Lewis Hamilton vs Max Verstappen
2021 Formula 1 Season
The defense of the refereeing decisions and the need for change
Sitting in a corridor in Philadelphia International Airport terminal B, I finally get time to write and defend my favorite sport — Formula 1 motor racing. Formula 1 is the pinnacle of motorsports in many ways. For one, it produces super-fast cars that can take corners at 200Mph with 5G gravitational forces (maggots and beckets corners at Silverstone for one instance). Also, it helps in bringing the latest developments and technologies to road cars like efficient engines, aerodynamics, safety features, and design concepts.
Formula 1 has been around since the 1950s and had its fair share of controversies, to say the least — a lot of drivers dying due to lack of safety regulations in the earlier era to the iconic clashes of Ayrton Senna & Prost/Michael Schumacher & Graham Hill. The 2021 championship battle between Sir Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen, was no exception. Hamilton aiming for a record 8th title surpassing Michael Schumacher’s record of 7 and Verstappen a young prodigy vying for his first. In the turbo-hybrid era from 2014, Mercedes was the car to beat but the tables turned in 2021 with Red Bull developing a new engine and Mercedes sticking with the old one. After the pre-season testing in March, it became evident that Red Bull was ahead of Mercedes and this set up an exciting championship battle that every fan has been waiting for. The new influx of fans from Netflix’s hit series of “Drive to survive,” craved the drama.
Max has always been a rash driver who takes unnecessary risks and puts the other driver in danger of crashing out if he doesn’t back out. Some fans like his driving for this reason alone even though he is an exceptional driver by all means without resorting to such tactics. Lewis on the other hand is a measured driver who can stretch his elbows out when necessary but within the limits of regulations. Lewis’s maturity combined with aggressiveness served him well with 7 titles to his name. As in any story where a starter tries to take on the established there are bound to be fireworks. Max and Lewis collided in multiple races — Britain, Brazil, Jeddah, and so on.
The races created some fantastic battles throughout the season with some races going to the last lap overtakes. Just like when 2 cars collide on a street, there is a culprit and a victim and the culprit has to pay the price. When an incident happens on the road, it’s usually the insurance companies/court decides the culprit and the penalty. (THis job in F1 is handled by people called as ‘Stewarts’…) Finding the culprit and handing a penalty in a Formula 1 race is decided by a team of people known as “Stewards.” But doing this in real-time when a single lap on average takes around 1min 15secs and the whole race lasts for 90mins is difficult like operating on a wounded patient. Add to this, stewards change from one race to another. Then there is the “race director” — whose main responsibility is to make sure the race starts and ends fairly and safely. So, the mistakes are bound to happen and they did. Many fans and ex-drivers criticized the stewards and race directors throughout the season for the lack of consistency.
The two title contenders entered the final race of the season at the beautiful Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi equal on points (369.5) for the first time since 1974. The final race was filled with pure drama and the race comes down to the final lap with Hamilton in first and Verstappen in second behind a safety car after Nicholas Latifi crashed his car. Considering the entire season and the race so far, the pressure couldn’t be any higher on the director and the stewards. On the final lap of the race, the ‘director’ decides to restart the race and Verstappen overtakes Hamilton on the final lap and hence winning his first world championship.
According to the guidelines, the director had entire authority to do so. In my personal opinion, what happened was an error in judgment from the director to please the fans. But, as it is was within the rules, I decided to make my peace with it. However, since the race ended it became a huge controversy and continues to generate headlines with FIA investigations, Hamilton not attending the ceremony, and retirement rumors. A lot of blame has been put on race director — Michael Masi and stewards. As much as I would like to blame them, people fall to ‘recency bias’ and tend to forget that stewarding improved a lot over the years. Also, we need to take both ups and downs.
People need to remember that the issue with Refereeing is not just in Formula 1 but in other sports as well. The notorious red card/offside calls in Soccer or the offensive holding/pass interference in American Football. I wish I could develop a Machine learning solution that analyzes the video footage and hands out a penalty without human intervention, but it is difficult to do that right now. Until then, race directors and stewards need to make better decisions.
