Hamilton ‘should be champion’
FORMULA ONE bosses have finally confirmed Lewis Hamilton was unfairly denied last year’s world championship.
A long-awaited report into the controversy in
Abu Dhabi said race director Michael Masi, who was sacked after the dramatic conclusion to the 2021 season, had acted in “good faith” and that the results from the race and the championship are “valid, final and cannot now be changed”.
But it did accept Masi had “called the safety car into the pit lane without it completing an additional lap required by F1 Sporting Regulations”.
Had the safety car done so, Hamilton would have stayed ahead of eventual champion Max Verstappen and won a record-breaking eighth world title.
But the FIA cited “human error” as a factor.
More than three months since that dramatic day, the sport’s governing body finally published its findings.
And it highlighted confusion over the safety car rules and a feeling that a race should ideally end under green flag conditions as major contributory factors to the injustice.