Formula 1 World Champion of 2021 season is.... (Spoiler alert!)

Hello there fans of motorsports!

The champion of 2021 is... Max Verstappen!

Edit: I've changed the title to avoid spoiling the motorsport fans in the Giant Bomb forums who haven't watched the final race.

Probably the worst way to end a season. FIA wanting the drama so fuck their own rulebook.

I think Hamilton had earned the win today at Yas Marina but I'm not sure who really earned it for the entire championship, though Max was certainly ahead and more consistent for most of the season. World championships aren't truly won or lost at a single race but it's extremely easy to get tunnel vision on individual incidents that defy logic and expectations and F1 is full of them, fans will rarely be satisfied but it was a good season to me all the same. Very excited for all the changes in 2022.

Absolute farce of an ending. I was excited for both Max and Lewis to win this but having it come down to the whims of a questionably competent race director wanting to create drama is not how I wanted this to end. The FIA has been such a prank all season.

It’ll be interesting to see the discussion around this once everyone’s heads have cooled off. I’ve certainly had my views evolve on race incidents once the dust has settled. But nothing about this win seems fair to me at the moment.

Not really a fan of his attitude and ego, but congrats for being fast i guess.

Spoilers my dude! Use a more vague title in the future.

I don't follow F1 but read about this and from little that I can understand a ton of people are pissed at what seems to be a black-on-white breach of the rulebook? Either way I read that Mercedes has already launched two appeals.

Those appeals have now been rejected. There have been a breach of FIA's rulebook but I guess the FIA choose when to enforce it. I can't imagine it's legally binding but I'd still be furious from a Mercedes standpoint.

Sounds like a wild sport to follow.

Complete joke of an end to otherwise an fun season. Hamilton deserved the win.

First race that I've tuned in since Mika Häkkinen retired and I had absolutely no idea what was going on. It looked like fun though and if Hamilton never gets his 8th championship I look forward to the debates about who was better, him or Schumacher.

Hamilton did absolutely everything he could as a driver today and he deserved the win. For the whole season to be decided on one lap because "people want to see a race!" is making F1 become the WWE of motorsports.

My hot take of the race is that if you can't pass backmarkers and make up a 10 second gap in 15 laps with fresh tires, then that wasn't really your day to win.

At this point though it's not even about Lewis versus Max. It's more what are they going to do about the current situation with people upset about the way stewards make calls like this? There's a clear lack of consistency in how the FIA and stewards have been making all season. Based on this last race, it feels like a turning point for F1 where we can either continue the drama for the sake of entertainment (and for Netflix) or get back to being a sport.

I don't know how i feel about this. I'm happy for my fellow dutchies who have yearned for a big win in Formula 1 for a long time and if you look at the championship in it's entirety, there were some decisions that were harsh for Max as well.

But as someone sitting down and looking at this final race, i can't help but feel that it's extremely sour for Hamilton to have his entire strategy & lead on the rest of the pack wiped out because the guy in last place ends up crashing in the last few laps. There you are with your old tires. Your entire lead in seconds has been wiped away completely, and now you have to compete with Max's fairly fresh tires. That's certainly a spectacular end to a championship, but it doesn't feel like the fastest driver / car combination won here.

My favorite moment was when Perez was battling it out with Hamilton, so Max could get near them both. That was fun to watch.

@gtxforza: Hey, I know this is my fault for not turning off my phone completely today bit please keep in mind next time that some people don't watch live and you know, reading the result of the final race on a forum post title on the front page of Giantbomb of all places before watching, kinda sucks.

I have no horse (or car) in this race but I am inclined to agree that the race results should not be spoiled in the title.

I am here to announce as a moderator that GTxForza has done nothing wrong and announcing the results of a live event after it has been reported by multiple news media is in no way a violation of the rules in spirit or as written.

I have a real hard time asking for anything different than what has been posted here when ITV News, The Telegraph, and the BBC have frontpage articles announcing the results in double bolded text.

Had a night to sleep on it and still can't help feeling anything but disappointment at being given this kind of ending to an otherwise brilliant season. As someone who's more or less neutral this was basically one of the worst possible ways for the race to conclude.

The safety car itself is unlucky for Hamilton but also whatever, it's something that happens during racing and was absolutely necessary with where Latifi ended up. The string of absolutely bizarre decisions undertaken by Masi following that, however, are unconscionable. Masi's gone out of his way all season to position himself as not responsible for the stewards decisions, which is mostly true, only to absolutely fumble it in the worst way possible when making a decision that actually is his responsibility.

I read a brief summary of the final lap, but can someone explain why this was controversial? I know F1 is full of...questionable choices, just don't know why this particular choice is being decried (I should probably watch some highlights).

@finaldasa: Rob Zacny has written a good article over at Waypoint Vice Games that explains it pretty well.

The extreme short version is that the major controversy results from the race director (imperfectly analogous to a head referee) applying a genuinely unprecedented interpretation of a rule that most people view as leaving very little room for interpretation to create a situation where the 2nd place driver was massively advantaged at the expense of literally every other car on track. To be clear, it's extremely unlikely to be a result of bias for a particular driver but feels fairly transparently done to create a dramatic TV moment.

Well I know people like me are what everyone is upset about, but as a casual fan who watched nearly every Grand Prix this year I found it to be an exciting finish to a great season. I saw races where questionable calls went the way of Mercedes and some, including this one, that went the way of Red Bull. Excited to see what happens next year!

Thanks for spoiling it for me…ugh. Did u have to mention the result in the title?

Both Max and Lewis deserved a championship this season and both of them gained from various wild circumstances and interesting interpretations of the rules throughout the year. I guess I'm happy that the championship went to a non-Mercedes driver for the first time since 2013, even though I can't really call myself a fan of either driver.

Regarding those last few laps, I think that whatever Masi had decided to do would have lead to controversy. If he'd finished the race under the safety car even after the track was clear, it would have unfairly benefited Hamilton. If he'd kept those cars between Lewis and Max, it would have again benefited Hamilton and created the chance for an incident between the lapped cars and the title contenders. And then we have the way it ended up going, which wasn't a neat and tidy solution by any means, but still the best option in my eyes.

I understand why Mercedes and Hamilton fans are upset. If the tables were turned, I'm sure that Max fans and Horner would be using the same arguments. But then again, it's important to remember that this is not where the championship was decided. The championship was decided along 22 races under various circumstances, stewards decisions and classifications.

@zombiepie: Hey, that’s why I said it’s my fault, I am blaming myself more than anyone.

I always watch races after the fact, because I am not able to watch live and on the day of the race avoid any racing and news websites (like the ones you mentioned). I only visit GB and one more gaming website (RPS) because they are usually spoiler free spaces. You are right, there is no hard rule about it but I am just asking for a bit of consideration next time, just skipping the result on the title.

Thank you gtxforza for changing this by the way. It was still a fun race, the way the whole thing went I thought you were maybe joking on that forum title (until the safety car came out)!

@finaldasa: Under a safety car there is no overtaking, even to lap cars who are behind you in the race. Normally once the track is cleared the steward sends an instruction for the lapped cars to "unlap" themselves, overtaking the safety car and rejoining the back of the queue. On the next lap after this instruction the race resumes. If this has happened last night, the "unlapping" lap would have been the final lap of the race and hamilton would have crossed the line under safety car.

Historically, they have foregone this unlapping process if this creates more issues than it solves, (Normally this is for something like a wet race where the safety risk of cars unlapping themselves is greater than a riskier than the restart with backmarkers present,) The working assumption last night seemed to be that this was what was going to happen. Which means the final lap is a race between Hamilton on old tyres and Verstappen on new soft tyres and 4 lapped cars to pass (They are obliged to let him through, and this was very doable but much harder than last night's final lap.)

Instead they seem to have come up with the entirely novel concept of the 4 cars between Hamilton and Verstappen, and only those four, being allowed to unlap themselves with a handful of corners to go before the restart and then not waiting the normal one lap either. (Which, according to Mercedes, is not something they should have the power to do)

@magnetphonics: To fully grasp the situation - under normal conditions, if they had a lot more laps to go, would this mean that all lapped cars would circle around to the back and Verstappen would have joined Hamilton at the front, and then after a safety lap the racing would have resumed? I'm not quite clear on why only the cars between them were allowed to lap and how all that even works.

They only fuelled him for 3/4 of the race. That's the kind of shenanigans I can get behind.

Besides the strange call in the end, I think Mercedes made a tactical error by also not changing tires as well within the safety car. Sure, looking at the situation there wasnt much reason to think the race would not end behind the safety car, but after all the strange decisions from this season nothing is surprising anymore. It would be a great addition to the rules to not let a race finish in a yellow flag situaton, which in other race sports already is a rule.

In the end either one of them could have been crowned a winner today and it was a very exciting season, but some races where just to much influenced by the stewards or the lack of consistency in the decisions made by them.

Just glad we are not having Wolff or Horner going back and forth crying for attention at the stewards coming for the next 3 months.

That is what usually happens. I don't think there is the strict requirement that all the unlapped cars fully make it back around, but that is the ideal. Basically "Unlapping -> one more lap -> green flag"

I don't think many people understand the decision making here. Other than to contrive drama.

@magnetphonics: The idea of "unlapping" cars seems pretty weird to me. Isn't part of challenge to battle your way to the front?

The concept of blue flags makes this even more confusing. Cars which have been lapped or are about to be lapped must get out of the way of the faster cars lapping them. They enforce this by showing the lapped cars blue flags, which if ignored, will bring penalties to the cars being lapped.

So when a race restarts and the slower cars have not been allowed to unlap themselves, it creates a situation where a bunch of cars stuck in the middle of the pack must slow down to let faster cars get past them but also they have to fight to gain places on the other cars which are on the same lap as them. Whenever this happens it just leads to a weird and mad melee and way too often someone has an accident which then leads to another safety car.

f1.cool

@humanity: It's (generally) a safety thing. The start/restart is the most dangerous time in the race. If they leave the lapped cars mixed in with the leaders, you end up having the restart of what are essentially two seperate races simultaneously on the same piece of track.

As an example, there was a massive pileup at a safety car restart in Mugello last year caused entirely by driver confusion. (In that case it was caused by a "OK guys, one more lap... LOL PRANKED GREEN FLAG NOW!" call at the last possible moment.)

@isomeri: @magnetphonics: Thanks for all this. I always wanted to get into F1 but have found stuff like this to always drive me away since I don't know anyone that is into it so they can ease me in.

@humanity: Like @strathy hinted, F1.cool or Shift+F1 if you want to use the boring name, is actually a pretty good resource to get to know the sport. The podcast is run by Danny of Noclip/Giant Bomb and this guy Drew, not sure if anyone around here is familiar with him. They do a decent primer episode at the start of each season which broadly covers the rules. However the sport can be very dense with technical terminology and rules and as we have found out in this thread for example, the rules are not always clear even to the people running the sport.

All that being said I think this has been the most entertaining season in living memory. Next year should be very interesting too, since 2022 will bring new car designs and hopefully a more level playing field between the teams. So you might say that there's never been a better time to get into F1.

@zombiepie: I’m sure that a lot of people here have avoided mainstream news/sports coverage to avoid being spoiled. Due to the international nature of F1, a lot of people can’t watch it live, and plenty people just had to avoid spoilers for a few hours. Maybe they were at work like myself, maybe they just woke up. No F1 dot com for me! Guardian? No thanks, what if they put it on the front page? How about I just check up on some gaming stuff on my commute back? Oh wait…

I’m sure Mr. Forza was just excited about the news, as he is obviously a fan of motor racing, but seeing the title winner announced in a video game forum, and having all the drama sucked out of the payoff for the most exciting season in as long as I can remember, after almost a year’s worth of drama just plain sucks. It’s like waiting in line for a book or a movie screening and someone rolls down their window and yells “X character dies”. You weren’t seeking that information, you did your best to avoid places where it might surface, but you were subjected to it.

If that’s the status quo, should the forums be avoided anytime any movie, book or video game is released?

I’m in no way saying that GTxForza should receive any sort of a reprimand, that’s just silly, and I did notice he has changed the title, which is great, but saying “no that’s totally cool, put on whatever you want on here” after people have expressed their disappointment, is not right, I think.

I would like to apologise that I accidentally spoiled the users in this forum on those who haven't watched the final race of the F1 2021 season because first of all, I thought most users already watched it on live.

Just want to echo this. I already have to avoid ESPN and Twitter on days where I can't catch a race live due to the time zone (most of them) until the hours or days later when I get a chance to catch the archive of the race. Saying 'lol just avoid the GB forums too' is not a helpful solution to users.

I know that GTxForza has already changed the title, and I thank them for that; I just don't think it's a good precedent to set moving forward for other people/topics to say 'spoilers in thread titles are okay,' whether they're sports or movies or games or whatever else.

I'll first note that it's not my intention to argue or find fault, just feel the need to put my thoughts to words and your post frames some of those thoughts.

It's certainly true that there would be controversy no matter what decision was made at the last few laps, which is why I find it utterly mind-boggling that Masi took the decision he did. When faced with a decision where one party would feel aggrieved no matter what, I would think the most 'fair' decision would be to apply the rules as literally as possible. There would of course be calls of bias etc. but then it would be fairly simple to point to the rules as written and say they were just being followed precisely.

What occurred instead was Masi using his apparently broad powers to override 2 regulations to create a situation where 1 competitor was clearly advantaged. The net result of 1 competitor having the advantage is the same, but the method to reach that result is entirely different. It's bizarre to me because this flings open the floodgates for any calls of foul play to have a semblance of legitimacy and the burden of defense is laid squarely at Masi's feet rather than the rule book.

I'm not 'fan' of either driver but as a fan of the sport this feels like an absolutely horrid way for any race to be decided. I don't think the championship should change hands necessarily, because as you said both drivers certainly were deserving of it this year, but it'll feel really bad if the only explanation we're given as to how these decisions were made is Masi's careless radio message of "It's called a motor race".

@shindig: Excuse me for a lack of knowledge (Back when i watched regularly, refuels were still a thing to give you an impression) but isn't it a rule that all cars should be fueled for an entire race and that all the cars get weighted before a race?

Or is it more that you are just not allowed to refuel, therefore when the tank is empty you're out of luck , but a team is still allowed to send out a car with less fuel if you just want a fast car to help out a teammate for a while?

@onemanarmyy: All cars are required to have sufficient fuel for the entire race and in fact are required to have enough to give back 1L of fuel for inspection at any time during the race under threat of disqualification. What that means, then, is that if you don't care about your car finishing the race/being disqualified in the first place then underfueling is very much an option (though I'm not clear if additional future penalties might be incurred if found to be deliberate, seems like it would likely be in breach of sporting regulations).

All this is to say that yes, it's possible to underfuel a car especially if you plan to retire it mid-race. That being said, I've not seen any confirmation if Red Bull actually did this with Perez. I doubt they did but I understand where the suspicions come from, it would certainly make me chuckle if it comes out they actually did it.

Yeah, it's just something that matched with the "Huh, why?" response from Perez. More a conspiracy than actual fact. I thought he'd retired earlier than he did, too. He was only six laps away from the finish.

Mercedes didn't have the option of pitting under the safety car. It would have given them a 99% chance to lose the race while staying out was a coin flip. If Hamilton had pitted, he would have come out behind both Red Bulls who were on relatively fresh hards. Perez could've created a gap for Verstappen on the restart and then made it impossible for Hamilton to overtake him cleanly.

What a terrible way to end the season. Was rooting for Max but that race wasn't won on track. If this is how F1 is gonna go I may stop watching.

No problem. Yeah due to the time zone it played at 2am so yeah I had to wait until later that day to watch it. It shouldn't be any different to a movie thread though...you wouldn't post the plot twist in the thread title.