Monday, December 13, 2021
The F1 lessons of Abu Dhabi
Unworthy rule drama after duel of the century
There has never been a duel like this in 71 Formula 1 years. A race for eternity decides the world championship, although the green table is going into an unworthy extension. The rules urgently need to be revised.
This season, this last race – it will be talked about for a long time. A Formula 1 World Championship that couldn’t be beat in terms of drama. A duel of the generations and types who started the showdown with the same number of points. And that was decided between the new title holder Max Verstappen and the dethroned record world champion Lewis Hamilton on the very last round of the season. Because Verstappen is who he is, but above all because the race management made a decision that resulted in an aftermath in the poisonous Zoff duel between Red Bull and Mercedes. Lessons from the World Cup final.
A world champion on hold does not work
Team boss Christian Horner took him in his arms and whispered the relieving message in Max Verstappen’s ear. That was around four hours after they had both been so frenetically and exuberantly happy about the 24-year-old’s title win. But then what had to happen could come: a protest against the action of the race management in the all-important phase, put in by Mercedes.
But until shortly before midnight in Abu Dhabi, the blame for the ensuing uncertainty cannot be blamed on the Silver Arrows. Red Bull would certainly have done the same, at all discretion and past experience, had it not been Hamilton but Verstappen who suffered.
In the end, the result stayed the way it was, and when asked how relieved he was after Horner’s message, Verstappen replied: “Very much.” But it is unreasonable to expect the parties to have started only after the commissioners had said, hours after the end of the race.
The rules need to be revised and simplified
It’s because of the rules that it turned out to be so. The reasons given by the four race stewards Garry Connelly, Felix Holter, Derek Warwick, and Mohamed Al Hashmi, with which they quashed the protest, showed that they always lead to discussions. Remarkably, they also made use of Red Bull’s arguments that the team was the third party affected at the hearing. It was about formulations and interpretations of the terms “any” and “all” in the English-language regulations, because only five instead of eight cars were allowed to turn back before the end of the safety car phase.
The point was that article 48.13 could overwrite article 48.12 and that article 15.3 also gave the race director “overriding authority” in the use of the safety car, because it did not come back in at the end of the next lap, as is usually the case was. Then the race and the season would have come to an end behind the car with Bernd Mayländer at the wheel.
Race director Michael Masi, who had been criticized a week earlier because of the bazaar-like action that was publicly broadcast via radio, also argued that there had been an agreement with the teams for a long time not to end races behind the safety car. But how should fans who are celebrating their new world champion still understand all of this?
Max Verstappen deserves it
The circumstances of his tenth win of the season were of course more than happy. Verstappen had no chance under normal racing conditions after his bad start when Hamilton had passed directly. Red Bull tried everything, pulled the team-mate joker, when Sergio Perez – everything completely legitimate and just clever – stayed outside longer before a tire change, only to slow down Hamilton. That succeeded. Verstappen came up but couldn’t do anything when Hamilton won the fight with Perez.
But the attack in the last lap matched the title holder in 2021. “He did it in typical Max style,” commented team boss Horner. Verstappen was left with no choice, he took the opportunity, showed no nerves and drove on the much faster rubbers, which he had received again, off into the title luck.
The poisoning continues
The Mercedes protest was understandable. It reserved whether the team would continue to act against the rating, but posted a corresponding note of intent. At the end of this season, it was no longer surprising that one or the other from Red Bull took the Mercedes protests as an occasion for further Zoff attacks. “Disgusting,” said Red Bull’s motorsport advisor Helmut Marko. “Unworthy losers” – and a lot more. We are still waiting for the reaction from Mercedes. All of this is far from over.
Even in the defeat, Hamilton remains fair
The most successful driver in world championship history is still called Lewis Hamilton, even with “only” seven world championships. In the Mercedes warehouse, one of the Britons could feel sorry for the most in Abu Dhabi. He had his eyes firmly on the eighth title when the safety car reduced his chances to a minimum shortly before the end of the race. The 103-time Grand Prix winner was visibly disappointed after second place in the race and thus in the World Cup, but he turned out to be a fair loser in roulette at the end of a memorable season that would have deserved him as world champion.
Vettel follows and wins
Sebastian Vettel also received a trophy. One that the Heppenheimer could probably have done without: the four-time world champion was recognized as the driver with the most overtaking maneuvers of the year. He “succeeded” in this because his Aston Martin usually suffered considerably in qualifying. From far behind, Vettel often made up a few places in the races, that adds up. More than twelfth place in the World Cup with 43 points, however, was not possible. Vettel will wistfully remember his world championship years at Red Bull. Between 2010 and 2013 he overtook significantly fewer opponents – because he usually started right at the front and stayed there. In the front, however, were completely different drivers this season.