The official Formula One and General Motorsport thread for the 2021 season! Season finale live on Sky & Ch4 Dec 12th 1pm

[Imrahil]

McLaren trying to grass up Tsunoda.

I love these new race director radio comms.

[Jam-Master Jay]

Standing start could be spicy at least.

[Errkal]

Haha this is going to be mayhem

[Cuttooth]

Unbelievable!

[Jam-Master Jay]

HAHAHa, can't make this gooseberry fool up.

[Memento Mori]

Jesus

[Jam-Master Jay]

And with Bottas in 12th that's got to be the first time in a long while that Mercedes score no points.

[GrinWithoutaKat]

That is incredible! I firmly believe Lewis is the best driver on the grid, but that's now two huge mistakes compared to zero for Max this season. I can't believe he's done that.

[captain red dog]

Wow, that was a shock for an ending. Wonder if Hamilton had some kind of brake failure, he brakes looked like they were burning up on the grid.

[Neo Cortex]

What the strawberry float was that?

[Memento Mori]

Oof so Hamilton accidentally turned the brake warmer on.

[Imrahil]

At first I thought it was a brake failure, but going on the radio it seemed he did misjudge it. Something can't have been right with his brakes though for them to be belching smoke compared to everyone else's like that.

Keeps things tight for the championship though. We'll see what effect the rear wing changes will have next race onwards.

[captain red dog]

Yep kind of glad Hamilton didn't score as it neutralises Max's bad luck. I think France will likely be a Merc track, I don't think Red Bull will lose much at all with the change to the rear wing rules.

[Neo Cortex]

At first I thought it was a brake failure, but going on the radio it seemed he did misjudge it. Something can't have been right with his brakes though for them to be belching smoke compared to everyone else's like that.

Keeps things tight for the championship though. We'll see what effect the rear wing changes will have next race onwards.

Apparently Merc have a "make brakes hot now" button and Lewis accidentally left it on.

[Robbo-92]

I am thrilled to see Vettel up in 2nd obviously got lucky with Verstappen and Hamilton not scoring but a great race for him, reckon that’ll be his best result of the year though, but still! Perez doing the job Gasly and Albon should have done, although Gasly looks like a different driver these past 2 seasons. Great race all in all.

[Vermilion]

Loved that restart, i could have sworn when Hamilton went off, one of the C4 commentators let out a Ruby Rhodd style scream.



Oh and this made me smile...

[floydfreak]

[andretmzt]

I'm not surprised to see who is driving it. I think he did a series of videos on qualifying and funding a drive for the 24h race.

[Robbo-92]

Loved that restart, i could have sworn when Hamilton went off, one of the C4 commentators let out a Ruby Rhodd style scream.



Oh and this made me smile...

I’ve actually got the Channel 4 highlights recorded, so will listen out for that

Mazespin has come on a lot, gone from nowhere to beating a 7 times world champ, Hamilton is obviously now past it! Even Bottas beat Hamilton today (Bottas has had an awful weekend, as some of the commentary speculated, did Mercedes only have one of the superiority rear wings? Or was Bottas genuinely happier his qualy and race pace was woeful, I hope for Bottas it was the former as he was nowhere throughout the whole weekend.

I’d probably find it vastly more enjoyable in something like that, not quick (seemed to top out about 180kph ish?) but not laughably slow and I imagine he had a right laugh effectively in a race of his own just loving driving round the Nurburgring for 24 hours.

[Imrahil]

So, going on the BBC article, it seems like it was a freakish occurrence with Lewis' hand moving quickly across the steering wheel when avoiding Perez at the re-start and accidentally flicking a switch which effectively switched off the rear brakes. Perhaps they need to redesign it if it's that easy to accidentally flick.

Incredibly bad luck if that's the case, and even more incredible that both the front runners in the championship got done by random events in the same race.