Lewis Hamilton received the Action of the Year award for this overtake on Sergio Perez and Charles Leclerc at Silverstone. Photo / Don Kennedy
Bologna in Italy was the venue for the FIA Prize Giving Gala, which would have suited the Ferrari top brass in terms of distance to travel from their headquarters at Maranello, but probably not in terms of witnessing Red Bull collect the top awards.
World champion Max Verstappen was on hand to collect his second Drivers’ title trophy, as was his teammate Sergio Perez, who finished third. Red Bull team principal Christian Horner was happy to collect his team’s fifth Constructors’ title, the last one having come in 2013. The team actually won it for four consecutive years starting in 2010.
But Horner was left bemused, if not confused and maybe slightly annoyed, at comments made by FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem during the presentation, as he rather clumsily, amongst those gathered for what was a celebratory occasion, started a controversial debate with Horner.
It all stemmed back to when Verstappen clinched the drivers’ championship in Suzuka, Japan, after winning the rain-shortened race.
Verstappen, and Horner, believed only half points would be awarded for the race, but to their delightful surprise, full points were awarded and Max was champion again.
At the time Horner said he believed the FIA had made a mistake in terms of the points, but wasn’t about to argue with the governing body. Fast-forward to Bologna, and Sulayem tried to make a joke about the matter.
“One thing you said about Japan, you said it was controversial, no,” Sulayem said to Horner. “The FIA was blamed for the points, but it was not the FIA which made the rules, it was the teams made the rules and we were implementing it.”
Sensing this may have the makings of a diplomatic and embarrassing incident on his hands, former Ferrari team principal and now F1 CEO, Stefano Domenicalli, who was standing between Horner and Sulayem, intervened.
“Let’s stay focused,” he said, causing Sulayem to back off, as a bemused Horner looked at him.
“They deserve the win, everyone who wins deserves it, these are the rules, so well done. I say it honestly, and for more wins also,” Sulayem added.
It is not the first time F1 has been embarrassed by its president. The late Max Mosley was still president when he was caught on video dressed as a Nazi, taking part in a bondage session in a Soho, London, massage parlour. Sulayem’s conduct bears little comparison to Mosley’s notorious effort, but his jumbled comments show an alarming lack of judgment and decorum, especially given the occasion.
Horner recovered his composure to accept the award, if not the throwaway comment.
“It’s been the most incredible year for the team,” Horner said. “I mean, nine years that there’s been one manufacturer [Mercedes] on this trophy, so the team has done a truly outstanding job.”
“Max Verstappen has been magnificent this year and we’ve broken every record of our own, 17 victories, five one-two finishes, 15 victories of which Max won and the spirit in which the team has done it has been phenomenal.”
“But what I would like to say tonight is that I’ve watched a lot of videos and I think on all of those videos across all of these different championships, we’ve seen the Red Bull logo on so many cars in so many championships and I’d like to dedicate this championship, this trophy to a very special man that has done so much for motorsports and then so much for Formula 1.
“He was a fan of motorsport foremost and utmost, he gave so many drivers in the room tonight an opportunity in so many categories, he gave thousands of engineers and technicians and mechanics [opportunities] and I think arguably, has done more for motorsport than any other person in history. And so tonight I’d like to dedicate this to Dietricjh Mateschitz.”
Horner of course was honouring the late Red Bull co-owner and founder of the Red Bull and Alpha Tauri teams, who died on October 22, when F1 was racing in Austin, Texas.
“Thankfully, he saw Max win the championship in Japan even though there was a bit of confusion over the points there. But thankfully, Max won it easily, and he saw it. And the next weekend the day after he passed, we managed to win this trophy. So it’s a very special one.”
For Verstappen, winning the title emphatically this year, after controversially winning it for the first time in Abu Dhabi in 2021, also makes it special. Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes boss Toto Wolff made it clear that the decision of FIA race director Michal Masi to allow a restart of that race, which Hamilton had led from the start, with one lap to go whilst allowing only half the lapped cars to un-lap themselves, meant Verstappen’s overtake of Hamilton for victory and the title will always be tainted. It was, of course, none of Verstappen or Horner’s doing, but incorrectly applying the rules, even though it may not have altered the outcome, meant to some that Verstappen’s title should come with an asterisk explaining it was illegal. And it cost Masi his job.
This year’s title was not without some controversy either. Red Bull were accused and subsequently found guilty of overspending on the FIA imposed cost cap by about £1.7 million. They were fined £7m and will lose 10 per cent of tunnel testing time next season. To some, the breach deserved disqualification, but that would have been too harsh for what the FIA deemed was a minor technical breach.
Verstappen was asked when he felt “I’ve got this”, given he failed to finish the first race in Bahrain, and the third in Australia, albeit winning round two in Saudi Arabia.
“I think after Bahrain. No, maybe not,” he joked.
“But I mean, when we put the car on the track in the winter testing, I think it was a very competitive car, but it was a little bit overweight. But I would say the way we bounced back after of course a tough weekend in Australia, to then go to Imola and the weekend we had was just incredible.”
He was asked to reflect on the difference between his two championships.
“The emotions are very different, but I think they should be anyway because your whole life you aim for one particular goal and that’s for me to become a world champion in F1,” he said. “But this year has been very different. I do think we were more competitive this year, and more enjoyable as a team, so I would say this one is better and more rewarding. But the first one will always be more emotional.”
“This year has been really, really enjoyable. Last year was the first time I was in a fight to win the title, so that was the first time you get that experience. As a driver you learn from every single year, you get more experience, and you look at what you can do better.”
Mercedes were expected come back after the narrow defeat in 2021, determined to prove claims they were “robbed” of the title were justified. But in the end, they won only one race with George Russell’s maiden victory in Brazil, while Hamilton went winless for the first time since joining F1 in 2007. So where did the team go wrong?
Wolff says the answer is quite simple.
“We got it wrong,” he admitted on Beyond The Grid podcast. “I think even the best people can get it wrong. My assumption of why a team would function, which I learned back in the Williams days, is that you have to have the right infrastructure, financial resources, good drivers, powerful engine, the right organisation and enough time to put it all together.”
“But we haven’t suddenly taken a stupid pill, winning the Constructors’ championship last December and then in March being nowhere is very easy. We got the concept wrong. We underestimated the effect when running the car very low, and others have done a better job, whether they knew the effect from past days or they were simply more focused on this particular area of the car, I don’t know.”
Leclerc, in accepting second prize in the Driver’s championship, said Ferrari had been able to decipher where the car that looked so great and helped him take nine pole positions, went wrong in race mode.
“Honestly, there were three key elements,” he said. “Reliability has been a problem at one point of the season, which we paid the price later on with penalties and other things. Strategy, I think we’ve done too many mistakes at one point of the season and tyre management. We haven’t been consistent enough at our 100 per cent.”
Like last year, Hamilton was not at the awards ceremony even though he would have picked up one award, which was the Action of the Year award for his double overtake on Leclerc and Perez in the closing stages of the British GP, which Carlos Sainz won, with Perrz later overtaking Hamilton to demote him to third place.
“Through goes Hamilton,” Sky Sport commentator David Croft said at the time. The fact that Leclerc, Lando Norris and Fernando Alonso were also in a six-lap shootout in six cars, showed the new regulations designed to create closer racing, and decrease the margin between teams, sometimes worked.
Sources: F1.com, Sky Sports F1