Literally the definition of trolling.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
2024 Formula 1 Season thread
- Thread starter Apple fanboy
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
And ones that are lost, are added to the ignored list. So the loss isn't visible.
There is an alternative and just join in and be open to different perspectives 👍 Most people have more in common than they differ given the time to learn different (international) styles, approaches, and non-native English speakers. 😍
F1 has always rewarded a win and a podium position with more points than lower finishes.
FIA regulations stated that all lapped cars had to pass the Safety Car before it can be brought in and the Green Flag shown. The FIA Race Director ignored that regulation because it would have resulted in the race ending under the Safety Car.
Indeed. And my understanding was that that was an agreement between all the teams, that they didn't want a race to end under the safety car. Wasn't it like with Spa that year, which gave Max a win basically. There may have been others leading up to that as well, but that one sprang immediately to my mind. But I accept that it is human nature to forget such agreement immediately when they go against you.
Did someone say hot chocolate!?
Chocomel, the best there is. From the Netherlands. And best served with some whipcream and a stroopwafel. Yum.There was an agreement that they should try and not finish under Safety Car, but nobody agreed that the rules should be thrown out to achieve it. The FIA investigation came to the same conclusion as well. It's not often an organization investigates itself and finds itself at fault.
Remember that Abu Dhabi was just the final incident in a string of problems in the last few races. Brazil was badly handled as well, and Saudi Arabia was possibly the worst officiated race in F1 history - with the race director doing deals with teams over the radio, and the restart line up being in an order that never officially occurred.
The end of 2021 was a disaster even before that safety car call, regardless of who benefited from the mess.
And the whole Spa debacle had nothing to do with ending a race under a safety car, it was the fact that the race was called after two laps behind the safety car without even a single green flag lap. Coincidently, two laps was all it took for the race to be considered official, getting the FIA out of any legal trouble for canceling the race.
And that is the problem with agreements, not unique to this sport or any other business. Hence, there are so many lawyers in the world; dispute resolution. Agreements often contain unwanted consequences, or interpretations.
Absolutely it was challenging, the chap in charge was moved to another position, and guess what. It is still challenging with two more race directors since Masi. And I can guarantee that next year and the year thereafter it will still be challenging. It is part and parcel of what it is. Same as in any other business.
I don't agree with the strong 'nothing to with'. There is no such thing that you can isolate when there are humans involved. It all played a part, and it ended under a safety car. I never said that was the only challenging part of that race.
I feel this doesn't accurately represent the issues F1 had before, and has now, and why.
Masi was moved to another position, which wasn't a real position, and then left the company 6 months later. We can keep rewording this how we want and talk about "we recall things differently", but for all intents and purposes, he was sacked after the FIA found he violated the regulations.
Masi made it more challenging by inserting himself as a player in the event, rather than a dictator - which is what the race directors position is. He was the race director which began bargaining with teams and having a back and forth with them, which opened up the problems we saw. He used these live bargaining sessions to come up with rulings which were against the sporting regulations, which eventually led to Abu Dhabi where he just made wild decisions himself which those around him did not agree with. Masi made the position more challenging by engaging with the teams live and allowing them to have a say. It's not often that a race director loses control of a race. Masi did this multiple times in 2021.
The challenges now are due to lack of staff. Wittich was doing fine - because he was the F1 race director, not the entire weekend race director. The F1 Race Director stopped doing support races years before even Charlie Whiting passed on. Poor Marques is doing all of the support events now because MBS fired Wittich and his deputies, leaving Marques the only qualified RD the FIA has at that level. No other series does this - the ACO does not expect Eduardo Freitas to do WEC, ELMS, Le Mans Cup, Ligier Series all in a single weekend. Yet F1, with its more condensed schedule, expects Marques to do more than this in a single day. Same over in SRO world - Alain Adam is not expected to do GTWC, GT4 Euro, Euro4 and Super Trofeo - ironically they now have Niels Wittich in GTWC as cover. F1 has made a challenging position impossible to do to a high standard.
F1s issues are self inflicted. This is why people are angry at the FIA, MBS, and previously Masi. None of this just happened. The old issues were Masi inserting himself places he shouldn't have been. The current issues are because MBS has cut the staff numbers. F1 created this problem, and it should rightly be critised for it, rather than excused.
Perhaps, but I still don't see a connection. Nobody complained about Spa ending behind a safety car. The complaints were that points were awarded for a two lap parade behind a safety car.
Ergo, the race ended behind a safety car 🤷♂️ and points were awarded (as per the rules).
Sure, whatever the challenges are, nobody says or said they are the same. Be it organisational inflicted, be it individuals, any organisation will have challenges to deal with. And people will recall things differently, that is the fun part of where people are working, we all experience and see things slightly differently.
If it was the case, then I am interested if this was a "hard" rule that may have forced Massi's hand to make the decision he did or if it was more a "desired if possible" rule.
Max pitted for new rubber because he knew he had to chase Lewis down. Lewis did not because I presume he felt the race would end under the SC or because he knew there was not enough time to unlap cars so he expected the SC to pull off with lapped traffic between him and Max at the restart for the final lap.
Nobody here will know that distinction, unless you take the definition of a hard rule as a rule that is written down, which I don't think it was.
Well, as we've seen, Mercedes aren't always great at making the right calls. Poor Lewis has had a long string of “interesting” calls made by the team. All we know for certain is that what happened, happened. And that safety cars have, and still are, materially changing the outcome of a race. Love it, hate it, it is part and parcel of the sport. Sometimes they go in your advantages, sometimes they don't.
Lewis had everything to lose by pitting. If the race had finished under the safety car, then the only way Lewis would've won was by staying out. Max on the other hand had nothing to lose by pitting.
A similar event led to Marcus Ericsson narrowly losing the Indy 500 in 2023 (which would've been his second in a row). He was leading the race when the yellow flagged came out with four laps to go. The organizers then called a red flag in order to have a one lap shootout on the last lap. At Indy, restarting in first is a disadvantage given how effective slipstreaming is. So he was ultimately a sitting duck just because the organizers wanted an exciting finish.
Last edited:
Indeed, Lewis would have lost the lead with 4 laps to go and Mercedes knew there was not enough time left to clear the debris, remove the Williams, unlap all lapped cars and have an additonal lap under the safety car to regroup the field. Red Bull pitted knowing Horner was effectively screaming down the radio at Masi to try and influence a restart which was their only chance of getting Max the title. Toto was also screaming down the radio reminding Masi of the sporting regulations and at this point he didn't listen and flapped. It came out that members within the FIA didn't agree with Masi at the time and he still made the decision, a decision that ultimately got him sacked from the RD role and placed in a lesser role until he ultimately resigned 6 months later.
It was a disappointing and fabricated end to what was a very messy and exciting season. Max may not admit it publicly but I am sure even he was disappointed with how it ended, once the noise around him died down. You can't polish a turd as they say.
The most expected news in F1. They’ll probably put Lawson in place as he lacks the experience to challenge Max like Tsunoda and less of a headache.
To be fair he’s done well to last this long. Cost RBR the constructors title this year for sure.