Will this F1 series mess ever end? A glance at social media revealed the absurdity of the situation

F1 followers will not forget what happened on December 12, 2021, when the last race of the exciting season was run. Max Verstappen won the first world championship of his career in a way that was shameful for F1 and the FIA.

Verstappen drove a great season and deserved his championship. However, there’s no getting around it, that in the end the title was decided with the help of a safety car farce, which led, among other things, to two protests from Mercedes. The cabinets were twisted with a screwdriver.

The biggest culprit was the F1 race director, an Australian Michael Masi. He said that he had received death threats and racist and insulting messages on his Facebook. The FIA ​​moved Mas aside and elevated him to race director by Niels Wittich and by Eduardo Freitaswho took turns in the task.

Well, but the championship for the 2022 season was not guaranteed for Verstappen, so to speak, normally. The superior Dutchman secured his championship in Japan in the Suzuka race, even though there were still four races left in the season.

However, the championship was secured in the rain-ravaged stump race. When Verstappen came to the finish line as the winner, it was not known if he was the champion or not. Verstappen thought he didn’t secure the championship yet, until the FIA ​​then announced that he would get full points for the race.

I also remember last season’s Monza GP time trials. Many teams took starting grid penalties into the race. So many that it took the F1 organization three hours after qualifying to tell them from which grid each one would start the race.

AlphaTaurin Pierre Gasly also asked for help on Twitter: “Can someone tell me which screen I’m leaving from tomorrow?”

Examples from recent seasons would be enough. Last year Fernando Alonso got a time penalty in the Miami race for breaking the track limits and dropped out of the points. Alonso said that on the next lap he gave back the amount of time he gained by straightening the corner. The Spanish champion opened up about the FIA ​​competition leaders for a long time, for example On The Race website (you will switch to another service) and barked these as incompetent.

At the end of last season, the FIA ​​dismissed Freitas as race leader. Now only Wittich works as race director, but in addition to that, the FIA ​​is training new race directors under Wittich’s leadership. The goal is that in the future there would not be just one person responsible.

The second F1 race of the 2023 season and Johan started to mix again, targeting Alonso. Alonso made a big mistake himself at the start of the Saudi Arabian GP on Sunday, when he incorrectly placed the car on the starting grid – a five-second time penalty.

Alonso went to serve the time penalty in the pit, but the mechanic touched Alonso’s car with a jack during the penalty. The race jury considered that Alonso did not complete the time penalty according to the rules. So Alonso received another ten-second penalty after the race and dropped from third place to fourth.

Hours after the race, there was another twist and Alonso was returned to third place. The Aston Martin team had provided the FIA ​​with seven examples of situations where the car had been touched in similar situations, and the driver had not received a time penalty.

F1 series published a bulletin (you will switch to another service)in which it reported on the new evidence it received and various articles of the rules.

Sports expert Jukka Mildh considered Aston Martin’s actions an amateurish mistake. In the opening race of the season Esteban Ocon also received a ten-second penalty when his car was touched in the pit while serving a five-second time penalty. The penalty remained in effect.

That’s when the mechanic touched Ocon’s front wing. Is it different to touch the car with your hands than with a jack?

In any case, yet another, hours-long uncertainty about the final results of the race. You get a really awesome picture when you look at the F1 series and the teams’ generally excellent and colorful social media channels.

Mercedes on Twitter George Russell vented with difficulty when he found out that he came third. He said that Alonso deserved a podium place and asked the bystanders why Alonso was penalized.

The F1 series published an explanatory video on Instagram explaining “why Fernando Alonso lost his podium position”.

The verdict of the F1 fans, at least in the comment field of the video in question, was clear: “let’s mess around again”.

After the race, Alonso himself spoke about the same things as many fans, slowness.

– You cannot apply a penalty 35 laps after a pit stop. They had enough time to let us know. “If I had known about the penalty, I would have made 11 seconds behind me,” Alonso said According to the BBC (you will switch to another service).

– Today was not a good day for the fans. There is something really wrong with the system. It’s sad for the FIA.

Expert Mildh reminded that the situation is not new in track racing. Drivers have been given penalties for a long time, and in all different race categories, after the races. Nowadays, the FIA ​​specifically tries to make the decisions as quickly as possible, so that they can be delivered to the television viewers quickly, and the results would be clear when the race ends.

Although the resources around the F1 series are huge, speed can increase the potential for mistakes. Stables have the right to protest. The said rule book contains one article after another, and the armies of lawyers of the F1 teams know how to use them in their appeals.

F1 is the sports world that is most often referred to as a circus. Of course, the statutory circus offers its own kind of theater and, for example, something for the media to wonder about and write about, so what’s up.

But had the circus gone too far? The FIA ​​responsible for the rules makes a decision, F1 publishes an explanatory video for its fans about the penalty, after which the FIA ​​cancels the penalty – it was already tragicomic.

It is not easy, as perhaps this text has revealed, but the FIA ​​and F1 must find ways to finally get its communication and adventures in the jungle of rules to a less infuriating place.

In any case, it can’t be good in the long run these days that the viewer doesn’t know when they turn off the TV, who were the top three in the competition. You have to read it the old fashioned way from the morning paper.

Listen to the F1 episode of Urheilu’s podcast. Why are there four races in the Middle East and should we be worried about it? What does the Finnish F1 future look like? Urheilu’s expert Jukka Mildh breaks down the hottest topics of the F1 season. Also in the audience are University of Helsinki professor Hannu Juusola, who specializes in the Middle East, and Finland’s F1 hope Tuukka Taponen.