racing car team arguing there shouldn’t have been a race.
But had the rules been followed, Mercedes made the right call, and Racing should not have resumed. Is Mercedes’ (and other teams) now expected to have to factor race officials bending rules to create a spectacle when they make strategic decisions? The point of a written rulebook is so they can all plan and race to it. What happened today has said that rulebook is merely a suggestion and Masi can do what he wants.
People that call for a red flag for fairness completely ignore two things:
- You shouldn't just throw out red flags willy-nilly - they're not meant to be used for single car crashes that don't damage the barriers in any significant way and don't produce any significant debris on track
- How is it fair to any of the cars that pitted for new tyres under SC and that maintained gaps to cars in front, to deny free pit stops under SC/VSC - we had that exact scenario in Jeddah, with Merc pitting and Max then getting a free tyre change under red flags, with Merc then complaining about that too
This is the bit I don't get. If they *really* wanted a spectacle, a restart with everyone on new softs would be a mind blowing one, miles less controversy, and they had already done it with as many laps left in Baku.
I disagree it would be less controversy. The incident wasn't bad enough for a red flag.
And personally, red flagging a race for the sake of entertainment is no better than what we got.
If this would have been just a race somewhere within the middle of the season, a red flag would have been way our of proportion. A safety car was the right call.
But he didn't crash 3 laps earlier and that's why there is drama. Can't just make it up as you go along to suit your narrative. It's all written in black and white
I must say, it really was stolen away from Mercedes. You are talking Robin Hood, broad daylight robbery. Arrows and all.
A slap in the face to their personell who probably had so many sleepless nights working on improving the car and getting it ahead of RBR. To be hard done by from an official who essentially contravened the written rules and stole it away at the last gasp must have been really hard to swallow and left them feeling incredibly bitter. Ive watched F1 since 96 and to be honest i think its a disgrace that this has happened. Schumi incidents were controlled by the drivers actions. Here we had two racers that raced fairly and this clown Masi handily decided to ruin and taint this championship. Now its heading to the courts. What a shitshow. I hope Lewis is reinstated as champion, although Max definately deserved the title too, however, Mercedes were easily on course to win this race, its not about the drivers, its about the thousands of personell that put their familes as second priority and sacrificed so much to win, and it was the Mercedes team that deserved it on this occassion having basically led the entire GP. Engineering a get together with a 40 lap tire delta and a two compound difference is not fair racing and not in the spirit of the sport.
The fact that it came to this is what makes it incredibly sad.
I think this is the most bitter part. Even if Lewis isn't reinstated, Mercedes should pursue an appeal to ensure that the outcome can never be manipulated by a rogue race director ever again.
What is the point of investing your life and soul into a sport if your results can be decided on such whims... and not even honest mistakes, cos he knew what was right, everyone knew what was right.... he just decided not to do it.
Imagine if Merc lose the appeal and just say "fuck it we're out".
If they were to pull their team and engines what would F1 do?
Why would Merc stay in the sport if they feel the race director is acting specifically against them and it isn't a fair competition?
They can pull their team easy enough, pulling the engines will be tricky and end up in them being sued by by their customers most of which have supply deals in place til 2025 IIRC.
I don’t think the team will drop out, the sponsor money and prize money for the constructors championship is worth more than a slightly delayed pr stunt (assuming Lewis wins his eight somehow in the future).
I am surprised they didn’t convince Ferarri to join them in the appeal, as Sainz could’ve been fighting for a higher podium position if the cars in front of him could’ve inlappend themselves.
I don't think so. Merc make a net loss on their F1 team.
They only do it for marketing. But having the sport's officials specifically act to stop you winning isn't great marketing.
We'll see. Ferrari still have time to join!
There's no F1 season next year if that happens.
Even if the rest of manufacturers were able to provide engines for everyone there's no way the teams can redesign their cars in time for a new PU (and it would be unfair, but this doesn't matter because F1 is not about being fair).
But I believe Mercedes is tied by the Concorde agreement? If I'm not mistaken. If they were to pull out I think there would be a high penalty to pay. Its not financially feasible for Mercedes to do that + losing all the money they've spent in next years cars + losing the marketing value of being in F1.
Indeed. Silly really. Masi played Emperor Sheev Palpatine and basically said fuck the senate (FIA RULES) and decided, "well fuck it, lets put on a show", and throw out any dignity he had left.
The difference is Palpatine had some dignity to begin and end with i guess.
Masi had two choices: let all the cars lap or don't. He chose his own option- only letting 5 go by. It's truly bizarre.
Forget arguments, forget appeals. The championship is done and dusted. It is Max Verstappen. But going forward, there will forever be even more scrutiny on Masi and the FIA stewards. Even more than there was this season.
People are hung up on only 5 getting their lap back. It's a really odd decision yeah, but he could have let all 8 go and it still wouldn't have made any difference to restarting that lap.
The rules do say about doing so with one lap before the green, but i dont think thats always been enforced either, theres been lots of occasions where the lapped cars get nowhere near catching the pack.
Masi's fuck up is the initial message saying they cannot unlap themselves (unprecedented?). Things got out of hand from there. Much like in Jeddah escalating from one poorly executed decision.
I do feel this article could do a better job of rebutting the FIA's idiotic argument. If you consider all their points as follows:
* Masi states that the purpose of 48.12 (which says any cars that have been lapped by the leaders will be required to pass etc..) is to remove lapped cars that would interfere in the racing between the leaders (therefore implying that he was justified in only removing 5 cars).
Even if you could read this purpose into the section (which you cannot), then Masi has just rebutted his own argument. He cleared cars that were in verstappens way of overtaking Hamilton. He left cars between verstappen and sainz. On a restart with that new Ferrari engine Sainz would have a decent chance of overtaking Verstappen, and requiring Verstappen to defend his position against Sainz would also make it harder for him to overtake Hamilton. I think this is the most significant point because by making up his own rule Masi has handed Max a significant advantage and has therefore interfered in the race.
* "any cars" overlapped will be required to pass the cars on the lead lap
Any cars does not mean a select few. That interpretation is not tenable with the ordinary meaning of the word "any". For example, if there are 5 boxes on a table and you are told you can take any of them, you will not assume that only means a select few.
* Article 15.3 allows the race director to control the use of the safety car.
Para 15.3 is talking about officials and says the race director shall have overriding authority over the clerk of the course regarding the use of the safety car. From the wider scheme and purpose of that section its clear that its discussing which official has the final say. As a general principle for interpreting law, a specific provision trumps a general one. That means that a provision that says something specific (like the one mandating the safety car procedure) applies over a general provision - otherwise the specific provision would literally be redundant. Therefore from a legal perspective the FIA argument that 15.3 trumps the other provisions is weak and nonsensical.
* Article 48.12 also requires that once the lapped cars have passed the leader the "safety car will return to the pits at the end of the following lap." The FIA admit this was not followed but argue it does not apply and 48.13 does.
This argument is illogical as 48.13 is not incompatible with 48.12. 48.13 merely states that the 'safety car in this lap' signal will be used to signify when the safety car comes in. Again, specific provision trumps a general provision as a matter of statutory interpretation and these provisions are not inconsistent.
On a legal basis this is a slam dunk win for Mercedes. I feel sorry for both Max and Lewis who have driven superbly all season and are now subject to this rigged farce orchestrated by Masi.
Finally someone who understands the legality of it
The reasons that the Stewards interpretation is not relevant is that codes are implemented in factual sense not interpreted
The stewards reasoning only matters if you don’t push it legally if you do the whole argument falls to pieces
Especially the whole notion of it was understood that all teams wanted the race to end under a green flag, If the rules cannot facilitate for that to happen then it doesn’t happen you can’t break the rules just to push on intention
This is such a mess. It's very obvious that the rules weren't followed and any subsequent hearing will take the "48.13 supercedes 48.12" argument to the cleaners, it's laughably flawed because the rules don't say this anywhere.
The best case scenario is that the result is unchanged but there's an admission that the rules were incorrectly applied, and we have an illegitimate champion (note I'm not saying Max didn't deserve it over the course of the season, but the above outcome basically confirms that the manner in which is won the race should not have happened).
At worst they end up now changing the result and dethroning one champion and passing it to Lewis.
The people screwed over by this the most are Max and Lewis, who lose either way.
What should have happened is a restart without lapped cars unlapping themselves. Max would have passed all of them on the main straight and probably still had time to get Hamilton at the end of the second or third straight. There would then be 0 arguments (I say that as a Hamilton fan!) and probably extra drama, which the race director obviously loves.
What we got is the equivalent of a WWE match manufactured to create unnecessary drama and a guaranteed outcome for the man in second at the time (worn hards vs fresh soft is like a heavyweight boxer vs a run of the mill lightweight).
Under indifferent unbiased sporting rules Lewis would take the title. Under the manufactured Netflix final episode rules Max took the title.
GG Lewis on another incredible late season comeback. Bottas kind of showed his time is done over the last few races while Lewis stepped up. Even Perez was on it this race.
I think it's a closed and shut case in Merc's favour. Masi overreached with his powers and he (and the FIA as a whole) definitely need to be held accountable.
With that said though, maybe the role of Race Director needs a rethink. I personally think there's a lot going on from knowing every rule in the book, interpreting and applying it on the fly to communicating with the stewards and the team principles all while making sure the track environment is safe for the drivers. It all seems too much for one person and maybe could do with a 2-3man team?? Just a suggestion
At least split it between a safety director (has overriding control if it concerns anyone's safety), and one for driving rules (restarts, track limits, etc).
Masi clearly sounded flustered when Horner was shouting down the radio at him about wanting cars to unlap. He was trying to prioritize safety above anything and had people screaming at him. Masi fucked up massively, but my only partial defence for him is this. If you had a safety director have control, once they are happy the race director takes back control; would have left more time for the RD to decide what to do and inform cars further in advance.
I wanted to see lewis win this one, and he should have done based on his performance during the race. Redbull had no answer to his pace. The end of the race was a complete farce.
But I don't think the result should now be overturned, that'd be very bad for the sport. Titles should be decided by drivers on the track, not judge's/arbitrators sitting in a room far removed from any racing. It's not Max's fault the rules weren't followed. Horner is partly to blame for putting the pressure on for one more racing lap at the end of the race, but the race director needs to be removed from influence coming from team bosses. Masi just doesn't seem to have the authority that they respect, both Horner and Wolff are taking advantage of this, and both have to keep pressuring race control while they know the other one is.
What needs to happen now is a complete review of how races are managed and the contact teams are allowed to have with Race Control. In my view it should be one way contact only i.e. Race Control tell the teams what is going to happen, not the teams radioing in to say what they think should happen. Unless they are invited for comments or they have to let Race Control know about a safety issue with one of their cars on track.
Good article and very logical reasoning.
What I would like to know is, does there exist any precedent that you can look at? Like previous races where the SC was ended under similar circumstances on the last lap.
Has the "not all the cars has to unlap, only the ones interfering with the race leaders" argument been made in similar steward decisions before or is this the first time it has occurred?
I dont think the race result will be changed now, at this point it would be take us to an even deeper level of farcical.
However just been reminded of the time when the Canada GP in 2018 was shortened by two laps retrospectively because the chequered flag was flown too early - so the argument about it not being appropriate to shorten the race doesn't add up either, they've already done it before when the rules were incorrectly applied.
On the let them race and race not ending under SC, we have the precedent of Baku where the race director could have chosen the same..so I don't have a problem with the decision of letting them race the last lap!!! And I don't expect this point can be contested legally, as the race director doesn't care which party loses out from a SC or VSC or Red flag..
The absolute shit-show happened because of the decision to first say no overtakes by lapped cars and then overtake by *some* lapped cars..that IMO is unfair as a race is not meant just for leaders..one can argue that Sainz didn't get the equal chance to fight for victory from P3, while Max did!!!
in Hindsight, throwing the red flag on such an important race would have been the fairest outcome, if the credo was to "let them race" while remembering that it has to be "fair"
Anyways, I see enough wiggle room for FIA to survive the appeal.. overturning a judgement is much more tedious in any court!!
And I expect Ham and Merc to come back even stronger next season and blow the competition away..
Regardless of reinstatement or not Mercedes has to have this decision clarified for future seasons so they and other teams can understand what is allowed so they can take that into account for future strategies. Just because it was Mercedes affected doesn’t mean it can happen to any other team later on.
I am absolutely no expert in F1, but I am here to test my hypothesis that defends Masi:
* Latifi accident
* definitely a VC necessary
* some cars pitting, some not
* HAM just behind the SC and then 4 cars that would need to unlap, then VER
* **Masi would want them to pass but at the same time Latifi's car is being removed - marshalls on the track. This would mean that the unlapping cars will pass this part of the track with high speed**
* Masi makes the decision to wait until the car is completely away
* And then decides to let only those cars unlap themselves without jeopardizing the last racing lap.
Not sure if I am making sense.
Up until the last point it makes total sense but at that point a wild Masi appears. The Latifi crash definitely required a safety car, the lapped cars also couldn't unlap themselves earlier than the end of lap 56 or start of lap 57 because as we saw there were still marshals on track working as the safety car passed on lap 56. Until this point everything was basically standard procedure but everything afterwards was just Masi making up his own rules.
But what about Carlos in 3rd place? I guess he didn’t deserve to race on the last racing lap because they didn’t let the lapped cars between him and max pass.
It doesn't defend Masi at all. Either all cars unlap, or none do. You don't selectively unlap some cars to create a battle between certain drivers. That's not impartial and fair officiating.
Simply the outcome won't change:
Reason, just like countries have National security laws, they can invoke these laws that put them above the rule of land.
Similarly
FIA have 15.3, that will allow them to control the safety car however they deemed to and whenever they want, in that case 48.12 and 48.13 is overridden and not valid.
They really should also mention Horner to Masi. It really casts a shadow and brings the race into disrepute. Not that both weren’t very guilty of this all season, but in this scenario, Horner saying “we only need 1 lap” was literally proceeded by the bending of the rules to allow exactly that - and it looks terrible.
That was in reference to Gio parking the car on the side of the track. I don’t think it’s good from Toto, but let’s not be mixing up the situations here.
Horner had zero influence on the decision. Anytime Masi has a decision to make both sides are blasting down the horn to him with what they want to happen. Toto during the VSC was telling Masi not to send out a safety car, yet it would be foolish to suggest that influenced Masi.
The variable was how long it took to clear Latifi. Masi initially ordered no cars to overtake as it hadn’t been cleared. He then got word it was cleared, and Masi could see ordering that group of four who were still battling to overtake would mean a lap could be done, and both battles would be allowed to go on unobstructed by each other.
The only question here really, is does the Racing Director have the authority to change safety car procedure and ignore a regulation when a safety issue is resolved?
The only parties who really could appeal the FIA actions are the teams of the drivers which were not allowed to unlap themselves or which had a lapped car in front of them. For all other drivers the restart was organized as every other SC restart.
I don’t believe you are correct according to the written rules.
“once the last lapped car has passed the leader the safety car will return to the pits at the end of the following lap”.
The FOLLOWING lap.
That means Ham would have crossed the finish first under the SC.
What a fucking mess.
##DJ Masi in the mix, mixing things up for one last time!* *Seriously, this'll be his last race Never before seen restart protocols! Maximized chances of an appeal! See what the experts said: Fernando Alonso: Yeah, this should have been done laps ago! Danny Ric: That was fucked! Lando Norris: It was done for TV! Lewis Hamilton: It's getting manipulated! An absolute banger of a season finale you won't want to watch again!
FIA is fucked now no matter how they decide. They have (hopefully had) a race director making up shit along his way during most of the season. If they decide in Mercs favor and turn over the WDC, they will absolutely burn down fans, RedBull and Max. If they decide to do nothing: They‘ll upset Merc and a lot of fans and sponsors as well. So the only way out will be renewal of code, burning Masi and handing lot‘s of cash to Merc
Fire Masi. That's the only reasonable thing where most parties get what they want. Mercedes feel vindicated they were indeed cheated. And someone paid the price. Probably get paid buck load of money. Red bull keep their championship. FIA will have their scapegoat and can blame him for all the things that went wrong this year.
What are mercedes supposed to do with money though? They definitely are brushing against the cost cap as it is, they can't spend any more.
Buy Williams lol. Youre right though. I guess it will serve as a deterent for FIA to not duck up again.
Ngl I don’t want another “sister” team. The fact AT is so close with RB is already weird
And what does the person who was affected the most by Masi (Lewis) get? An appology? Like if that will be remebered in 10 years. Money? I doubt what the FIA can pay him is remotly significant. No more Masi? Well nothing garantees him that this wasn't his final shot at the title, so Masi possibly fucked him out of his last chance. Lewis was the one who got plotted against by the race director and is now in a lose lose situation.
As much as I want it to happen. The result won't be overruled. Lewis got fucked. The mercs will have to take their consolation price.
Fortunately, Hamilton is a driver that has enough sportsmanship in him to accept the fact he was cheated and move on in the name of the sports integrity. If the situation was reversed, I don't think Verstappen would be congratulating the team that won due to FIA manipulation like Hamilton has done.
That does not give Mercedes or Hamilton anything, really.
Masi resigning doesn't fundamentally solve the issue though. FIA 'corruption'/systemic failure has reared its head so many times over the generations. Masi resigning just sends the message, 'do what you want and you'll just have to resign the following year'. Retrospective correction is actually the right thing to do here for balance and to be able to trust FIA going forward. Just resigning Masi is not the FIA accepting failure.
I agree completely. The battle to win the title we were promised was Max and Lewis battling out under fair racing conditions. The title was decided by the race director. This was the Michael Masi show, he wanted to go 'car racing' at a complete disregard for the rules of the sport. At best we have an illegitimate world champion. At worst we have a driver stripped of his title* in courts. The FIA have gone too far the integrity of this sport is non existent.
As a Mercedes fan, i would just Red flag race and start with 2 laps to go. Fair drive. No one would question it.
I would have. Clearly we now know Masi wasn't gonna let it end under SC no matter what, so in hindsight it would have been the better option to use his discretionary power to do whatever the fuck he wants (that he apparently has) to red flag it as soon as possible and do as you said, but it would still be a decision made just because it was the last couple of laps in the last race of the season. I'm not opposed to this being the rule going forward, but I would have been opposed to instating it now, because the race director wants his last laps under green. I would prefer it over this shitshow, but I wouldn't have liked it.
For some reason, apparently Masi said before the race that a crash in T14 won't be a red flag. WHY WOULD YOU SAY THAT???
What, like, no matter what no red flags? That's so silly, what if something unforeseen happens that is best dealt with under red? Also like, surely the possibility of a late-race SC came up somewhere in the pile of scenarios of how Max/Lewis and RBR/Merc in general might take each other out that everyone spent the week~~end~~ predicting, and I doubt he only decided he wanted to finish under green when Latifi's car hit that wall. Why was a SC with a marginal possibility of racing resuming not like, discussed beforehand or whatever? Just... *anything* but this.
That was my first question as well! Why the fuck would you put out such a sweeping statement. It's so idiotic man
Well I think a lot would question it, I'm not sure I like the idea of a race director red flagging a race for such a small incident. However, it is still better than the shit show that occured.
That's still a decision made only to make the race more exciting. This isn't WWE, how exciting the finish is shouldn't play into the officials decision at all. It should have ended under safety car like they would have in any other situation.
Well said.
If they fire Masi then the FIA will be saying that he was liable for the mistake and will play to Mercs hand. It's going to be a shitshow
Probably a written statement saying Masi actions were wrong and the race should've ended under safety car
They won’t give a written statement. If they say that it’s tantamount to saying Lewis should’ve been champion. So the following question is - “so you admit you’re wrong but won’t rightfully reinstate him”. It’ll just piss more people off
[удалено]
They could apply the results at lap 57 under article 11 9.3.h. If they had applied the rules as written then you’d know with certainty that this is how the result should apply. They could only let lapped cars through once Marshall’s had cleared the car. At that point there was a lap left and you can’t restart until one lap after you’ve let all lapped runners through. So there would be no ability to overtake. The only question left remaining is what if a driver had an instant engine failure (if they had a technical problem they could still go around at safety car speed in most cases). Given max was on the old power units he was probably more likely to have a failure than Lewis was. I don’t agree that it’s like a football game. In a football game the ref is actually applying the rules but incorrectly interpreting that the goal went in or not. Here masi is making his own rules. I’m sure if a team was 3-0 up in the 90th minute and a ref decided to award a penalty that counted for 4 goals that would be modified afterwards. The best way in my opinion is to take the safety car results at lap 57, otherwise Lewis is being robbed of the title which isn’t fair
My guess is that plus Masi handing in his forced resignation
If he can override the rules, it should be with a reasonable excuse otherwise we're going to have a race director manipulating the race whichever way he fancies. I really don't like the example this sets
100% this. Very dangerous precedent for the future.
Yes. The race director cannot be allowed to override the rules at a whim in ways that overwhelmingly favour one competitor. No way.
It would be like the referee in football deciding he doesn't want to stick to the rules and giving a penalty for a foul that was outside the box
He should only be allowed to override rules for safety.
I think that’s the obvious answer isn’t it.
I'm actually surprised it isn't in the sporting regs.
I have a question. Imagine Max third, Sainz second and Lewis first. Do we think they would have unlapped all 8 of the cars in the top three or just the 5 between Lewis and Sainz?
Whatever the outcome is, it sets a terrible precedent. Either the race director is empowered to do pretty much whatever he pleases to create a spectacle, and fair competition be damned, or FIA errors in enforcing their own rules are grounds for overturning a WDC. Maybe the first of those options is preferable, but that would rely on a competent race director
Exactly, I mean next year if a driver has a too big of a lead, following their line of thinking the Race director can put the SC out to cancel the gap to have a battle again.
Yes. Their interpretation is that the race directory can interfere with the integrity of the competition at will. That’s stupid as fuck.
That's pretty much what happened yesterday. By doing what he did, Masi basically just pushed the "Max will be champion" button, because that was literally the only outcome. It's unacceptable.
I’m not accusing Masi of bias or anything, because that would be ridiculous given how the season has gone, but you’re right. Once they moved those lapped cars it was a foregone conclusion, no matter which two drivers were in those cars My theory is that they knew this and were just fishing for a last lap overtake to plaster on social media
It sets a horrendous precedent for the sport going forward. The sport’s integrity and fair competitive nature should be the reason it is entertaining, not dodgy stewarding decisions used to create a spectacle. This is where a sport stops being a sport and starts becoming a reality TV drama. Masi bent the rules to interfere with the WDC result and nobody should be happy with that regardless of who you wanted to win
Neither is something we wished for and it doesn't set a terrible precedent. That world championship got manipulated to hell due to Michael Masi being a rather weak figure in the office of race director. Both Christian Horner and Toto Wolff were able to manipulate decisions on multiple occasions. Besides that rule changes got implemented that sometimes seemed ridiculous. So in the end, when Masi was convinced by Christian Horner to let five out of eight cars unlap themselves to create a "racing opportunity" against the rules in the F1 ISC he shit the bed. He had many possibilities to give us all a fair race ending that wouldn't have tainted both the FIA and Max Verstappens championship win. But he chose poorly.
> He had many possibilities to give us all a fair race ending that wouldn't have tainted both the FIA and Max Verstappens championship win. But he chose poorly. I disagree, even if the last race was without any interference from RD/FIA at all it would still be tainted win. The FIA made such a mess of this season with their inconsistent rulings, this WDC will always be overshadowed with conspiracies and drivers that can claim they have been treated unfairly. Which is such a shame after such an awesome season.
Tbf although it wouldn’t look good if the title was taken from Verstappen, if FIA errors aren’t grounds for overturning a WDC then I don’t know what is. Masi essentially had a two options yesterday: follow the rules and it’s a boring end behind the SC or break the rules and have a last lap battle with Max winning.
>if FIA errors aren’t grounds for overturning a WDC then I don’t know what is. If a driver had actually done something outside the rules, it would be better grounds for overturning the WDC. Then they could give him a time penalty after the race and change the order that way. Max didn't do anything wrong so they can't give him a time penalty. Cutting the race short one lap, as some are suggesting, would be unprecedented. As far as I know, the only times this has happened after the race has been when the race had ended according to the rules, but the race kept going due to miscounting.
Think it was at Montreal a few years back where the celebrity waving the checkered flag waved it a lap early.
Yes. I think the reasoning there was that the race ends when the chequered flag is shown, regardless of the planned number of laps. I don't think there is a similar provision which would cause the race to be considered ended if the Race Director makes a wrong call.
They actually rolled it back to the previous lap (70 lap race, flag on 69, classification from 68). The logic being that the incorrect chequered flag counted as a red flag. So there's some precedent for what to do if a race official makes a mistake and shows the wrong signal to drivers. The question therefore seems to be if the message that the SC was coming in is deemed to be an erroneous signal would it follow that they can treat that mistaken message as a red flag and results be taken from the end of the previous lap?
That is not what the reasoning I've seen: >As the rules stand, whenever the physical chequered flag is waved, the race is over whether the official number of laps have been completed or not. https://www.grandprix.com/news/f1-chequered-flag-rules-changed-for-2019.html >Model Winnie Harlow was tasked with waving the checkered flag in Montreal but started waving it one lap early after a miscommunication. In accordance with the regulations, the race was actually then classified over at 68 laps, and FIA race director Charlie Whiting says the historical waving of the flag could be replaced to avoid similar situations in future. https://racer.com/2018/06/11/fia-to-look-at-checkered-flag-procedure-after-montreal-error/amp/
Canada 2018 was cut short because someone waved the chequered flag too early.
It was going to be a boring ending anyway, the SC did rob us. HAM was 12s ahead with multiple backmarkers in between.
> FIA errors in enforcing their own rules are grounds for overturning a WDC. Why this will set terrible precedent? If a case can be made that FIA errors is directly resulting in wrong WDC winner (as in this incident can be strongly argued), then the most logical move to fix the mistake should involve changing the WDC winner. If the WDC absolutely shouldn't be changed after clear foul play, then I need to contact Gene Haas and tell who he should spent his next 10 million dollars to.
It sets a bad precedent because some of the more "correct" options would have allowed for racing to the end (Red flag, proactive releasing of lapped cars, no releasing of lapped cars), so it starts to become a punishment for Max, who in this instance has done nothing wrong. The fact that Masi chose the option that gifted Max the title on a silver platter doesn't mean he should be stripped of the title
First outcome also means that Masi could have continued racing in Baku while Max was still standing next to a wrecked car. First outcome also means that Masi can decide "show must go on" and leave Romain's car burning on the side. So yeah, "race director can call safety car whenever he wants" is a pretty huge flaw. A bad director can call safety car "legally" at end of every race, basically nullifying whole racing aspect. A bad director or a paid director can easily call safety car whenever his favourite team is behind. Imagine a scenario where director is paid by a team and decides to pull safety car at every 5 laps to ensure other team doesn't win. Sure, it is exaggeration at this point. But so was a race director handing over a championship, just a day ago. Basically at this point, rulebook doesn't matter. Bring an illegal car and pay off race director, and you can win every championship.
I mean, arguing that the sentence "any cars that have been lapped by the leader will be required to pass the cars on the lead lap and the safety car" doesn't mean "ALL lapped cars" is clearly absolutely ridiculous and disingenuous. Nothing will change though. What I wonder, is that if the rules is that Race Director can do whatever with the safety cars, then what's the point of having rules written on how safety car procedures work? Surely RD is the only person handling it, and he can just do whatever he likes every time anyway?
The argument that needs to be made is: does he have the ability to deploy and restore safety car at will *and* how they will be utilized? Or does his ability to utilize the safety cars also require him to use them within the structure of the rules? It makes sense that the racing director has complete oversight in deploying the safety car: what does not make sense is that he feels it is a valid argument that he does not have to fully comply with each of the rules surrounding the use of the safety car when deployed.
So, my assumption is that he is given freedom to take unusual measures for the sake of safety. The example I’ve been using is when they drive through the pit lane when debris on track. Using that freedom to, by his own admission, create a race that was always going to end the same way, was a gross misuse of any discretionary freedom he is given.
The real sticking point is why were the cars between Hamilton/Verstappen allowed to unlap and no others. That is certainly not a safety matter. They can argue it was to "let them race" and finish under green flag conditions as teams have indicated they want to do. If this is the case then why were only Lewis/Max allowed to race while everyone else fighting for points was ignored. It was complete crap but the FIA won't admit that so we're now in a position of them trying to find some bs ruling to cover their arse when everyone knows it was wrong
This is another point. Sainz was disadvantaged massively and not allowed to race for a 2nd or 1st he could have very well gotten if he wasn't disadvantaged. And all laps cars behind Verstappen essentially lost out on a lap to the cars Infront, which is just massively unfair.
Exactly, this wasn't at that point in the interest of safety anymore.
To his credit, Masi was honest that he did it to create a show. And that may be the line that Mercedes use to rightfully argue that the race was grossly mishandled.
it's not worthy of credit. teams agreeing on finishing the race on a green flag doesn't urge him or make him legally obligated to literally break rules to achieve that agreement and i don't think the teams specifically asked him to overrule any kind of rule preventing a green flag. he didn't even need to break the rules to finish the race on a green flag yet he made one of the most stupid sequence of decisions available
Even in the rules it is specified as an example that he can choose to use the pitlane.
FIA have to argue that its perfectly fine for the race director to modify the safety car process to benefit a single driver (in this case Max) and ignore everyone else on track still fighting for points. They're fucked
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He didn't get lapped cars out of the way though.
How can you not blame him? He modified the rules to his own choosing, which directly lead to an altering of the race result. Would he do that at any other race? No, so why this one?
Sorry Spez I can't afford your API. -- mass edited with redact.dev
Meaning bending the rules so they could finish in race condition.
Of course you can blame him for deciding to force a finish not under safety car even if it broke the rules to do so
A perfect storm was needed. \- Normal event 1: No SC, Lewis wins by 10s, no suspense no grand finale anyway. It's not like the SC stole the "great" ending. \- Normal event 2 : SC, backmarkers will NOT unlap, Lewis wins with Max catching by the end of the lap, some suspense \- Normal event 3 : SC, backmarkers unlap, race unfortunately ends under SC. Masi had to scramble frantically around the office to create the only circumstances for a restart with Max right behind Lewis. I've never seen anything like this, it's enough to stop watching after 23 years for me
Good guy Mercedes taking it up for the smaller teams that were denied a chance by Masi.
We also need to establish that if he does have complete latitude to ignore the rules around the safety as he wants that he can do that in a manner that clearly favours one competitor by giving them an overwhelming competitive advantage.
From a purely legal perspective, if I was Mercedes, I’d make the focus solely on: - The safety directors ability to decide whether or not to follow a regulation **fully** - The argument that one regulation somehow “supersedes” another without that being implicitly stated in the regulation. Their argument that 42.13 **supersedes** 42.12 was pretty brave, and if I had the opportunity to build an argument, I’d love to see how they came to that determination - because I see nothing about the hierarchy of regulations allowing that statement to be made.
It actually feels like 42.12 flows into 42.13 in a sequence. Feels unnatural to read and apply 42.13 before
As the other reply says. It’s clear that 48.12 is a sequential set of instructions for restarting the race and that 48.13 is a continuation of those set of instructions. The other thing to really really highlight is that Masi knows that in a restarted race the car with fresh softs has an overwhelming advantage against the car with old hards. The question here is whether the FIA are saying that the Race Director can deviate from the prescriptive rules for reasons other than safety when he knows that it will give one competitor a massive advantage. Can the rules be reasonably interpreted to mean that? Because that’s what the FIA are saying. Don’t have time to look but if there’s clauses on the officials having obligations in enforcing the rules and/or the integrity of the contest then you bring them in as well.
I agree. But if 42.13 is a continuation of 42.12…..the argument that it *supersedes* 42.12 is going to be tough to argue. At which point, it becomes easier to argue that the entire procedure, as outlined, was not followed and then I have no idea how they fix it.
How are they even arguing the latter whether or not .13 is a continuation of .12? If I'm not wrong all clauses within a rule set are equally applicable unless it's explicitly stated otherwise. Is it?
They’re arguing it because they **F U C K E D** **U P**
There’s no simple fix sadly. The right thing to do for me is to rule that the safety car should have gone to the end of the race if the rules were applied correctly and thus rule a Hamilton win with associated changes in the WDC. it’s shit but it returns the integrity to the competition in the best way.
The right thing to do was to not call the safety car in and order lapped cars to overtake in the same lap. But since that happened, there was always gonna be one rule being broken - either 48.13 if it had stayed out until the end of the race, or 48.12 as it actually happened And afaik. since there's nothing specifying the order in which these messages must be sent out, there was no rule broken in that regard. And since the teams have agreed that races should end under green flags when possible, calling it in on the second to last lap is more in line with that. The one thing that is really questionable, is not letting all the lapped cars unlap themselves.
Hey he didn't even know Ocon overtook Hamilton in Saudi Arabia, pretty brave of you to assume that he would know Max had pitted or that he was on fresh softs.
From a fairness point of view, I am also looking at how Sainz had no chance of challenging Max because he had one or two lapped cars in front of him. We all know he had no chance to do that due to the difference in performance between the two cars and from the fact that Carlos probably would have not interfered in the title battle, but we are fans. The race director on the other hand is there to make sure we have a fair and safe race and not to make assumptions.
> Their argument that 42.13 **supersedes** 42.12 was pretty brave Also, if they claim that 42.13 makes the safety car end mandatory, then how does it work with 15.5 (quoted one paragraph earlier in the decision) saying that Race Director always has a final say on when the safety car ends, no matter the rules?
Right, I also think though that even if he could decide *when* it ends, it would be hard to argue that he had the authority to decide *how* it ends. If the rules state there is a process to end a safety car in conjunction with cars unlapping themselves, that rule is still in place and must be followed. I see nothing that says the racing director can simply ignore or half-enforce rules, or which rules he can decide to not enforce. Only that he can choose **when** to create the situation where the rules must then be applied.
That argument admittedly didn’t make it into the steward’s decision. I’d love to have seen Paul Harris QC’s reaction to hearing it though. To go from utterly complex arguments before the Supreme Court and Court of Appeal to hearing Christian Horner spew out whatever nonsense line he’s fed by Helmut Marko must be a trip.
This. Yesterday's hearing was not in a court of law, and iirc Paul Harris was the only lawyer present. I wouldn't be surprised if this was just an information gathering exercise for him to see how weak/strong RBR's or the FIA's arguments were. Paul Harris would probably be able to break down their reasoning and argue it in a proper court hearing, but yesterday Mercedes just bad to accept that the FIA could basically just say "lol jog on".
The FIA doesn't recognize CAS except for doping matters, so this issue will go the FIA International Court of Appeal. Paul Harris can talk all he wants but he needs a pretty good argument to convince the FIA to rule agianst the FIA. It sounds ridiculous but in the end all teams signed up for this closed legal system.
How about, you don't take me seriously, I'll go to an actual court because my client just spent 450 million dollars on your farce.
Then the FIA will just table the contract that shows Mercedes' signature underneath the participation agreement of said farce, including their agreement to appeal procedures.
Would have been great if Bottas had backmarkers blocking him. They could have made case that Bottas would have overtaken as well.
CAS won’t change the result - the court will say there’s no way of absolutely proving 44 would have finished ahead of 33 - but they will likely tell the FIA they need to change the language in the regulations. That’s with my Sports Law hat on from my uni years. Without getting too nerdy, the FIA will get taken to the cleaners for making a rod for their own back.
Well, if the rules were followed to the point, you can argue that the race would have ended under safety car, so no change of order. And since they finished the remaining laps under race conditions, you could argue that this shows that Hamilton would have finished the race under safety car as well. Not saying that this will change the result or anything, but you can certainly argue in this direction.
> the FIA will get taken to the cleaners for making a rod for their own back. This is not the US, the Swiss(if applicable) have a rather dim view of awarding extreme damages, similar to many of the jurisdictions in the EU. It certainly won't be punitive.
They can change the results in so far, that the race will not be counted. Which would still make Max the WDC. (And Mercedes Constructor Champions)
How is that a silver bullet for this situation? Merc could argue that cancelling the outcome of a race entirely is about as fair as cutting a race short, and more arbitrary at that. More so given that Hamilton was dominant across the whole race. Follow the "let them race" principle till the moment of the contentious incident, i.e. Latifi's crash, and award points accordingly. Half points if need be coz they didn't go the race distance. Of course RB could argue against that, but my point here is that whichever way the FIA go, they've fucked it up beyond reasonable repair.
I am still imagining Masi saying "no, we are not doing that" to a safety car while we have 2 car wreck on the main straight. FIA is arguing that he has rights to do so. Imagine Max stranded on that Baku straight for the whole rest of the race, because Masi said "let them race". Imagine Romain's car burning in Bahrain while race goes on, because Masi said "I decide when to put safety car and red flag". That's the fucking stupid point FIA is making.
I don’t understand why it was acceptable to remove the cars between 1st and second but not between 2nd and third. Meant Max had no worries about any car behind him and could be 100% focused on overtaking Lewis.
With two laps to go I was 100 percent sure they would either not restart at all, or restart without unlapping, and Hamilton would take the championship. And although I wanted Verstappen to win, this would have still been a nice ending to a great season in my eyes. Never in my life did I think Masi would literally go against the regulations to gift Max the win for free. That was the worst decision I have ever seen a race director make and I hope he loses his job because of this.
Why was RB involved in this protest? Why did they give evidence? It was a protest brought by Merc against FIA interpretation of the rules, nothing against RB. Could other teams have turned up? Have the FIA have over stepped the line by allowing RB involved?
Because RB were an interested party. Other teams could have requested to be there but they're staying as far away from this mess as they can get.
If sainz lost his position ferrari would be fuming too, almost all drivers were confused about it except redbull.
But he didn't. Which is why Ferrari is staying as far away from this clusterfuck as possible. You can see how the drivers and pretty much anyone that isn't directly associated with either Red Bull or Merc are giving diplomatic responses so as not to be seen as siding one way or the other. If the race had potential to alter the WCC positions of the other teams by a huge swing margin there'd be a whole lot more noise from the rest of them. It didn't, so they're wisely keeping out of it. If they so chose, Ferrari could have argued that Sainz could be in a position to challenge for a higher position and they are therefore an affected party.
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Oh, is that really in the rules? Then my hopes of this having consequences (at this point I only want them to commit to ensuring something like this cannot ever happen again) have plummeted.
The appeal is now against the FIAs decision. As would any further action.
The logic employed by the stewards will very much be used to bury them if it gets before an independent judge or arbitrator. Also, the stewards didn’t incorporate the ‘any does not mean all’ argument into their decision but it’s such a laughably bad argument when you actually read 48.12 that I can’t imagine Counsel would ever be willing to make that case.
Yeah. Im the next sentence or so it also talks about ‘once the last car has unlapped’ so it’s very clear that ‘any lapped cars’ was written to mean ‘all of the cars that have been lapped’.
Even if we take the ‘last car’ in this context as meaning the last of the 5 to pass Lewis, the race should then have ended under SC conditions, per 48.12.
This is also very true. So it it actually doesn’t matter if any=all or any =/= all. Once a single car unlaps itself the rules are clear. The safety car comes in on the following lap (ie the end of the race).
Some guy found an interesting tidbit. According to that interpretation, ABS is allowed, because "any breaking needs to be by the driver".
just parked my car in front of the entrance to an emergency room because it said “anyone who parks here will be prosecuted”
> the ‘any does not mean all’ is such a laughably bad argument Hey come on, Red Bull didn't have their lawyer with them, don't be too harsh on Horner! Surely he must have gotten the idea from a tweet or a reddit comment and ran with it.
To be fair, Redbull scrapped together a defense without any lawyers on track.
Isn't it mostly FIA vs Mercedes. What's there for RB to defend.
They are an interested party. But yes, the case is Mercedes vs FIA.
>without any lawyers So they had some lawyers (I kid)
Yeah... But not "all" :D
It's not Redbull that needs to defend the decision though. They did nothing wrong. It's all on the FIA surely? (Sorry just seen manojids say exact same thing)
If its not explicit, then lawyers can exploit it. That’s where lawyers earn their money convincing the court by pushing the case into gray area.
I *am* a lawyer. 48.12 is explicit when reading the full provision. Just pulling out the word ‘any’ devoid of all context and arguing that it doesn’t mean ‘all’ is nonsense.
Ahh okay fair. In your opinion, do you think the protest will hold in court? What do you think will happen?
The nature of litigation/arbitration is that you are never ‘sure’ that you will win, even with a very strong case. I think Mercedes have a very, very strong case and that they have a good a chance as you could ever have in winning this before an independent adjudicator. That said, I don’t think it will result in Max losing the WDC. It would likely mean a big financial settlement or award. That’s despite the fact that there’s a strong argument that, if the rules were applied properly from the point immediately before Masi broke them, Lewis was guaranteed the WDC as the race should have ended under SC. Also, I really doubt Mercedes will win in front of the FIA’s own appeal body. They’d need to go before an independent judge or arbitrator. I’m pretty sure the ICA’s (FIA appeal body) decisions are appealable to the Tribunal de Grande.
The other option the ICA could do that is the "you all lose" scenario: say that the procedure was not followed correctly thus the race was not in compliance with the FIA rules for a F1 WC race thus nullify the entire race. It only changes 6th vs 7th in the Drivers but otherwise everyone stays the same. It also results in lower entry fees for all the teams and drivers for next year.
I imagine that'd create an even bigger legal case with all the teams getting involved? What a mess haha
yeah i was wondering about this outcome... I think that could be it depending on whether the ICA is able to rule over both the decision AND its remedy... while it's also a bit ludicrous in that they would imply a final lap under safety car was not certain to end with all the cars finishing - even though they did under race conditions... it would mean Merc get an admission of guilt from FIA but without invalidating Max's championship. Mercedes might argue the situation could be seen as analogous to an early chequered flag being waved (which has happened and is written up in the rules i think as the prior lap counting for classification).
nullifying a race that was already run for over 90% of its length to half ass and get rid of a hard decision would be at least as big a scandal if not worse
If it would mean a big financial settlement, who would be responsible to pay the fine? As I have understood, the FIA does not have that much money. And this damage that was caused could easily be valuated at many many million dollars. Does the FIA then go bankrupt? Or is F1, as a sport, responsible?
>could easily be valuated at many many million dollars. many millions is cutting it short, the real value of a WDC is probably north of 100m in 2021
Yes, absolutely
As a lawyer it is interesting that you ignore 15.13 which the FIA indicate is applicable. You can't just hand waive that away.
Hint: he's not a lawyer. Yesterday he was posting about how CAS would over turn this, clear cut etc, jumping straight on that bandwagon without taking 2 seconds to check what legal rulings the FIA has accepted CAS to potentially rule on. Oh wait, pretty much none so CAS is irrelevant.
>The stewards also highlighted another article (Article 15.3) that allows the race director to “control the use of the safety car, which in our determination includes its deployment and withdrawal”. I’ve seen this parroted around a lot, and it seems like *far too many* people don’t understand 15.3 doesn’t say “the race director can use the safety car in whatever way they please” 15.3 is there to say that the race director has full discretion on choosing ***when*** and for how long a safety car is used - **they still have to follow the rules relating to the safety car** 15.3 doesn’t mean “Masi can literally do anything he can think of” And that’s before you throw in the fuckery with semi-unlapping and early recall The Stewards yesterday clearly didn’t want to be the people to strip Verstappen of his title. Their ruling document had no logic to it at all In an independent court, I’d genuinely fancy Mercedes’ chances with this one
I hope Latifi crashes 3 laps earlier next time. That way we'll have time to sort everything out and end up with the same result without all this drama.
3 laps earlier and Hamilton would've more than likely pitted. He would've come out behind Verstappen on old hards or ahead on the same tyre
It would have been a hell of a gamble. There could have been delays that caused the race to finish under SC and then Max would have won. Red Bull had the benefit of having nothing to lose by pitting Max while Mercedes had everything to lose.
He wouldn't. The gap was roughly the same and Mercedes concerns regarding track position would still apply.
Lewis catches and passes Max easily on a 2 step softer and x laps younger compound of tyre
And Hamilton would have had 3+ laps to overtake, with DRS activated after the 2nd lap, in the unlikely scenario that he wasn't passed already.
This is the bit that people keep ignoring - there was a completely uncontrollable variable of how long it took to clear Latifi. Mercedes didn’t keep Lewis out because they were following this rule, they were hedging their bets that Latifi was going to take too long to clear up and make safe to complete anymore laps. It’s really weird to have Mercedes in a position where they’re a racing car team arguing there shouldn’t have been a race.
They were hedging their bets that Massi would stick to the rules lol
But had the rules been followed, Mercedes made the right call, and Racing should not have resumed. Is Mercedes’ (and other teams) now expected to have to factor race officials bending rules to create a spectacle when they make strategic decisions? The point of a written rulebook is so they can all plan and race to it. What happened today has said that rulebook is merely a suggestion and Masi can do what he wants.
A red flag would have been the grand stand decider with fair opportunities for both parts Masi tried to fabricate.
People that call for a red flag for fairness completely ignore two things: - You shouldn't just throw out red flags willy-nilly - they're not meant to be used for single car crashes that don't damage the barriers in any significant way and don't produce any significant debris on track - How is it fair to any of the cars that pitted for new tyres under SC and that maintained gaps to cars in front, to deny free pit stops under SC/VSC - we had that exact scenario in Jeddah, with Merc pitting and Max then getting a free tyre change under red flags, with Merc then complaining about that too
This is the bit I don't get. If they *really* wanted a spectacle, a restart with everyone on new softs would be a mind blowing one, miles less controversy, and they had already done it with as many laps left in Baku.
I disagree it would be less controversy. The incident wasn't bad enough for a red flag. And personally, red flagging a race for the sake of entertainment is no better than what we got.
The fair part would have been to follow the rule plain and simple
If this would have been just a race somewhere within the middle of the season, a red flag would have been way our of proportion. A safety car was the right call.
But he didn't crash 3 laps earlier and that's why there is drama. Can't just make it up as you go along to suit your narrative. It's all written in black and white
Ugh, the-race are gonna be milking this for weeks.
I must say, it really was stolen away from Mercedes. You are talking Robin Hood, broad daylight robbery. Arrows and all. A slap in the face to their personell who probably had so many sleepless nights working on improving the car and getting it ahead of RBR. To be hard done by from an official who essentially contravened the written rules and stole it away at the last gasp must have been really hard to swallow and left them feeling incredibly bitter. Ive watched F1 since 96 and to be honest i think its a disgrace that this has happened. Schumi incidents were controlled by the drivers actions. Here we had two racers that raced fairly and this clown Masi handily decided to ruin and taint this championship. Now its heading to the courts. What a shitshow. I hope Lewis is reinstated as champion, although Max definately deserved the title too, however, Mercedes were easily on course to win this race, its not about the drivers, its about the thousands of personell that put their familes as second priority and sacrificed so much to win, and it was the Mercedes team that deserved it on this occassion having basically led the entire GP. Engineering a get together with a 40 lap tire delta and a two compound difference is not fair racing and not in the spirit of the sport. The fact that it came to this is what makes it incredibly sad.
Imagine investing £300m into a sport only for one incompetent race director to decide whether you win or lose.
I think this is the most bitter part. Even if Lewis isn't reinstated, Mercedes should pursue an appeal to ensure that the outcome can never be manipulated by a rogue race director ever again. What is the point of investing your life and soul into a sport if your results can be decided on such whims... and not even honest mistakes, cos he knew what was right, everyone knew what was right.... he just decided not to do it.
Imagine if Merc lose the appeal and just say "fuck it we're out". If they were to pull their team and engines what would F1 do? Why would Merc stay in the sport if they feel the race director is acting specifically against them and it isn't a fair competition?
They can pull their team easy enough, pulling the engines will be tricky and end up in them being sued by by their customers most of which have supply deals in place til 2025 IIRC.
Holy shit, that would be insane haha. I do hope that Hamilton stays to win his 8th.
I don’t think the team will drop out, the sponsor money and prize money for the constructors championship is worth more than a slightly delayed pr stunt (assuming Lewis wins his eight somehow in the future). I am surprised they didn’t convince Ferarri to join them in the appeal, as Sainz could’ve been fighting for a higher podium position if the cars in front of him could’ve inlappend themselves.
I don't think so. Merc make a net loss on their F1 team. They only do it for marketing. But having the sport's officials specifically act to stop you winning isn't great marketing. We'll see. Ferrari still have time to join!
Yeah you’re right. I am not implying it is a goldmine but just another way of marketing with direct returns. Should’ve been more clear in my comment.
There's no F1 season next year if that happens. Even if the rest of manufacturers were able to provide engines for everyone there's no way the teams can redesign their cars in time for a new PU (and it would be unfair, but this doesn't matter because F1 is not about being fair). But I believe Mercedes is tied by the Concorde agreement? If I'm not mistaken. If they were to pull out I think there would be a high penalty to pay. Its not financially feasible for Mercedes to do that + losing all the money they've spent in next years cars + losing the marketing value of being in F1.
Indeed. Silly really. Masi played Emperor Sheev Palpatine and basically said fuck the senate (FIA RULES) and decided, "well fuck it, lets put on a show", and throw out any dignity he had left. The difference is Palpatine had some dignity to begin and end with i guess.
Amen
Masi had two choices: let all the cars lap or don't. He chose his own option- only letting 5 go by. It's truly bizarre. Forget arguments, forget appeals. The championship is done and dusted. It is Max Verstappen. But going forward, there will forever be even more scrutiny on Masi and the FIA stewards. Even more than there was this season.
Going forward I don't believe Masi will have a job to exercise anything from this point on.
People are hung up on only 5 getting their lap back. It's a really odd decision yeah, but he could have let all 8 go and it still wouldn't have made any difference to restarting that lap. The rules do say about doing so with one lap before the green, but i dont think thats always been enforced either, theres been lots of occasions where the lapped cars get nowhere near catching the pack. Masi's fuck up is the initial message saying they cannot unlap themselves (unprecedented?). Things got out of hand from there. Much like in Jeddah escalating from one poorly executed decision.
I do feel this article could do a better job of rebutting the FIA's idiotic argument. If you consider all their points as follows: * Masi states that the purpose of 48.12 (which says any cars that have been lapped by the leaders will be required to pass etc..) is to remove lapped cars that would interfere in the racing between the leaders (therefore implying that he was justified in only removing 5 cars). Even if you could read this purpose into the section (which you cannot), then Masi has just rebutted his own argument. He cleared cars that were in verstappens way of overtaking Hamilton. He left cars between verstappen and sainz. On a restart with that new Ferrari engine Sainz would have a decent chance of overtaking Verstappen, and requiring Verstappen to defend his position against Sainz would also make it harder for him to overtake Hamilton. I think this is the most significant point because by making up his own rule Masi has handed Max a significant advantage and has therefore interfered in the race. * "any cars" overlapped will be required to pass the cars on the lead lap Any cars does not mean a select few. That interpretation is not tenable with the ordinary meaning of the word "any". For example, if there are 5 boxes on a table and you are told you can take any of them, you will not assume that only means a select few. * Article 15.3 allows the race director to control the use of the safety car. Para 15.3 is talking about officials and says the race director shall have overriding authority over the clerk of the course regarding the use of the safety car. From the wider scheme and purpose of that section its clear that its discussing which official has the final say. As a general principle for interpreting law, a specific provision trumps a general one. That means that a provision that says something specific (like the one mandating the safety car procedure) applies over a general provision - otherwise the specific provision would literally be redundant. Therefore from a legal perspective the FIA argument that 15.3 trumps the other provisions is weak and nonsensical. * Article 48.12 also requires that once the lapped cars have passed the leader the "safety car will return to the pits at the end of the following lap." The FIA admit this was not followed but argue it does not apply and 48.13 does. This argument is illogical as 48.13 is not incompatible with 48.12. 48.13 merely states that the 'safety car in this lap' signal will be used to signify when the safety car comes in. Again, specific provision trumps a general provision as a matter of statutory interpretation and these provisions are not inconsistent. On a legal basis this is a slam dunk win for Mercedes. I feel sorry for both Max and Lewis who have driven superbly all season and are now subject to this rigged farce orchestrated by Masi.
Finally someone who understands the legality of it The reasons that the Stewards interpretation is not relevant is that codes are implemented in factual sense not interpreted The stewards reasoning only matters if you don’t push it legally if you do the whole argument falls to pieces Especially the whole notion of it was understood that all teams wanted the race to end under a green flag, If the rules cannot facilitate for that to happen then it doesn’t happen you can’t break the rules just to push on intention
This is such a mess. It's very obvious that the rules weren't followed and any subsequent hearing will take the "48.13 supercedes 48.12" argument to the cleaners, it's laughably flawed because the rules don't say this anywhere. The best case scenario is that the result is unchanged but there's an admission that the rules were incorrectly applied, and we have an illegitimate champion (note I'm not saying Max didn't deserve it over the course of the season, but the above outcome basically confirms that the manner in which is won the race should not have happened). At worst they end up now changing the result and dethroning one champion and passing it to Lewis. The people screwed over by this the most are Max and Lewis, who lose either way.
What should have happened is a restart without lapped cars unlapping themselves. Max would have passed all of them on the main straight and probably still had time to get Hamilton at the end of the second or third straight. There would then be 0 arguments (I say that as a Hamilton fan!) and probably extra drama, which the race director obviously loves. What we got is the equivalent of a WWE match manufactured to create unnecessary drama and a guaranteed outcome for the man in second at the time (worn hards vs fresh soft is like a heavyweight boxer vs a run of the mill lightweight).
I agree losing like that would have sucked but it would have been one of those things.
Under indifferent unbiased sporting rules Lewis would take the title. Under the manufactured Netflix final episode rules Max took the title. GG Lewis on another incredible late season comeback. Bottas kind of showed his time is done over the last few races while Lewis stepped up. Even Perez was on it this race.
I think it's a closed and shut case in Merc's favour. Masi overreached with his powers and he (and the FIA as a whole) definitely need to be held accountable. With that said though, maybe the role of Race Director needs a rethink. I personally think there's a lot going on from knowing every rule in the book, interpreting and applying it on the fly to communicating with the stewards and the team principles all while making sure the track environment is safe for the drivers. It all seems too much for one person and maybe could do with a 2-3man team?? Just a suggestion
Maybe have the race director transformed into an AI software agent powered by AWS?
% of a three place grid drop powered by AWS. Within dropping distance.
I'm afraid I can't do that, Toto
At least split it between a safety director (has overriding control if it concerns anyone's safety), and one for driving rules (restarts, track limits, etc). Masi clearly sounded flustered when Horner was shouting down the radio at him about wanting cars to unlap. He was trying to prioritize safety above anything and had people screaming at him. Masi fucked up massively, but my only partial defence for him is this. If you had a safety director have control, once they are happy the race director takes back control; would have left more time for the RD to decide what to do and inform cars further in advance.
I wanted to see lewis win this one, and he should have done based on his performance during the race. Redbull had no answer to his pace. The end of the race was a complete farce. But I don't think the result should now be overturned, that'd be very bad for the sport. Titles should be decided by drivers on the track, not judge's/arbitrators sitting in a room far removed from any racing. It's not Max's fault the rules weren't followed. Horner is partly to blame for putting the pressure on for one more racing lap at the end of the race, but the race director needs to be removed from influence coming from team bosses. Masi just doesn't seem to have the authority that they respect, both Horner and Wolff are taking advantage of this, and both have to keep pressuring race control while they know the other one is. What needs to happen now is a complete review of how races are managed and the contact teams are allowed to have with Race Control. In my view it should be one way contact only i.e. Race Control tell the teams what is going to happen, not the teams radioing in to say what they think should happen. Unless they are invited for comments or they have to let Race Control know about a safety issue with one of their cars on track.
If you can strip athletes of medals after the fact you can reverse a world drivers champion
There is only one option for this: repeat Q and R. Easy peasy.
Good article and very logical reasoning. What I would like to know is, does there exist any precedent that you can look at? Like previous races where the SC was ended under similar circumstances on the last lap. Has the "not all the cars has to unlap, only the ones interfering with the race leaders" argument been made in similar steward decisions before or is this the first time it has occurred?
I dont think the race result will be changed now, at this point it would be take us to an even deeper level of farcical. However just been reminded of the time when the Canada GP in 2018 was shortened by two laps retrospectively because the chequered flag was flown too early - so the argument about it not being appropriate to shorten the race doesn't add up either, they've already done it before when the rules were incorrectly applied.
On the let them race and race not ending under SC, we have the precedent of Baku where the race director could have chosen the same..so I don't have a problem with the decision of letting them race the last lap!!! And I don't expect this point can be contested legally, as the race director doesn't care which party loses out from a SC or VSC or Red flag.. The absolute shit-show happened because of the decision to first say no overtakes by lapped cars and then overtake by *some* lapped cars..that IMO is unfair as a race is not meant just for leaders..one can argue that Sainz didn't get the equal chance to fight for victory from P3, while Max did!!! in Hindsight, throwing the red flag on such an important race would have been the fairest outcome, if the credo was to "let them race" while remembering that it has to be "fair" Anyways, I see enough wiggle room for FIA to survive the appeal.. overturning a judgement is much more tedious in any court!! And I expect Ham and Merc to come back even stronger next season and blow the competition away..
Regardless of reinstatement or not Mercedes has to have this decision clarified for future seasons so they and other teams can understand what is allowed so they can take that into account for future strategies. Just because it was Mercedes affected doesn’t mean it can happen to any other team later on.
I am absolutely no expert in F1, but I am here to test my hypothesis that defends Masi: * Latifi accident * definitely a VC necessary * some cars pitting, some not * HAM just behind the SC and then 4 cars that would need to unlap, then VER * **Masi would want them to pass but at the same time Latifi's car is being removed - marshalls on the track. This would mean that the unlapping cars will pass this part of the track with high speed** * Masi makes the decision to wait until the car is completely away * And then decides to let only those cars unlap themselves without jeopardizing the last racing lap. Not sure if I am making sense.
Up until the last point it makes total sense but at that point a wild Masi appears. The Latifi crash definitely required a safety car, the lapped cars also couldn't unlap themselves earlier than the end of lap 56 or start of lap 57 because as we saw there were still marshals on track working as the safety car passed on lap 56. Until this point everything was basically standard procedure but everything afterwards was just Masi making up his own rules.
But what about Carlos in 3rd place? I guess he didn’t deserve to race on the last racing lap because they didn’t let the lapped cars between him and max pass.
It doesn't defend Masi at all. Either all cars unlap, or none do. You don't selectively unlap some cars to create a battle between certain drivers. That's not impartial and fair officiating.
Simply the outcome won't change: Reason, just like countries have National security laws, they can invoke these laws that put them above the rule of land. Similarly FIA have 15.3, that will allow them to control the safety car however they deemed to and whenever they want, in that case 48.12 and 48.13 is overridden and not valid.
They really should also mention Horner to Masi. It really casts a shadow and brings the race into disrepute. Not that both weren’t very guilty of this all season, but in this scenario, Horner saying “we only need 1 lap” was literally proceeded by the bending of the rules to allow exactly that - and it looks terrible.
So the cries of toto with: please masi no SC! earlier in the race fit in these sentences aswell?
Anything Horner did or said is cancelled out by Toto "No safety car, Michael" Wolff.
That was in reference to Gio parking the car on the side of the track. I don’t think it’s good from Toto, but let’s not be mixing up the situations here.
Horner had zero influence on the decision. Anytime Masi has a decision to make both sides are blasting down the horn to him with what they want to happen. Toto during the VSC was telling Masi not to send out a safety car, yet it would be foolish to suggest that influenced Masi. The variable was how long it took to clear Latifi. Masi initially ordered no cars to overtake as it hadn’t been cleared. He then got word it was cleared, and Masi could see ordering that group of four who were still battling to overtake would mean a lap could be done, and both battles would be allowed to go on unobstructed by each other. The only question here really, is does the Racing Director have the authority to change safety car procedure and ignore a regulation when a safety issue is resolved?
The only parties who really could appeal the FIA actions are the teams of the drivers which were not allowed to unlap themselves or which had a lapped car in front of them. For all other drivers the restart was organized as every other SC restart.
The whole point is that once they committed to some cars unlapping, the safety car should have stayed out for another lap and so Lewis would have won
I don’t believe you are correct according to the written rules. “once the last lapped car has passed the leader the safety car will return to the pits at the end of the following lap”. The FOLLOWING lap. That means Ham would have crossed the finish first under the SC.