Red Bull Team Principal Christian Horner says stewards should not apply potential penalties differently this weekend in Abu Dhabi, just because it is the final event of the year.
In his usual pre-event notes Race Director Michael Masi took the atypical step of reminding competitors of certain clauses in the FIA’s International Sporting Code.
There have been no changes to the ISC, which the stewards have available to them at every race, but Masi highlighted clauses that refer to potential points deductions for unsporting behaviour.
Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton – who have clashed on several occasions this year – head into the race level on points, with Verstappen ahead on win countback.
“It’s one of 22 races,” said Horner. “What’s the difference between this race, for example, and Silverstone or Hungary?
“There has to be consistency, there has to be a consistency of stewarding, or penalties and I think that’s the thing that drives people more mad than anything else, is when there is perceived to be an inconsistency.
“That piece of the sporting code that’s been highlighted in the notes, that’s always been there, that’s not something that’s been reintroduced for this weekend.
“Nobody wants to see this championship end up in front of the stewards or in a gravel trap.
“There needs to be consistency and so I can see why Toto [Wolff] and Lewis, with the disadvantage of race wins, would be pushing for that but nobody’s going into this race to say it’s going to end in a crash.”
Horner reiterated that: “What happened in Turn 4 [in Brazil], what happened in whatever it was should be applied to this race.
“You can’t just go and pluck something out of the air and say ‘OK, yep, that’s what will now apply’ because I think that would make a mockery of the policing of the championship.”
For once, Christian is right.
With or without Masi’s remarks, I would hope that there would be uproar if points were deleted for anything other than an obviously deliberate T Bone.
What it does question though is why Michael did it? Either it was another ‘spice up the media’ or another ‘engagement of mouth/computer before brain’ – incompetence.
In that the Race/Technical/Safety department is already troubled with totally conflicting functions/responsibility, the news of transfer of technical developments/rules from F1 into this bloated and under managed unit next year is even more worrying.
Michael Masi changed the rules and clearly handed Max Verstapen the champsionship. Before the end of the final lap all the cars separating Hamilton and Verstapen. Instead of Max being behind and the interval maintained and the cars separating the Lewis and Verstapen the race director decided to change the rules to be in favor of Verstapen.
All the rules were changed to decide the outcome and looking deeper it is evident that Masi did not want Lewis Hamilton to win another title.
Ask yourself why and you could that the influence of Christian Horner to influence the race director was evident.
I believe that this is just another effort and is clearly the definition of systemic racism.
Shame on Formula 1 and Michael Masi.
Hear hear
Yup! Horner is right. Changing the rules for the final laps, as Race Director Masi did, made a mockery of F1, took the championship away from Hamilton, and gave it to Verstappen. Unbelievable incompetence and bias! But they achieved their objective which was to ensure that Hamilton would not win an 8th driver’s championship this year.
This aged well