{"id":1387619,"date":"2022-03-18T05:05:00","date_gmt":"2022-03-18T09:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1387619"},"modified":"2022-03-18T08:00:40","modified_gmt":"2022-03-18T12:00:40","slug":"formula-one-opens-new-season-while-trying-to-move-beyond-last-seasons-finish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/formula-one-opens-new-season-while-trying-to-move-beyond-last-seasons-finish\/","title":{"rendered":"Formula One Opens New Season While Trying to Move Beyond Last Season\u2019s Finish"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">26<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fformula-one-opens-new-season-while-trying-to-move-beyond-last-seasons-finish%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1387619&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/48805966396_cb170cd87c_k.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p>This Sunday\u2019s Bahrain Grand Prix\u2014the inaugural race of the 2022 Formula One season\u2014presents the international racing series with a dilemma. For a sport that focuses on going fast, Formula One has spent most of the past three months focused on its rearview mirror.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2021\/12\/14\/formula-one-racing-is-finally-picking-up-speed-with-its-u-s-fanbase\/\">controversial end to last season<\/a>\u2014a series of officiating calls that helped influence the driving championship outcome between Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen\u2014echoed long past the 2021 season finale in Abu Dhabi last December. At various points throughout the offseason, hashtags like \u201c#F1xed\u201d and \u201c#MasiOut\u201d\u2014the latter referring to race director Michael Masi, at the center of the Abu Dhabi maelstrom\u2014kept trending on Twitter, indicative of the lingering international uproar.<\/p>\n<p>The fact that the officiating calls effectively decided the championship means many will have a tough time \u201cmoving on\u201d from the events of that race weekend. But hopefully, the start of the 2022 season will allow all parties to move past last year\u2014getting a sport <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2021\/12\/14\/formula-one-racing-is-finally-picking-up-speed-with-its-u-s-fanbase\/\">seeing an upswing in fan interest<\/a> back on track.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"what-happened\"><strong>What Happened<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>The controversy arose after a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=eV_iOxggmdg\">crash in the final laps<\/a> of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. At the time of the incident, the Brit Hamilton led Verstappen on track. To seek his record-breaking eighth world championship, Hamilton had to finish ahead of the Dutchman at Abu Dhabi. The two came into the last race tied in championship points, but because Verstappen had won more races than Hamilton, Verstappen held the tiebreaker in his quest for his first championship.<\/p>\n<p>The crash required a caution period, to remove the damaged car of Nicholas Latifi and related on-track debris. But Masi drew the ire of Hamilton\u2019s supporters for 1) allowing some\u2014but not all\u2014lapped cars to pass the safety car at the end of the caution period and 2) restarting the race with one lap remaining, potentially in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/articles\/single-seaters\/f1\/the-safety-car-regulations-that-michael-masi-ignored-to-go-racing-at-the-end-of-abu-dhabi-gp\">violation of the sport\u2019s regulations<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The end result of these decisions meant that, when the race restarted with one lap to go, Verstappen lined up directly behind Hamilton, with no lapped cars between them. Because Verstappen had stopped for fresh tires during the caution period and Hamilton had not, the latter became a sitting duck. Hamilton\u2019s old tires proved no match for Verstappen; the Dutchman easily passed Hamilton, driving away to take the win\u2014and the championship.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"what-should-have-happened\"><strong>What Should Have Happened <\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>All other things equal, Masi\u2019s attempt to restart the race appears like the correct instinct. After Hamilton and Verstappen had engaged in an epic duel amongst themselves all season, deciding the race, and therefore the championship, at slow speed behind the pace car would have seemed like an anticlimax.<\/p>\n<p>But in Abu Dhabi, all else wasn\u2019t equal. Hamilton likely did not pit for tires because he presumed (or hoped) the race would not resume. Masi\u2019s series of calls put Hamilton in a box that gave him no realistic chance of winning the race, and therefore the championship, during the last-lap shootout.<\/p>\n<p>The simpler solution? Formula One should have thrown a red flag, stopping the race completely to allow for a full clean-up of the Latifi incident. This would have:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Allowed both Hamilton and Verstappen to get new tires, as Formula One teams can make adjustments to their cars during red-flag periods.<\/li>\n<li>Given race officials time to sort out the lapped cars, such that all lapped cars would remain out of the way of Hamilton, Verstappen, and other top competitors in the race\u2019s closing stage.<\/li>\n<li>Eliminated several laps drivers spent queuing up behind the safety car, giving fans a chance to see more laps of green-flag, \u201cheads-up\u201d racing to decide who won the race\u2014and the championship.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The first time I attended the <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2017\/05\/26\/many-americans-love-indy-500\/\">Indianapolis 500<\/a>, Indycar officials followed this approach. The series threw an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/motor\/indycar\/2014\/05\/25\/indianapolis-500-red-flag-townsend-bell-crash-hunter-reay-wins\/9577895\/\">unprecedented red flag<\/a> following a late-race incident, to ensure fans would have a chance to see the race finish as a race, rather than finishing under caution for the fifth straight year.<\/p>\n<p>That move <a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20140714184852\/http:\/racer.com\/miller-indy-500-red-flag-was-the-right-call\">paid off<\/a>, leading to one of the <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/EeREa0HUrXY?t=240\">closest finishes<\/a> in Indy 500 history. Even the second-place finisher that year, Helio Castroneves, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/motor\/indycar\/2014\/05\/25\/indianapolis-500-red-flag-townsend-bell-crash-hunter-reay-wins\/9577895\/\">said<\/a> stopping the race to allow for a green-flag finish was \u201cthe right decision.\u201d By contrast, Hamilton <a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/racing\/2022\/02\/19\/lewis-hamilton-debunks-retirement-f1-lost-faith\">said<\/a> he lost some faith in the sport after December\u2019s debacle in Abu Dhabi, feeling (with some justification) that Formula One officials had cheated him out of a record-setting championship.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"moving-forward\"><strong>Moving Forward<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>The Abu Dhabi controversy led to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fia.com\/news\/fia-president-mohammed-ben-sulayem-opens-way-new-step-forward-formula-1-refereeing\">several changes<\/a> within Formula One. For starters, Michael Masi lost his role as race director last month. In addition, a video replay booth serving as proverbial \u201ceyes in the sky\u201d will check the race director\u2019s calls in real-time.<\/p>\n<p>On Tuesday, the sport also announced <a href=\"https:\/\/www.firstpost.com\/sports\/formula-1-fia-change-rules-to-avoid-repeat-of-2021-abu-dhabi-final-race-drama-10465051.html\">tweaks<\/a> to the procedures governing lapped cars during caution periods\u2014one of the main sources of controversy last December\u2014and is expected to release its full report on the Abu Dhabi race this weekend. Hopefully, the release will draw a line under the Abu Dhabi race, the outcome of which likely satisfied no one\u2014even Verstappen, who could face persistent questions about whether his first championship comes with a proverbial asterisk.<\/p>\n<p>With the sport growing in popularity, thanks in part to the Netflix series \u201cDrive to Survive,\u201d everyone in Formula One has an interest in using the start of the 2022 season as the time to move past Abu Dhabi. Racers fixated on their mirrors quickly become ineffective drivers\u2014an adage that applies to the sport as much as to its participants.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n<div class=\"article-author-description fst-italic\">\n  Chris Jacobs is founder and CEO of Juniper Research Group, and author of the book, &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/1645720020\">The Case Against Single Payer<\/a>.&#8221; He is on Twitter: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/chrisjacobshc\">@chrisjacobsHC<\/a>. Previously he was a senior health policy analyst for the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a senior policy analyst in The Heritage Foundation\u2019s Center for Health Policy Studies, and a senior policy analyst with the Joint Economic Committee\u2019s Senate Republican staff. During the debate over the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare, Jacobs was a policy adviser for the House Republican Conference under then-Chairman Mike Pence. In the first two years of the law\u2019s implementation, he was a health policy analyst for the Senate Republican Policy Committee. Jacobs got his start on Capitol Hill as an intern for then-Rep. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.). He holds a bachelor\u2019s degree in political science and history from American University, where he is a part-time teacher of health policy. He currently resides in Washington, D.C.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This Sunday\u2019s Bahrain Grand Prix\u2014the inaugural race of the 2022 Formula One season\u2014presents the international racing series with a dilemma. For a sport that focuses on going fast, Formula One<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1387619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1387619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1387619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1387619\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1387619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1387619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1387619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}