On Abu Dhabi 2021

Hoo, boy. What a season-ender!

And what a controversy! I suspect your position on that one is likely tilted toward whomever you wanted to win the championship. There's certainly no limit to the opinions on the matter.
So what were the Race Director's option? And remember, we're looking at this in hindsight.

During that whole last lap my loudest thought was, “Well, Netflix is certainly happy.”

I'll give you this: both drivers drove championship races. Both teams masterfully played the hands that were given to them.

Your feelings - and they are feelings - on how the regs were managed throughout that race are very likely biased - colored - by your champion preference.

We can reasonably debate the decisions made at the last F1 race. But we have the luxury of hindsight, and most importantly a lot of time - nearly forever time - to think about options and their potential outcomes.

The Race Director did not have that luxury. Therefore, any criticisms should be done in context.

I, as a some-time steward and driver advisor, have my opinions on how well or not the regs were applied. We can hold those for the future when we have hindsight for the adrenaline to bleed out and for some more information to come rolling through. We will have the luxury of hindsight and time that neither team nor the Race Director or stewards had.

But this is my blog. So here's my opinion (and that's exactly what it is.)

While I may disagree with what happened, I place myself in that same position of limited time and options, and legitimately wonder if I would have handled it as well as the Race Director did.

I'd like to believe I would have.

Me, I just wanted a good clean race to the end. With some notable exceptions, I think we got that. I'll reiterate that regardless of the circumstances, both drivers drove a championship race and either would have been a suitable champion.

- As raced. 

- Quickly red flag, both change tires, lapped cars cleared out, one last lap shootout

- Start race with two laps left, leaving the lapped cars in place

- Clear out lapped cars, finish behind the safety car

What would have been done if it happened with ten laps left? What if only three laps left?

What was the overriding requirement? Was it a green flag ending? Was Masi pressured by Liberty to end under the green at all costs?

Was this scenario discussed in advance? If so, what was the agreed-upon plan? If not, why not? Should not the team have a go/no-go for such scenarios, especially given its importance?

With Verstappen on new softs, and Hamilton on well-used hards, Hamilton was a sitting duck, even with the lapped cars in between, especially so if there was two laps left. Verstappen would win that context, or crash both out trying.

Should Merecedes have pitted Hamilton for new tires? That would have resulted in Hamilton probably being behind Verstappen - and maybe Checo Perez - with one or two laps to go. Or worse, the race ultimately ends behind the safety car.

How would I have probably called it in these situations, in context and without the benefit of time and hindsight?

• Red Bull. WIN-WIN. It was a solid call, there was absolutely zero downside to bringing VER in. He was already behind and his only play was to get new tires and hope there was a 1-2 lap shootout.  Even if it finished under the safety car he finishes in the same place and loses the championship. Red Bull's best play is to bring 'em in, swap to reds, hope there's 1-2 green laps to the end. And that's what they did.
• Mercedes. They had a WIN-LOSE situation. Keep him out and the race finishes behind the safety car, HAM wins. Bring him in and he's behind VER and possibly behind PER; he might get past VER but if PER is in the way that'll never happen in 1-2 laps. Mercedes' best play was to stay out and hope it finishes under the safety car. And that's what they did.
• Race Control. LOSE-LOSE. This was a tough one for the Race Director. Had he followed the regs to clear out all lapped cars - what he would have done had this happened 10 laps from the end - the race would have ended under yellow; HAM wins. Yet if 10 laps were left, VER with fresh tires passes HAM and likely wins. Or, maybe with 10 laps left, HAM also dives in for fresh tires.
  
  Masi was likely pressured to get the race going as quickly as possible and finish the race  -the championship - under green. Having two team mangers braking in his ears certainly didn't help the situation. Maybe he didn't realize the tire situation and that he, effectively, had in his hands the decision of who would win the race, and thus the championship.
  
  Focusing on getting teh race to end under green, he chose to bastardize the regs to get a one lap shootout. By doing so, he handed the championship to VER.
  

Like everyone else, I was "stewarding" this race in real time. And I believe that, were I in the same position, with the requirement to finish the race under green, I would have started the race as-is with the lapped cars still in the way. First, it would have maybe given two laps under green instead of one. Second, VER pitted with the expectation that he may be placed behind lapped cars, and Red Bull accepted that risk. Third, I'm pretty sure that most, if not all, of the lapped cars would have simply stepped aside and let the championship runner go at it, and VER would have had a pretty solid shot at beating HAM on his old hard tires regardless.

And in the end, we would not be having these arguments. We would have seen it as a fair fight.

If I wasn't being pressured to finish the race under green, then I would have handled it as if there were 10 laps left, and let the chips fall as they may. That would have likely resulted in a yellow/checker finish. But in this case, these are the regs that everyone expected to work under.

The biggest failure here was that FIA and Race Control did not have a workflow/playbook for "what if" this happened in the last few laps. I suspect that Masi and the rest of Race Control had leaned back at 6 laps to go, thinking, 'Ok this is all done, let's get it home'. At worst, maybe HAM popped a tire or something. But otherwise, they were breathing easy, watching the end of the season unfold.

This Latiffi crash caught everyone totally off guard. And it should not have.

Road and Track offered an article on how this can be avoided in the future, and it nicely summarized what I was thinking myself. It goes to having a plan/playbook for this exact scenario.

Summarized, 

Any safety car in the final ten percent of a race distance, including one that starts earlier in the race and bleeds into the final ten percent of the race distance, will lead to an immediate red flag. Every car will be given the opportunity to stop one final time for a fresh set of soft tires made available to every team regardless of their weekend-long tire usage. The race will be resumed by a rolling, single file restart on the next lap after the red flag is lifted, with lap-down cars moved behind those on the lead lap. If a red flag would otherwise be thrown in the final three laps of a race, the event will instead end under the safety car.

No surprises. A playbook, a plan, on how to handle this in the future. Think about these scenario well in advance, and have a team, like an airplane cockpit crew, that follows that playbook and notes that "at this point, we do this" kind of deal. No more shooting from the hip and/or "force majeur" deciding what rules to play at that point.

If this had been in place, and followed, then everyone would have known what call to make, and what what calls would be made, and no one would have had a reasonable position to complain about it.

Just make it happen, FIA. Let's not go through this again.