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Dan Wheldon ¦ 1978-2011
Marco Simoncelli ¦ 1987-2011
Jules Bianchi ¦ 1989-2015
Justin Wilson ¦ 1978-2015

Yeah, I know he's mad and I don't care. I do not care. I did not care then. I do not care now. I'm here to race him.

Mercedes got lucky in lap 1 with no penalty where Verstappen did get a penalty last week for the same thing. They are bad losers, Red Bull outfoxed them. Nothing wrong with anything at the end of the race. Just an epic finale

The stupid thing is, that would have given us the one-lap winner-takes-all shootout that Masi was clearly trying to give us anyway.

[tweet]https://twitter.com/MercedesAMGF1/status/1459588786107654150[/tweet]

How quickly things can change

But not only today, how many times this season was this an important factor? Today could have been the 5th race this season!

Something else, to bring us back to the race. The moment Verstappen attacked Hamilton in the last lap, Hamilton could not have opened the door more than he did. If that is the decisive moment for the championship, I expected him to defend more.

Unless he knew Verstappen would make the move there, so he could turn in late to chop back to the inside, hoping to meet Verstappen there and claim he was pushed off.

I understand the initial impulse to bring up this point, but I don't think anyone is being honest if they refuse to acknowledge how much risk Mercedes would be taking by counting on Max to race Lewis cleanly when Hamilton is catching up Max on fresher tires.

Particularly with the VSC situation in the middle of the race, there's no doubt in my mind Mercedes made their decision based on the likelihood of Max doing something really stupid.

I suspect he knew his only chance to get back ahead was to concede the corner and try a sort of crossover move to get the best drive possible on corner exit. Not only would he be taking a risk by entering the corner wheel-to-wheel with Max (obviously a dodgy scenario), even if they run through the corner cleanly, Max would probably have the better exit based on his fresh rubber alone.

I don't think either driver put a wheel wrong on the last lap. Max had the grip and used it to perfection. Lewis did his very best to find a way to stay in the fight.

This TBH, Mercedes were spooked by 2 things

1) Having Lewis behind Max and having to pass him on track

2) Red Bull not pitting in Saudi Arabia, getting a red flag and a free tyre change

It seems whatever decision they made today, it would've backfired on them.

Red Bull had the position of having nothing to lose, throwing enough shit at the wall and seeing what stuck

Masi was in the position of panicking, having the teams on the radio to him incessently, and probably Liberty saying "You're not ending this season under a SC, get the track ready" and fucking up

Imagine the 2012 finish in Brazil with Masi in control. No SC finish there

I expect Liberty to be pushing for overtime+always finish green rules before too long

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RIP Birmingham Wheels: here's some of the crash videos I recorded when it was there:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIaKIE ... 5t9d5PvoHA

Twitter:

http://www.twitter.com/paulhadsley

for that they need to ditch some technical rules regarding fuel flow

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Motorsports trend for 2024: everything is a bad taste joke now

That's one good thing about BTCC, they add extra laps for any lost (up to a limit)

I'm not completely opposed to this in F1, there's less chance for chaos in the last 2 laps.

Yeah, that idea is untenable with the refuelling ban in effect.

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07.04.1968 - Flower of Scotland when will we see your like again?
01.05.1994 - We'll never forget...

Oh, and lost in all the mess: Kimi was voted Driver of The Day.

The FIA's possible escape route;

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Dan Wheldon ¦ 1978-2011
Marco Simoncelli ¦ 1987-2011
Jules Bianchi ¦ 1989-2015
Justin Wilson ¦ 1978-2015

Yeah, I know he's mad and I don't care. I do not care. I did not care then. I do not care now. I'm here to race him.

Meanwhile, Valtteri is very concerned about the protests.

[tweet]https://twitter.com/pardz_king/status/1470057640608911368[/tweet]

Ahahahahahaha!

Indeed.

100% that's why they didn't pit. That's fresh in their mind and it being so close to the end you'd have expected them to throw a red to ensure a green finish and not ignore/make up rules.

RB were always going to do the opposite of Merc there.

Lewis on fresh tyres would always beat max today. Max wrecking both would mean title for Lewis.
They had their chances and never took it

Lewis could had tried with Rosberg did with him once, that was securing first place at all costs, damaging Max car before reaching the line and still finish on top 10

of course when Rosberg did he failed to hold Lewis up and still got a penalty

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Motorsports trend for 2024: everything is a bad taste joke now