To be clear, Max followers, it’s not that I begrudge him the title. Positive, I’ve points along with his park-it-on-the-apex unraceability, however his sheer velocity in 2021 was breathtaking. I don’t assume I’ve ever seen a extra electrified automobile than the RB16 in his palms throughout qualifying for Saudi Arabia. It’s one of many biggest laps in fashionable instances, regardless of him not ending it. He was jaw-dropping final yr.
However purists will certainly be disillusioned by the style by which he clinched the title. To lean on the FIA’s personal phrasing, there’s the danger historical past could mark this as a tarnished title, when it might so simply have been an unqualified basic. It’s this that I begrudge.
What hasn’t helped is the FIA’s suggestion that it’s our fault, for our “important misunderstanding” of what was happening. The FIA is correct to say the matter is “tarnishing the picture of the championship” but it surely wasn’t followers, nor Method 1 groups and drivers, that triggered it. We understood fairly clearly what we noticed.
For others, the ultimate straw with F1 got here earlier; the monitor limits melodrama, the seemingly ‘heads or tails’ handout of penalties after on-track incidents, the farce that was Spa – even additional again, to Ferrari’s secret engine deal and the belief we’re all meant to only faux nothing occurred.
Each time it got here, all of it smacks of die-hard race followers not being taken critically within the quest for the spectacle.
In my tweet, I requested the FIA the way it was going to resolve issues, and get me to activate for 2022. Maybe encouragingly, the organisation has promised to review issues and supply “significant suggestions and conclusions” earlier than the 2022 season begins.
Anybody else nonetheless have @f1 binned after that utter farce of a last 2021 race? Even watching outdated race highlights on YouTube is simply too painful, by no means thoughts following the information. Nonetheless ready to see the way you’ll resolve it, @fia.
— Richard Aucock (@richardaucock) January 4, 2022
I, and it appears many hundreds of others, await this with curiosity. As does Mercedes, which is why it dropped its enchantment into the Abi Dhabi debacle (With Toto Wolff promising to carry the FIA “accountable”). This could give me hope we could but see one thing significant, that each one this sporting anguish could but be resolved. However I admit I’m not holding my breath.
We need to love F1 once more; we secretly nonetheless need to comply with 2022 with relish. However, proper now, it’s all nonetheless too uncooked. We give a lot time and emotion into F1, and this has been shattered. Can we danger investing such ardour once more?
Abu Dhabi stays a sore spot that should be handled. We wish assurance the sensible thrills and spills our sport can ship shall be past reproach. However we additionally need proof we’ll be listened to. We need to be taken critically, not dismissed, or instructed the fault is ours, not yours.
Till then, F1, sorry, however I’m out.