F1 2021 - Abu Dhabi Grand Prix and Ferrari-biased season round up

 Yes, I did go too early with that gif.

In my defence, I don't think anyone expected that level of nonsense from the season finale.  We expected reasonable levels of nonsense and got nonsense with a nonsense cherry on top.

I have no interest in re-litigating the rights and wrongs of the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, but I think that the BBC commentary team made the best point about the whole thing - the major problem has been communication.  

It's been a problem in three ways:

1 - I don't doubt that the teams used to whinge at Charlie Whiting, but I am also sure he would never have stooped to negotiating with them and he wouldn't have said something and then gone back on it.  I think race director requires more dictatorial tendencies than Michael Masi has.

2 - Possibly due to the lack of dictatorial tendencies, and the fact that it's different stewarding groups each time, the stewards have called the same things in different way, which makes it very hard to "drive to the rules" (especially when one of the two has a cheerful disregard of all rules).

3 - The first two definitely combine to cause confusion when race control do send out instructions and then promptly change their minds, twice sometimes.

I think Mercedes withdrew their appeal because it was made clear to them that there was very little chance of them succeeding (no matter what the UK papers said), because the rules of the Court of Arbitration for Sport are not those of a legal court, and they'd make themselves look like right edjits in the process.

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I think I can summarise the 2021 Ferrari season as "alright (shrug)".  As a Ferrari fan, that pains me.  "Alright (shrug)" is not good enough.  It's better than last season, but that's just because last season was literally almost incomparably bad (worst season in 40 years).

Carlos Sainz jnr deserves so many plaudits for not letting the chaos grind him down.  If he could pass some of that stability onto Leclerc, I'd be grateful.

What do I want for next year?

- A car that has straight line speed, because the lawn mower engine is embarrassing.

- More consistency

- Get rid of the slime green from the back of the car