The teams are already quite prepared for the new season, but Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton undoubtedly still need to recover from last year. The Dutchman took the world title at the last minute, a decision that still causes anger with Hamilton. According to Romain Grosjean, however, the race committee did the right thing in Abu Dhabi.
The Frenchman was part of Formula 1 for many years and therefore knows better than anyone what interests are present in motor racing. In December, as a race fan, he watched the battle between Verstappen and Hamilton, where he felt no unjust decisions were made. He tells this in an interview with Speekweek.com.
"It was a bad decision for Hamilton, but for the fans in front of the television, spectators and sport, Michael Masi did the right thing," he analyzes. "I would have found it unattractive to finish this world championship behind the safety car. And it would also have been strange to leave those four cars between Hamilton and Verstappen and thus clear the race."
Hamilton reportedly unsure about future
For the time being, Hamilton is not letting himself be heard from. Reportedly, the Briton is still balking at the situation and is considering quitting Formula 1. The decision has to be made soon, however, because in two months he will have to appear at the start of the Bahrain Grand Prix.
It's clear this site has a love interest with Max to declare. Funny thing though, ever since Max won all this site and most pundits, press, FiA hierarchy are talking about is Hamilton. I think this is his ultimate revenge - Max "won" the championship and no-one outside of the Netherlands or fansites like this one cares. All eyes are on Hamilton. Without Hamilton saying a word. More has been written about Kimi retiring than Verstappen's maiden championship. More has been written about Rosberg ?. Hamilton's performance of the season in Brasil is talked about more than Max's "achievement". Max was the youngest ever F1 driver in Melbourne 2015 (a race he didn't manage to finish), and while not the youngest to finish at the top of the points table, you would have expected a bigger deal to be made out of it. That he isn't taking the No. 1 off of Hamilton also denies Max himself some gratification and helps stop an "changing of the guard" narrative. Hamilton keeps the number he had before. Instead, Hamilton is the talk of the town. Will he or won't he? Will the FiA score an own goal by punishing Hamilton's rule-breaking non attendance at the gala, while they themselves broke theirv own sporting rules. And Max, oh well done mate, slap on the back, see you next season. I reckon Hamilton will be back. If nothing else because he will want to end with a bang, on a positive note, not following a dodgy decision. The season was a terrible one for fans of the sport, though. Unless the FiA change their approach; increase transparency and a willingness to treat drivers with respect, I can't see him staying for more than one more season, win or lose.
Very easy... Red flag... get everybody in right positions... everybody's tyres sorted... crash is cleared... restart on fair and equal terms... REALLY NOT THAT DIFFICULT.
Dear GP Blog; the toxic trolls "Maxine", "Vegan" and "Shaka" etc. are completely and permanently RUINING any kind of discussion culture or meaningful exchange under your articles. Do you not see that? Are you oblivious to what is going on in your forums??? I will sit back and watch this one more week - after that, the blog will have permanently lost me. I am more than tired of this kindergarden, which I know YOU (GP BLOG) only keep up cause it gives you clicks and provokes more comments....! That, however, is REALLY bad business practise - and I will not visit this website anymore whatsoever if you do not step in and foster some kind of discussion culture again - and PRONTO...! I hope others will follow my example. Good day.
It’s strange that every single F1 driver, current or former (except Toto’s boys of course) don’t have problems with what happened. Even Damon Hill who is Hamboy to the fullest, said that Merc fans behavior is ridiculous. These mofos are tripping balls calm down mofos grow a pair
Thats 100% correct. It was a bad decision for Hamilton despite being the right decision. Get it crybabies?
Romain Grosjean is a fair man. I know Mercedes offered him a test drive last year as a means to give him one more chance behind the wheel of an F1 car after his horrible crash. At the time it seemed like a beautiful gesture, although for some reason it couldn't be done as planned. They were talking about rescheduling for this year. I hope this statement won't affect those plans.
"I would have found it unattractive to finish this world championship behind the safety car", Exactly my sentiment! It would have severely damaged the reputation of F1.
Really. What are the rules for? Ps. I'm not a Hamilton fan, but I have common sense. Racing for 70 years under set rules and all of a sudden the rules are bend to make racing attractive. Who said F1 was unattractive?
In 70 years many controversial decisions were made. Masi made a few mistakes in the AD race, the most diabolical was the first lap overtake, and Lewis never had to give the position back. Secondly lapped cars should have been released with 2 laps to go, again Masi got that wrong. He then had to make it fair, so he let only the 5 cars unlap themselves. Had he followed the rules 100%, Max would still have won. Merc are just to scared to take the blame for there own bad tyre strategy.
If the rules were followed 100% apart from Max gaining that position, there's really other advantage red bull had Mercedes clearly had the superior car that weekend Redbull's strategy was a counter to Mercedes pace Of course racing is racing so whatever might have happened didn't happen, cause safety car
No doubt Merc had the superior car, but luck and latifi went Max's way.
