The past Abu Dhabi Grand Prix was full of controversy, and it continues to flood the sport. Although the champion of the 2021 season was defined, who turned out to be Max Verstappen, it was with rather hasty decisions and, for many, unfair. What happened? This is a short summary. Lewis Hamilton managed to get passed the Dutchman in the first corner of the first lap, maintaining the lead of the race for much of it, he even had an 8-second advantage over the other contender for the title, Max Verstappen, which was reduced to less than 1 second thanks to a clean but difficult battle between the seven-time world champion and Sergio Perez. However, Max was unable to pass the race leader. With only 5 laps to go, Nicholas Latifi's Williams crashed and Michael Masi, race director, decided to neutralize the competition thanks to the safety car. Red Bull decides to call Max into the pits and put on fresh soft tyres, which Mercedes did not do with Hamilton. Between Lewis (who was leading) and Max (in second place) there were about 5 lapped cars. The regulation stipulates that they should unlap themselves, overtake the safety car and train until the end to allow the cars that are in the lead lap to fight. However, due to the lack of laps, race control announces that lapped cars will not be able to overtake the safety car. For Mercedes, this is going smoothly, but not for Red Bull. The Austrian team is putting pressure on Michael Masi so that the lapped cars unlap themselves and with a single competition lap, Max can fight for the first place of the race against Hamilton and, perhaps, win the championship. Masi agrees and allows the lapped cars between Hamilton and Verstappen to unlap. The rest is history, but what interests us is this.

The Formula 1 sports regulations stipulate that the procedure when there is a safety car is to wait until all the cars are packed into the same group behind the safety car. Once they are compacted, the middle part of the Safety Car's light will turn from yellow to green. This means that cars that are one or more laps behind the lead lap will be able to pass the safety car and will be able to make up a lap. In addition, the regulations state that once the lapped cars have overtaken the safety car, it must enter the pit lane the following lap.

Once knowing what the regulations stipulated, Mercedes protested the safety car procedure, since race control only allowed the lapped cars that were between the two drivers competing for the title to unlap themselves. In addition to the fact that the safety car entered that same lap, not the next one, as the regulation states. It was then that Mercedes disagreed and began to complain and protest against the FIA ​​for having made this decision. Toto Wolff, Mercedes’ team principal, was the one who was most annoyed with Michael Masi and the entire FIA. This is what he commented.

“The decisions that have been taken in the last four minutes of this race have robbed Lewis Hamilton of a deserved world championship. His driving, particularly in the last four races, was faultless.” Mercedes’ team principal, Toto Wolff, said as racefans.net reported.

“Lewis had a commanding lead on Sunday in Abu Dhabi from the get-go. He won the start and he never gave the lead away again. And robbing him in the last lap of the race is unacceptable.”

“If you look at most of the controversies that have happened this year, it was about sporting decisions on the track, the inconsistency of the execution of the regulation on track. It’s one thing to drive hard and to have difference of opinion among the drivers and the teams. It is in the nature of the sport. But inconsistent decision-making leads to controversies, leads to polarisation and that was the ground for many of the totally unnecessary controversies on the track.” Wolff stated.

“The regulations are that all cars need to unlap themselves before the race can be restarted. And only in the following lap, once all cars have unlapped themselves, the Safety Car may come in.” Mercedes’ team principal clarified. “None of that happened. None of that happened. Randomly, cars were allowed to overtake and to unlap themselves.”

“I would have been totally okay with Max and Red Bull winning the championship on Sunday. And this situation has nothing to do with Max. He is a worthy champion, his driving is exceptional and Red Bull are a fierce competitor and I have the greatest respect for the people working there. So this has noting to do with them.”