Last Updated on November 25 2023, 11:24 am

Its the final weekend of the Formula One season and the big prizes were decided many weeks ago. Yet the F1 paddock is conspiring to keep the fading interest of the fans alive for a few more hours.

Red Bull’s team boss kicked it all off when he told the Daily Mail in an interview that Lewis Hamilton had approached his team for a drive earlier this year while negotiating his new contract with Mercedes.

 

 

Wolff revels in “enemy building”

This fairly innocuous revelation given most drivers would explore their options when out of contract became the big story coming into the weekend when Hamilton decided to refute Horner’s claims outright and turn the story on its head stating it was the Red Bull boss who had in fact contacted him.

Toto Wolff in his usual less than controlled fashion, joined the fray, implying his arch rival was a fantasists and that he himself revelled in the art of “enemy building.”

On track there were ten junior drivers getting the FIA mandated time in a Formula One car and the performance of Mercedes Frederik Vesti raised questions over whether Williams would be pressurised to reply e Logan Sargeant with Vesti, something Toto strongly denied.

Yet the reason Williams haven’t declared their hand over their hit and miss American driver is clearly because of the young driver test which will take in the days following the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. 

Wolf and Vasseur summoned to FIA stewards

 

 

 

Half FP2 lost to red flags

There the youngsters will be pushing the F1 cars to the limit and showing their true potential whereas in FP1 they had to consider not crashing the car and penalising the regular team drivers for the rest of the weekend.

Free practice two saw ten of the regular F1 drivers return to their cars and keen to get on with proceedings given they had lost an hour of their regular weekend preparation.

Carlos Sainz frustrated matters when he crashed his Ferrari early on causing an extensive red flag delay as the barriers were repaired at turn two.

Nico Hulkenberg who had surrendered his seat to British junior Oliver Bearman was clearly keen to crack on with his setup adjustments but put his Haas F1 car in the wall causing another red flag timeout for the rest of the field.

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Verstappen complains of blocking

This only increased the urgency for the remaining cars to get back on track as quickly as possible and Max Verstappen was frustrated when the pit lane reopened bye the dawdling of this ahead of him.

In Abu Dhabi the pit lane exit uniquely drops down and through a tunnel under neath the track which adds its own jeopardy for the drivers. Verstappen overtook two cars going into the tunnel while complaining to his team and while it was perfectly legal following a ruling earlier in the season, it looked very tight and could easily have caused the tunnel to be blocked.

“They have to move,” Verstappen said after passing Lewis Hamilton and George Russell in the ‘underpass’ section.

“They are all driving slow. I want to go out because we are limited on time, and they just keep on driving in the middle. When I tried to pass they tried to squeeze me in the wall,” he complained.

Horner sympathises with Hamiltons winlesss streak

 

 

 

FIA create a web of rules

In an attempt to prevent cars travelling too slowly on track, there FIA earlier this year introduced a minimum time in which a car must complete a lap of the track during certain sessions during the weekend.

This then meant drivers were trying to create the necessary gap they required by travelling very slowly through and out of the pit lane.

The, concerns over drivers travelling along the pit lane and the exit too slowly caused race control to issue a directive to prevent another car being blocked. Now cars must be on the left hand side of the pit lane and exit – allowing an overtake should another car wish to move along more quickly.

Vertsappen was clearly upset because he believed the Mercedes’ pair were not on the left hand side of the pit lane exit and even deliberately blocking him whilst travelling well below th exit lane speed limit.

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Rooted in Monza chaos

Neils Wittich the FIA race director has now made a contrary move which for some merely confusing his earlier judgement. Following Verstappen’s pit lane overtakes the following instructions have now been issued.

Revised event notes sent to teams on Saturday morning by the FIA stating the following: “Overtaking is prohibited in the pit exit road unless a car slows with an obvious problem.”

Yet had this instruction been in place yesterday, surely Verstappen would have defended his action by claiming the cars ahead were so slow he believed one to have a problem.

Since the minimum lap time as been implemented, more than twenty drivers have been reported to be in breach of this during qualifying. Yet in every case the driver has been exonerated due to mitigating circumstances usually because they have to give way to a faster car coming up behind them.

Toto Wolff accuses Horner of lying

 

 

FIA need to simplify rules

The spaghetti web of rules the FIA have brought in to deal with the very real problem and stems from the Italian GP in Monza back in 2019.

The final part of qualifying was farcical as just one of the remaining ten drivers completed their final lap before the clock reached zero for the session.

The teams had sent their cars out en masse late in the session in an attempt for each to be the last across the line as the clock counted down when starting their final qualifying lap. Of course this was impossible and for the nine who failed to make the line it was red faces all round.

Whilst this was embarrassing and anti climatic for the fans, allowing the teams to make such a mistake is surely a better solution than the web of conflicting regulations subsequently created by the FIA.

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