Farce (noun) - a comic dramatic work using buffoonery and horseplay and typically including crude characterization and ludicrously improbable situations.
- an event or situation that is absurd or disorganised.
I wasn't sure where to begin, so I went with my still prevailing feelings on the race that was in Abu Dhabi.
I should also state early on, I am neither a big fan of Lewis or Max, but it is my solid belief that the actions of Race Control late in the race made this an absolute farce of an ending to a world title race.
I am not upset that either Max or Lewis won or lost. I am annoyed because our sport looked pretty stupid today.
You simply cannot change the rules on the fly just because it makes a better show. End of. If this were any other race in the year, other than the final one where the title is being decided, I highly suspect it would have ended under the safety car. Andrew Benson at the BBC has apparently spoken to many people who think the same.
There has been a lot of "just let them race" from Race Control lately, and indeed some of it has sparked debate amongst drivers as to the track limits and where and how an acceptable overtake can be made.
Letting them race today, for one lap at the end, after having told all the cars between Lewis and Max to unlap themselves (but ignoring the other cars further down the field that could also have unlapped themselves, but were not allowed), then saying the safety car is coming in on the same lap too, that is two blatant rule changes right there to make it a better show for one lap. I sort of see where Michael Masi was coming from, but was this fair? Absolutely not.
If you start tearing up the rule book to suit different situations, how are teams and drivers to know what is coming next? An absolute joke frankly.
Those rules being, in the F1 rulebook, either all cars unlap themselves under the Safety Car, or none. After that has happened, the Safety Car comes in the following lap, not on the same lap (I think?).
This season has been full of stewards, race control, appeals, penalties, swearing on team radio, collisions, angry words from teams to race control....bitter words between team principals. So in one way I am not surprised it has ended as it has been all year.
But, do I agree with this ending? Absolutely not. Anyone new to F1 who had tuned into see this race will need someone to explain to them "yep they changed the rules to allow them to race on the last lap". In my humble opinion, Lewis was actually robbed clean.
Damon Hill tweeted about how it all seems there's a bit too much of "guess what I'm going to do next" from Race Control here.
Also another tweet from Damon about what Race Control said regarding all teams had already agreed to end races on a green flag racing situation where possible here.
But surely, they would have assumed all rules would be followed to get that green flag racing situation, not half followed and half made up....
The timeline included Masi saying no cars would be allowed to unlap themselves. Horner, clearly thinking time was running out and they'd finish behind the Safety Car, got on the radio to complain about this to Michael Masi. Masi then changes his mind and allows all the backmarkers between Lewis and Max to get out of the way of Max and go and unlap themselves. Brutal. With Max on new soft tyres and Lewis on old Hard tyres, Lewis was a sitting duck.
To me, the race result was as artificial as a DRS pass frankly.
Get rid of DRS please, on a related note. Make the cars so they run better in dirty air, then bloody scrap DRS for the love of F1 please!!!
I also do not like either of the main team principals moaning over the radio trying to influence things happening in the race. Horner did it, so did Wolff (please don't make this a full safety car Michael), during the virtual safety car period.
I will write more in the coming days, more in-depth about Lewis and Max and the race. But this is my immediate reaction. We simply cannot have Race Control changing/ adapting rules on the fly, as otherwise why have a rulebook in the first place? Ok it's a tough job no doubt, but today he got it very wrong indeed.
