Bittersweet Victory

The world is so damned polarized right now that I'm hesitant to write this post, which is about something as unimportant as sports. As you may know, I'm a big fan of Formula One, so I was glued to the TV screen this past Sunday to see who would become the World Champion of 2021. When the checkered flag was waved and the race was over, Max Verstappen had won. But it ain't over yet, and I have some mixed feelings about this victory, even if I very much hoped that Max would win...

So, if you're not in to Formula One, let me just start by saying that this year we've had the craziest, most exciting, closest, longest and most controversial championship ever. That's including all the great rivalries from the past, even the Prost versus Senna years. This year's championship started in the weekend of 12 - 14 March in Bahrein, and was run over 22 Grand Prix's. And somehow the two title-contenders were exactly equal on points after 21 races, multiple collisions between them and multiple controversial decisions made by race direction. So the last race in Abu Dhabi this last Sunday was a "winner take all" affair, but I'll come back to that in a minute.

First let me tell you where I come from, what my mindset was before the title decider. I love Formula One. I love speed. On two and four wheels, so I also follow MotoGP closely and shed a little tear when Valentino Rossi left the sport this year. I've also been, and still am a fan of Lewis Hamilton; he was the driver who got me back into Formula One after I kind of lost interest when Michael Schumacher won everything with Ferrari for 5 consecutive years. I've followed Lewis' career from his debut in 2006 and think he's the greatest talent the sport has ever seen. And that's saying a lot. Even though it's never smart to compare drivers from different era's, I rate Hamilton higher than Schumacher, Senna and Prost, all of whom I've had the privilege of watching them begin and end their careers. Up until 2014 I was of the opinion that Senna was the GOAT (Greatest Of All Time), but when Lewis won his second world title in that year my opinion changed.

You see, Lewis won his first title in 2008 with McLaren and stayed with them until 2012. But when he made the decision to transfer to the Mercedes team for 2013, many thought he'd never win a championship again, including myself. Hamilton made the right decision however. He was confident that Mercedes was best prepared for the regulation-change announced for 2014; that was the beginning of the turbo-hybrid era. Hamilton went on to win all championships in that era, with the exception of 2016 when his then team mate Nico Rosberg won. But from 2014 until this year Mercedes won the constructor's championship and a Mercedes driver won the drivers' championship. It was a much anticipated breath of fresh air when this season began with another constructor, Red Bull powered by Honda, and another driver, Max Verstappen, who could finally challenge Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes.

I've become a fan of Max Verstappen as well. Max Verstappen has impressed me and the rest of the world since his debut in 2015 when he started at the Red Bull sister team Scuderia Torro Rosso at the young age of 17 as the youngest driver ever to compete in Formula One. He didn't even have his drivers license yet! And he'd never even competed in F2! Max went straight from F3 into F1. At 17! Amazing. Then in 2016 he replaced Daniil Kvyat at Red Bull after just 4 races. So at the age of 18, he won the 2016 Spanish Grand Prix on his debut for Red Bull Racing, becoming the youngest-ever driver and the first Dutch driver to win a Formula One Grand Prix. And this year he broke the record for the most podium finishes ever in one season; in all the races he finished except one he was either first or second. At the end of the year, after the last checkered flag was waved, he had 10 pole positions compared to Lewis' 5, and 10 race victories compared to Lewis' 8. Over the 2021 season Max had lead 652 laps, that's more than the rest of the drivers combined (Lewis lead 297 laps, and all others combined led 645 laps). Statistically speaking, Verstappen, Red Bull Racing and Honda had dominated the 2021 season, no question about it.

But that's not how it works. In sports it's about performing at the right moments, scoring when it counts. How many soccer matches were won by the team that controlled the ball for only a fraction of the time? It's what you do with the ball when it's in your team that counts. If you have the ball for 90 percent of the time but fail to score, you still lose if the other team scores in the 10 percent time they have the ball. And it must be said that Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes scored when it counted. Lewis had won the last three races before the title decider last Sunday, and Mercedes had the fastest car. No one can deny that, and even Red Bull themselves admitted that it would be kind of a miracle if they won the last race. And that's why Max Verstappen's ultimate victory, even though I rooted for him, leaves a sour taste in my mouth. Max and Red Bull were extremely lucky, race direction influenced the outcome, and Lewis Hamilton took his loss gracefully even though he was robbed of a record-breaking eighth world championship...

Max Verstappen won in the last round of the last race of the year, deciding the closest battle in Formula One history in his favor by making an incredible pass, which should be the stuff dreams are made of. But no. It wasn't. So what happened? Max started from pole position on the faster tires, but Lewis had a marvelous start, so he overtook Max immediately. Lewis controlled the race from that moment on; Max couldn't even come close as the Mercedes was a couple of tenths per lap faster. Even with a masterful strategic call to use Max's team mate Sergio Perez to hold up Lewis, allowing Max to close the gap from more than 8 seconds to 1.2 seconds, Max was unable to match or pass the Mercedes. Commentators on Dutch television already gave up on the title for Max, as there was simply no way to overtake Lewis, unless a miracle happened.

Well, that miracle came in lap 53 of 58 when Nicolas Latifi crashed his car, necessitating the deployment of a safety-car. A safety-car is when the race is effectively halted, overtaking isn't allowed, and all racers have to file in line behind the safety-car while the debris and demolished racing car is removed from the circuit; this is done for safety reasons, obviously. Now here's where it gets messy and where Lewis was robbed. There were only four and a half laps left, and although racing debris can be cleared up quickly, I think no one realistically expected that there would be enough time left to resume racing. And as it turned out afterwards, there wasn't. Anyhow, Red Bull and Max Verstappen took the opportunity to change Max's tires during the safety-car, which meant he had the faster rubber, but also that back-markers were positioned between him and Lewis; it took 25 seconds to drive in and out of the pit-lane and change tires, and in that time 5 lapped cars passed Max. So the situation behind the safety car was: first Lewis with 39 laps old hard tires, then 5 cars that were more than 1 lap behind, and then Max with fresh soft tires, followed by the rest of the field.

If there would be any time left to go racing, it would be a single lap, no more. The rules for a safety-car situation state that all lapped cars must pass the safety-car before racing can be resumed, so that all cars are in the same lap, and so that lapped cars don't interfere with racing for position. Officially race direction also has the opportunity to resume racing without letting lapped cars unlap themselves, but I've never seen that happen, not since 2006 at least, so that would be highly controversial, and would rob spectators from a spectacular final lap shootout. But what did happen was at least equally controversial, and I would say even worse. Initially race direction gave the instruction that lapped cars would not be given permission to unlap themselves, which would make sense given that the race was running out of laps, but would make it impossible for Max to race with Lewis because of the 5 cars between them. Moments later however, after Red Bull's team principle Christian Horner complained to race direction about that, the instruction came that only the 5 cars between the title contenders would be allowed to unlap themselves. And that's simply not in the rules...

If you haven't watched it yourself, it's hard to convey just how silly this was and what a sad spectacle ensued. It's clear why this silly decision was made though; Formula One is a spectator sport and millions are made through television and sponsoring. This has been made worse since Netflix's series about F1, Drive To Survive. Race direction wanted a final lap shootout and wanted to prevent the race from finishing behind the safety-car by any means necessary, even if that meant bending the rules. With only the 5 cars between Lewis and Max overtaking the safety-car to unlap themselves there was just enough time left to call in the safety-car and have one final lap of racing. But the rules say that all lapped cars must overtake the safety-car and that the safety-car will be called in the following lap. Now there's been a lot of criticisms on race direction this whole year, with the main point of contention being consistency, and Max and Lewis always being at the center of it. Max is an aggressive driver, pushing Lewis of the race track on multiple occasions, always pushing the limits of what's allowed. I personally love that and reminds me a lot of Senna. But Lewis was the Max Verstappen of 2006, 2007 and 2008, being on the receiving end of the kind of criticism that's now leveled at Max. Nowadays Lewis is a lot more gentle and wiser, but this season he felt the need to reply to Max's aggressive style, causing a huge shunt sending Max to the hospital during the Silverstone Grand Prix this year. But it's race direction's decisions and penalties that have been the focus of a lot of negative talk about Formula One this year, and the decisions made during the title decider will only add to that.

What we're left with is a season that's not over yet, and a championship that'll be decided in court. Sure, Max has been announced as this year's champion, and yes, Mercedes' appeals to overturn the race results have been dismissed by the FIA. There's another rule that says that the race director has sole authority over the use of the safety-car, and the race stewards have deemed this to include the decision over when the safety-car is called in and how the lapped cars situation is handled. But it's crystal clear that this is all highly unusual, something no one has ever experienced before, and something that's done only for the spectacle. Formula One is just as sickly influenced by commerce as the rest of our timeline. Did you know that race-tracks in Formula One are designed with enough slow corners to allow the camera to stay still long enough to grant track-side sponsors enough time to be easily readable? Even the tracks in racing are designed with commerce in mind..! And so were the decisions last Sunday. Mercedes will appeal the verdict of the FIA. Max will be handed the 2021 Formula One Trophy tomorrow. But it could be months until there's a final decision on who the actual champion is... Between Max and Lewis I have no clear favorite, something that's not appreciated much here in The Netherlands, as here everyone is blindly pro-Max of course. And in Great Britain everyone is blindly pro-Lewis; just watch the first linked video.... Such cult-like behavior... You can watch a full explanation of the regulations in the below linked video. For me the sport has lost, but the spectacle has attracted millions more viewers. Jokes are being made about how race direction had a direct line with Netflix; conspiracy theories about how the spectacle is winning over the sport are rampant... God, I hate capitalism so much...

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