11063 replies to this topic

[ensign14]

I insist "X won that race illegitimately" implies X actively doing something illegal to win, which in our case is not correct. At the very least the phrasing is needlessly ambiguous.

OK.  The FIA gave Verstappen the title by throwing the rule book out of the window.

 

Fair and accurate.

[as65p]

You are free to insist but what you have stated is your opinion and the statement that you bolded does not require that all involved have acted in some way illegally.

No, not all involved, but certainly the only named participant "X". Which is why it's not a correct phrasing for the case at hand.

 

And yeah, that's how I understand this particular piece of English. Go ahead, someone try to convince me it has a different meaning to native speakers (which is what usually happens at this point).

[as65p]

OK.  The FIA gave Verstappen the title by throwing the rule book out of the window.

 

Fair and accurate.

You've just changed it from "needlessly ambiguous" to "needlessly flowery". And "gave" should be "facilitated ... chances of winning".

 

Other than that, it's perfect.  

[Bliman]

I wasn't talking of pretenders.

With that logic you are always right in your eyes even if you are wrong.

[as65p]

With that logic you are always right in your eyes even if you are wrong.

 

Well, that would not just be me but everyone, wouldn't it? Otherwise, why discuss. Just look objectly at what's true and be done with it. Simples.

 

[ensign14]

You've just changed it from "needlessly ambiguous" to "needlessly flowery". And "gave" should be "facilitated ... chances of winning".

You are Ron Dennis and I claim my £5.

[Gareth]

Indeed there may be people who solely care about the race and consequently the title being decided incorrectly and opposing to existing rules, regardless who benefitted or lost out as a consequence.

I just don't happen to know any of those people.

I think that’s unfair to the many Verstappen fans who are perfectly happy to admit that what went on in AD was absolutely wrong from a procedure point of view (most I think remain - IMO rightly - comfortable with the title result, on the basis a 20+ race season is made up of all sorts of moments of fortune and misfortune).

I mean I think you’re even in that camp, right?

So the idea that a view on the AD procedure can only split on driver supporting lines doesn’t seem right to me.

[New Britain]

You are Ron Dennis and I claim my £5.

Are you referring to the motor racing event in which a series of judicial anomalies of an unjustifiable nature induced an irregularity in the competitive space-time relationship and ultimately precipitated an inappropriate classification?

[Bliman]

Well, that would not just be me but everyone, wouldn't it? Otherwise, why discuss. Just look objectly at what's true and be done with it. Simples.

No that is not true. Even if someone says the contrary you can then say he is pretending. That way you can always pretend that you are true even if the other one says that they didn't really care who won but has other objections. In that way there is nothing to discuss because you already made up your mind whatever someone says. You are then just talking to yourself.

[gillesfan76]

There is something more that we don't know, but we should know: how were the decisions made to reverse the original decision not to un-lap any cars, to order only partial un-lapping, and to ignore the 'following lap' rule, and how was the decision reached to reject Mercedes's protest.

Unlike the question of motive, which I agree with you is probably unknowable, if we were to have the commission's full report including evidence, we ought to be able to discern whether it was a case of Michael Masi - rogue Race Director, out of his depth and panicking - acting on his own, or rather a case of one or more of the Stewards, who at the time were together with him in Race Control and all of whom were senior to him in both experience in F1 and formal authority, supporting or even suggesting to him those wrong decisions.

With the full report, we ought also to learn whether the AS Stewards really believed the implausible, that the RD was entitled to do what he did and therefore there were no grounds for Mercedes's protest. Did they come up with that idea themselves, or whom among the FIA hierarchy did they contact for advice or indeed instructions?

 

Without that information, we have Michael Masi bearing all the responsibility, losing his job, becoming an object of derision and being forever infamous as the guy who forked up big time in Abu Dhabi, cost Hamilton his record 8th title, etc. The guy has received death threats, for goodness sake.

 

The reason we should have got the full report was not because it is likely that there was a conspiracy to deny Hamilton the title, but rather because the FIA as a body and certain individuals within it should be held accountable for their actions, but that cannot happen until the full facts (aka, 'the truth') are made public.

 

I don’t disagree with you that we should have got the full report. I’ve said the same numerous times. But that doesn’t mean that I think it’s going to unearth something that we didn’t know about. Rather, it should have been released for the sake of good order.

 

Regarding your point about how the decisions were made; I’m not sure I understand what you mean. I don’t think there was any deep decision making on Masi’s part. He was heavily influenced in wanting to finish the race under green which led to the error in ignoring 48.12 and not finishing the race under SC. Even with that error, at least his initial decision there was to not let any of the lapped cars unlap; then upon Wheatley’s suggestion he convinced himself that the only lapped cars that matter are the ones between the two “leaders”  . Again I doubt there was any deep thought process behind this. An incompetent person, under pressure, delusions of an authority he simply didn’t have. Except for the pressure part, none of this is going to be in the full report.

 

Regarding the stewards, again, the full report isn’t going to unearth whether the stewards really believed that the Race Director had that authority. You expect the full report will claim that they are liars? On what basis - their own admission? Come on. The full report will likely acknowledge that the stewards got it wrong, but as I’ve said, we already know this.

 

The full report should be released for transparency. A regulator should be willing to open its cupboards skeletons and all after something has gone wrong necessitating an investigation. But we hardly need the full report. I think what happened was bad enough without needing to bolster the injustice with an icing of nefarious intent by Masi and/or stewards. It actually weakens your argument.

Edited by gillesfan76, 25 September 2022 - 14:26.

[AnR]

I think that’s unfair to the many Verstappen fans who are perfectly happy to admit that what went on in AD was absolutely wrong from a procedure point of view (most I think remain - IMO rightly - comfortable with the title result, on the basis a 20+ race season is made up of all sorts of moments of fortune and misfortune).

I mean I think you’re even in that camp, right?

So the idea that a view on the AD procedure can only split on driver supporting lines doesn’t seem right to me.

 

I don't think you have to be a Verstappen fan to accept that over the season he was rightly the WDC.

 

What happened between in AD doesn't make Max less WDC.

[New Britain]

I don’t disagree with you that we should have got the full report. I’ve said the same numerous times. But that doesn’t mean that I think it’s going to unearth something that we didn’t know about. Rather, it should have been released for the sake of good order.

 

Regarding your point about how the decisions were made; I’m not sure I understand what you mean. I don’t think there was any deep decision making on Masi’s part. He was heavily influenced in wanting to finish the race under green which led to the error in ignoring 48.12 and not finishing the race under SC. Even with that error, at least his initial decision there was to not let any of the lapped cars unlap; then upon Wheatley’s suggestion he convinced himself that the only lapped cars that matter are the ones between the two “leaders”  . Again I doubt there was any deep thought process behind this. An incompetent person, under pressure, delusions of an authority he simply didn’t have. Except for the pressure part, none of this is going to be in the full report.

 

Regarding the stewards, again, the full report isn’t going to unearth whether the stewards really believed that the Race Director had that authority. You expect the full report will claim that they are liars? On what basis - their own admission? Come on. The full report will likely acknowledge that the stewards got it wrong, but as I’ve said, we already know this.

 

The full report should be released for transparency. A regulator should be willing to open its cupboards skeletons and all after something has gone wrong necessitating an investigation. But we hardly need the full report. I think what happened was bad enough without needing to bolster the injustice with an icing of nefarious intent by Masi and/or stewards. It actually weakens your argument.

I appreciate what you are saying. My own best guess is that at least one if not more of the Stewards supported Masi's decisions at the time that he made them and may in fact have proposed them to him. There were 10 minutes between when Latifi crashed and when Masi gave the instruction for partial un-lapping. Given the importance of the circumstances, is it likely that, during those 10 minutes, there was no communication between Masi and any of the three Stewards (all senior to him) sitting near him in Race Control? I can't believe that their first inkling of what Masi was going to do was when they heard him sending out the instructions to the teams and then the Stewards looked at each other in amazement and said, 'WTF????'

I also think it is a virtual certainty that the Stewards would have contacted senior FIA executives for advice/permission/instructions prior to their decision to reject the two protests. Those executives might have included Todt or single-seater boss Peter Bayer (who was quietly replaced shortly after Masi was sacked).

And how did the FIA President, who at least approved and quite possibly himself wrote the FIA's public introduction to the commission report summary, come to the conclusion that human error took place and that the following lap was not taken 'as required' - both points contrary to the Stewards' conclusions? Okay, FIA - you say that now, when it is too late to change the results, but why did three deeply experienced stewards with plenty of time to study all the facts come to the opposite conclusion?

 

I have never believed that there was any "nefarious" (as in, criminal) intent at the time that the mistakes were made during the race. I do however believe that the incompetence and arrogance at the time about what they could get away with went beyond Masi alone, that in rejecting Mercedes's protests the Stewards were protecting themselves as much as they were protecting Masi and the FIA, and that FIA executives above the Stewards in the organisational hierarchy approved and probably encouraged the Stewards to try to whitewash the whole sorry mess.

 

Of course life will go on, but it seems both unfair that a single person should be vilified as the scapegoat when the culpability clearly extends beyond him and wrong that a body with broad and substantial public responsibilities should be able to hide its misdeeds. Innocent mistakes can be forgiven, but a wilful, systematic cover-up cannot be.

[New Britain]

I don't think you have to be a Verstappen fan to accept that over the season he was rightly the WDC.

 

What happened between in AD doesn't make Max less WDC.

If Latifi had never crashed in Abu Dhabi and Hamilton had gone on to win the race and the title, would you say that, nevertheless, Verstappen was 'rightly the WDC'?

[Risil]

This seems as good a place as any to draw the line. I'm closing the thread as we're plainly spinning our wheels and there haven't been any new developments for weeks.

 

If something new and significant about Abu Dhabi 2021 emerges in the future we will, of course, have a new thread.