In hindsight this lost them the title, but we can't really blame them. Sometimes luck decides championships.
Formula 1 Discussion - Page 91
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Vinekh
131 Posts
In hindsight this lost them the title, but we can't really blame them. Sometimes luck decides championships. | ||
Laurens
Belgium4542 Posts
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Excludos
Norway8080 Posts
On December 13 2021 15:27 ChristianS wrote: There was no guarantee they’d clear it fast enough, betting on safety car staying out to the end was a reasonable call. Apparently they maaaaaybe could have pitted and stayed ahead of Max anyway, but they played it safe. It just didn’t pan out. Actually, based on the precedents set the last 2 seasons, it was a horrible call. When there's been a safety car with 3-5 laps to go, Masi has always pushed for a quick cleanup to get 1-2 laps of racing before the end. Honestly, Mercedes stopped fighting with RB when they realised they were faster. They stuck to their original strategies, refusing to fight RB, thinking it wouldn't matter anyways. Sure, had the race gone ahead as planned, that would be the case, but a race is never finished until the cars cross the line (and sometimes not even then). Mercedes failed to see the seriousness of a potential safety car, when it was obvious to even newcomers to the sport. They should have pitted during the VSC, and they should have pitted during the actual SC. | ||
Excludos
Norway8080 Posts
On December 13 2021 14:14 ChristianS wrote: I don’t know what would have happened if they restarted without letting those 5 cars unlap. Obviously it would have disadvantaged Max somewhat to have to clear 5 backmarkers before clearing Lewis. He would still have tried, somewhat frantically in order to get it all done in one lap, and the backmarkers would be obligated “not to impede” him, but what the fuck does that mean when the field is bunched up and you’re racing for position with 4 of the 5 cars next to you? There’s pretty obvious safety concerns, which is the reason unlapping is done in the first place: to avoid situations where, for instance, five backmarkers are all supposed to let some impatient frontrunner by, while trying to race each other, and nobody is interested in being patient or waiting their turn.. If the cars hadn't unlap, they wouldn't have been obligated to get out of Max's way immediately. They'd get a blue flag, and would have had 3 corners to let him go, before the next in line would get the same flag, and another 3 corners. Every overtake would cost him anywhere from 0.2-0.5 seconds, more if they were fighting, less if they got out of the way on the straight. I don't think Max would get anywhere near Lewis in only one lap. Two might have been a different story | ||
FreakyDroid
Macedonia2616 Posts
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Excludos
Norway8080 Posts
On December 13 2021 18:46 FreakyDroid wrote: I think a simple solution that would be fairer for all drivers/teams is to simply red flag a race when its 5-10 laps til the end regardless of how severe is the incident. Instead of a VSC or SC, just red flag it, allow teams to pit and let them race for the remaining laps. It would have worked in this spesific scenario, but I can easily think of several scenarios where that would backfire as well. Red flag is a free pit stop after all, which hurts everyone who pitted before it. If Max had been faster and caught up to Lewis this race, preparing to overtake him, and then they Red Flagged it, giving Lewis a free pit stop and new tires, we'd all be screaming foul play as well right now | ||
RKC
2848 Posts
But the way I see it, there's not much for Merc to complain. If the incident occurred 2-3 laps earlier, Max would've definitely caught up and overtaken Lewis with superior tires. The only complication is that the incident happened so close to the last lap. So basically Merc is left arguing that the race should've ended under the safety car. Maybe that's what the procedure says, but really a silly way to decide a race (what more the championship). As a casual fan, the fairest outcome for me would be for the two front runners be given 1-2 laps to battle out with the tires they had. Lewis gambled on the race being incident-free*, Max gambled on an incident happening to help narrow the gap. Max won against the odds. The end. * Merc could argue that Lewis gambled on the race being incident-free at least until the last 5 laps (in anticipation that the race would end under the safety car as per procedure) - but this is quite a stretch unless there's very clear precedent? | ||
Aristodemus
England1993 Posts
It was a giant cockup and not that they will get anywhere appealing but Merc and Lewis have every right to feel hard done by. | ||
Penev
28481 Posts
the Race Director should always endeavour to have the race ending under green flag conditions and it's in the regulations as well that he can basically override other regulations to achieve this. What's so annoying, to me at least, is that if the FIA (and the teams) always want races to end under green flag conditions than make regulation that achieves this directly. Earlier in the thread it was mentioned that in Indy Cars for example they just ad extra laps to the race in cases like this. Yes how all this turned out for Hamilton sucks but if everything happened just a lap earlier the outcome would've been the same including it really sucking for Hamilton. | ||
Excludos
Norway8080 Posts
On December 13 2021 22:38 Penev wrote: There is a general agreement in place though that states and it's in the regulations as well that he can basically override other regulations to achieve this. What's so annoying, to me at least, is that if the FIA (and the teams) always want races to end under green flag conditions than make regulation that achieves this directly. Earlier in the thread it was mentioned that in Indy Cars for example they just ad extra laps to the race in cases like this. Yes how all this turned out for Hamilton sucks but if everything happened just a lap earlier the outcome would've been the same including it really sucking for Hamilton. Can't do that with F1, due to the non-refueling thing. The cars would literally run out of fuel if you added more laps, even if they've spent several of those behind a safety car Not saying nothing can be done. Just giving some perspective in that it's not necessarily as easy as we want it to be | ||
Penev
28481 Posts
On December 13 2021 23:23 Excludos wrote: Can't do that with F1, due to the non-refueling thing. The cars would literally run out of fuel if you added more laps, even if they've spent several of those behind a safety car Not saying nothing can be done. Just giving some perspective in that it's not necessarily as easy as we want it to be Of course, I agree. And even with clear regulation in place, like a red flag, it could still have left us with an unsatisfactory result. I wasn't advocating to implement Indy Car rules btw, but just gave an example where ending under green flag conditions are guaranteed by regulation because this.. uncertainty is less than ideal. Especially for the stewards and race director funnily enough. | ||
RKC
2848 Posts
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Excludos
Norway8080 Posts
On December 13 2021 23:44 Penev wrote: Of course, I agree. And even with clear regulation in place, like a red flag, it could still have left us with an unsatisfactory result. I wasn't advocating to implement Indy Car rules btw, but just gave an example where ending under green flag conditions are guaranteed by regulation because this.. uncertainty is less than ideal. Especially for the stewards and race director funnily enough. But if we had proper rules that had to be followed, how can Masi engineer the race result that he wants? Did you even think about Netflix' ratings at all?! | ||
Penev
28481 Posts
On December 14 2021 00:30 Excludos wrote: But if we had proper rules that had to be followed, how can Masi engineer the race result that he wants? Did you even think about Netflix' ratings at all?! Hehe, poor guy. Responsibilities suck, glad I don't have Masi's. On another note: I had this horrible realization. What if this season was not really Red Bull finally closing the gap to Mercedes but Mercedes having had a design issue with their car that they now have solved. So no next year gonna be exciting with even other teams catching up but just a soul crushing full on Merc domination with Red Bull left to hover up the bread crumbs on some specific tracks? :D | ||
Sermokala
United States13932 Posts
On December 14 2021 00:51 Penev wrote: Hehe, poor guy. Responsibilities suck, glad I don't have Masi's. On another note: I had this horrible realization. What if this season was not really Red Bull finally closing the gap to Mercedes but Mercedes having had a design issue with their car that they now have solved. So no next year gonna be exciting with even other teams catching up but just a soul crushing full on Merc domination with Red Bull left to hover up the bread crumbs on some specific tracks? :D Engine freeze for 2022 as well with honda leaving so the engine we saw from merc at the end being crazy is going to be the same engine on the regular for next year and no one can catch up on that. It'll be a super throw up in the air with all the aero changes and that's been red bulls advantage so who knows. | ||
aseq
Netherlands3977 Posts
Isn't it possible to just electronically stop all the cars when the race leader decides so? Cars going faster would take longer to get to a standstill, compensating speed for distance. Cars that would end up too close to the incident would get a pass to park 50 m further up, but apart from that, distances are preserved. Tyres would cool quickly, of course, so I'm not sure what that will mean when you get the green light again. But surely a system behind a slow car that drives a full number of laps isn't optimal either. | ||
FreakyDroid
Macedonia2616 Posts
On December 13 2021 20:18 Excludos wrote: It would have worked in this spesific scenario, but I can easily think of several scenarios where that would backfire as well. Red flag is a free pit stop after all, which hurts everyone who pitted before it. If Max had been faster and caught up to Lewis this race, preparing to overtake him, and then they Red Flagged it, giving Lewis a free pit stop and new tires, we'd all be screaming foul play as well right now Yeah I guess you're right, it would just be a reverse situation where the driver that didnt pit prior to the SV gets an advantage, which doesn't make it any fairer. The only unknown for me in this situation is when was the message from FIA to not let lapped cars overtake the SC communicated to the teams and whether Mercedes decided to keep Lewis out because of it, which later changed to let them overtake. I can see this as a point of contention if the change of decision hurt their pitting strategy. But if for instance Mercedes knew that overtaking will take place for the lapped cars and still decided to keep Lewis on the old hard tires, they have no one else to blame but themselves. I'm still not sure how this went down between FIA and Mercedes, so I've been trying to get more info about it, but still cant find anything concrete. Whatever the case may be, I just dont want to see an even more bizarre scenario where Mercedes somehow wins this and Max is stripped of his championship. If that shit goes down, I'll probably never watch F1 again. | ||
RKC
2848 Posts
Maybe every car is equipped with a bomb that self-destructs upon impact above a certain force, and wipes out all debris from track in an instant (with an ejector seat and parachute to keep the driver away from harm). The sunk cost will teach those lazy engineers and drivers to be more diligent! | ||
Zaros
United Kingdom3692 Posts
On December 14 2021 02:07 FreakyDroid wrote: Yeah I guess you're right, it would just be a reverse situation where the driver that didnt pit prior to the SV gets an advantage, which doesn't make it any fairer. The only unknown for me in this situation is when was the message from FIA to not let lapped cars overtake the SC communicated to the teams and whether Mercedes decided to keep Lewis out because of it, which later changed to let them overtake. I can see this as a point of contention if the change of decision hurt their pitting strategy. But if for instance Mercedes knew that overtaking will take place for the lapped cars and still decided to keep Lewis on the old hard tires, they have no one else to blame but themselves. I'm still not sure how this went down between FIA and Mercedes, so I've been trying to get more info about it, but still cant find anything concrete. Mercedes didn't make any mistakes IMO, the VSC stop didn't matter and Lewis was only losing a couple of tenths per lap to Max, even if they both started behind a SC with those tyres I think he would have held Max off. With the last SC there was what 5 laps left, its going to take at least 3 laps to clear the incident, the rules then say all cars may overtake or non that are lapped. The safety car is then going to come in a lap after not the same lap. So your probably thinking its going to end under a safety car or lewis is going to have 5 cars between him and Max with green racing for 1 or 2 laps. Lewis can probably pull enough of a gap with those 5 cars to survive a lap definitely and say 50:50 for 2 laps. In that scenario it is not worth giving up track position, especially if your also thinking they might Red flag this as they did in Saudi. Of course if you absolutely know they are going to bend all the rules to start the race with the contenders next to each other then they would Pit, but that's so arbitrary and unforeseeable. | ||
Penev
28481 Posts
On December 14 2021 01:42 Sermokala wrote: Engine freeze for 2022 as well with honda leaving so the engine we saw from merc at the end being crazy is going to be the same engine on the regular for next year and no one can catch up on that. It'll be a super throw up in the air with all the aero changes and that's been red bulls advantage so who knows. True, true. Hopefully the new earodynamics will close some gaps, maybe they favour high rank over low rank, who knows. But yeah power unit wise Mercedes looks really strong still. Maybe McLaren can get competitive again. | ||
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