The fact no one had clue what was coming shows how poor he is. Why couldn't he formulate his thoughts and express them after 2 laps of safety car? Basically state here's what happens if the car is cleared and here's what happens if not. It's not like he probably had the rule book being read to me at the time. The FIA got the best situation handed to them and they failed miserably. What makes it so ridiculous was Max was able to take a punt on getting new tyres. It was a hail Mary, with the chances of success probably 1%. The fact it came off makes it the more damning.
Do all teams just bring a barrister to races?! That seems a little bit weird. Edit, just noticed the last sentence
Horner won't be laughing if he's made to read the guidelines in court and then admit that he told his driver to race in contravention of them. He'll also have to explain why he didn't question race controls decision. Of course he was never going to do it, but like Wolff all season he's complained about the letter of the law every week. This one is easy, it's not open to interpretation. It's written in print.
Apparently Mercedes have actually taken a lawyer with them to this race. Also I wouldn't be surprised if they actually threatened to leave the sport over this, I don't think they would but I wouldn't be surprised if they made the power play.
Which is why the race directors role needs overhauling as he's the one who didn't follow them or applied them in different ways throughout the year.
If some are to believed, Perez was pulled out not because of mechanical issues. But because he didn't have enough fuel. They run him light so to make it easier for him to potentially hold up Lewis. If true is that against any rules?
Agree he could have made a better decision and had the time to do it. When they play out the radio messages he just sounds overwhelmed. Now going forward does he need replacing or more support? We don't know but change is definitely needed. If he wanted racing he had it best with not allowing the cars to unlap as time did not allow it. He compromised the race. Yes Max got to race Lewis but technically 8th never got a chance to improve because 3-7 were actually behind them. The other option would have been to Red Flag the race and let them do 1 lap, at least all things would be equal as such then. What probably should have happened is the race finish behind the safety car as we have seen it do many times before.
I agree, some rules are too open to interpretation. However this one isn't, the race directors have brought the sport into disrepute. Can honestly see the title getting shared, and folk getting P45s.
If this report is correct I can see this being overturned...sorry if this has been posted before. ''Initially, the decision was taken not to let lapped cars overtake the safety car, which would have meant several drivers would have been in Verstappen's way at the restart and made it more difficult to reach Hamilton over one lap. Red Bull team principal Christian Horner was in radio contact with F1 race director Michael Masi at that point and said “(But) we only need one lap” to finish a race properly. Masi then reversed the call to allow lapped cars to pass and set up that final lap of racing.''
Now I know they have a maximum amount and they have to provide 1 litre at the end but I'm not sure if they have a minimum amount. I suppose it wouldn't really come up.
It's not just Mercedes who we're put at a disadvantage with this knee jerk without warning decision. Other teams were still racing, if they'd known of race controls view then they could have planned accordingly during the safety car. Likewise no one was given an adequate right to reply to this decision. It was made in a matter of seconds, once Horner had cried about it. What about the views of other teams?
Lewis has matured over the years, there's no doubting that but let's not pretend he hasn't behaved like a petulant child when he was a similar age to MV. He deliberately leaked team data on social media before qualifying at Spa to try and suggest McLaren had given him an inferior car than Jenson Button.
Where have I not kept the conversation real? His instinct reaction after the Lewis collision was to storm off in a strop with zero consideration for how Lewis was. That was as clear as day at the time and was discussed on here by multiple posters, so feels pretty real to me.
An absolute joke feel gutted for Hamilton he had that race won till they brought in their own rules.This Massey is a joke.
I wonder what Charlie Whiting would have made of all this? I think this is all of Masi’s making given his inconsistency over the season.