Quote:
Originally Posted by matthewb0051
Absolutely agree. In the past few years that have been several races where one driver has benefited from being lucky enough to be P1 when a Red Flag occurs and then they get to remain such by making changes during Red. Otherwise they would have cycled back, in other words a free pit stop while the dude formerly in P1 basically gets a big screw for having his strategy.
I'll say again that the race in question could have cleared lapped cars much sooner, like 5 laps or more sooner. They need to start that once lead car is behind SC. Otherwise you end up with this situation. I believe Masi didn't want the season or WDC to be finished under SC and decided in that fashion, which is why he let those 5 cars go thru. I don't believe he favored either driver nor that it was a mistake/rule infringement. Rather the race director wanting the race and title to be decided by racing.
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Crash happened with 5 laps left so they could not have cleared it with 5 laps left. Given the location, safety car is deployed, picks up the field, safety crews dispatched, remove the car. Best case scenario is 3 laps which means if all is aligned a two lap shoot out. Given the situation, letting only the cars between HAM and VER to move around "saved" the race as finishing under green but contravened every rule in the book.
Massi blew it pure and simple. If I am HAM I am rightly pissed, followed the rules, did not let VER rattle him, had a 12 second lead with no chance of that being cut by VER and then the s^*t show with free style decisions. If Massi's goal was to finish under green then he should have left all of the cars in place, dropped the green and watched the outcome. But no, he put his thumb on the scale.
Asterisk title, not clean. Kinda like Senna and Prost. That one was equally stupefying but at least it was a blatant act by a driver and not a political act like this.