Hamilton and Verstappen have collided on the track more than once this season, and the war of words between Mercedes and Red Bull has lasted almost the entire season, but all the previous controversies add up to less than the controversy over the safety car on the final lap. Because of this controversy, it almost directly determines the ownership of this season's drivers' championship!
The timing of the evacuation of the safety vehicle became the biggest controversy
By lap 53, Hamilton still had a 10-second advantage over Verstappen, and as long as there were no special circumstances, the winner of the race and the overall champion of the year were none other than Hamilton, but Latife and Mick Schumacher, the two drivers who currently had the weakest feeling in the paddock, worked together to write a magical script. The two made contact as they scrambled for a position, and Latifi then spun out of control and slammed into the parapet, triggering a yellow flag and safety car.
Verstappen, who was already in a desperate situation, used the opportunity to pit in for a soft tyre, which was his only chance to turn the tables. At this time, Red Bull's most hope is that the race will be restarted quickly or the race will be shown a red flag to interrupt the race, and the most feared thing is that the race will end under the guidance of a safety car.
Latifi's brake discs were on fire, but the overall situation was not particularly serious, so the situation of the red flag was ruled out first, led by the safety car, the race quickly entered the last three laps, at which point the possibility of the race not restarting is increasing, and it can be seen from the expressions of the Red Bull staff that they have basically accepted this fact.
However, on lap 57, the penultimate lap of the race, the race will inform those slow cars that have been looped can be unset, and under normal circumstances, after all the slow cars return to the tail of the team, the safety car will withdraw with one more lap and the race will restart. By this time the race was on lap 57, which meant that when the safety car withdrew, it was time for the race to end.
The race officer made an "unusual" decision to evacuate the safety car at the same time as the slow car was fully unsealed, leaving time for the last lap of the race. It's obviously Hamilton who suffered the loss – his hard tyres have been struggling for most of the game, and Verstappen is the soft tyres that have just been changed, and the speed of the two is completely different on one level. Mercedes-led Wolff cried out in despair during a call with the FIA: This is not right...
The decision made by the race officer is actually related to a principle that F1 has pursued in recent years, that is, "give the race to the driver", the original intention of this principle is that the race will interfere with the race as little as possible and let the drivers complete the competition by themselves. In the FIA's view, if the safety car finishes the race, it will kill the most exciting competition, so they made a "fair decision" to let the two drivers fight directly on the last lap, but it is actually the biggest unfairness to Hamilton.
Calm Hamilton earns respect
There's no need to blame Red Bull and Verstappen, not all games have any shady scenes, they're just trying to win. What Verstappen did in the game was to push, push and push.
But we have to give respect to Hamilton, who still maintained a superb demeanor after losing the game in such a controversial way, congratulated Verstappen after the game, and in the post-match interview, his expression was very calm, and he even said that he would enjoy the Christmas holidays. This is the style that the "Seven Champions" should have, and we firmly believe that the Seven Crowns are by no means the ultimate achievement of his F1 career. (Text/Li Tianyou)