Lewis Hamilton congratulated Max Verstappen on becoming world champion, while his Mercedes team protested.
According to the FIA and the media around the world, Max Verstappen has become the first Dutchman to be crowned world champion.
But the crowning glory may be delayed or even cancelled if Mercedes appeals the outcome of the season finale in Abu Dhabi.
Even Hollywood would be unlikely to come up with a script to better the drama, and now the uncertainty of Verstappen's first world title after overtaking Lewis Hamilton five corners from the finish line on the last lap to claim a controversial victory.
And then within half an hour of his celebration on the podium with Red Bull team principal Christian Horner, and later with his father Jos, and his partner Kelly Piquet, the daughter of three-time world champion Nelson Piquet, together with team personnel, came the news that Mercedes had protested on two grounds against Verstappen's race victory that gave him a winning 8 point margin over Hamilton.
A Hollywood production would probably have ended with a Rocky-style celebration, but this is Formula 1, where the monetary stakes and prestige, together with a telephone size book of complicated rules and regulations, has often seen races decided in the stewards' room, but never a championship.
The International Motorsport Council or the law courts may yet decide the outcome of this extraordinary season of 23 races, the longest in F1 history, between the gladiator, who is Verstappen, and the master, who is Hamilton, both having clashed on track several times, but who will have little hand to play if it's determined off track.
The Abu Dhabi showdown between Max and Lewis was billed as the 'Desert Decider', but instead it may be determined well away from the desert circuit. Prior to the race, Michael Masi, the FIA race director, had made it clear to the two protagonists for the drivers' title that if there was any evidence of unsportsmanlike conduct, the FIA could deduct championship points. It was intended as a warning shot across the bows of the Red Bull and Mercedes teams.
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff was adamant it would be a clean fight.
"I have no doubt that the drivers will race hard because this is about the F1 world championship," Wolff said. "But, I have every confidence that it will be very clean; hard, but very clean. Not pushing anybody off or hitting anybody. This is what this epic championship deserves as a final."
Wolff and his counterpart Horner even shook hands at the pre-race press conference.
But some of that bonhomie changed after qualifying when Verstappen, having flat-spotted the preferred medium tyres, on soft tyres took pole by four-tenths of a second from Hamilton.
Round 1 to Red Bull, Wolff conceded, although Hamilton hinted that Verstappen had deliberately flat-spotted his medium tyres to start on the less durable, but faster, soft tyres. That was an unnecessary and unsporting suggestion.
As it transpired, pole was not helpful to Verstappen, as he got too much wheel spin and Hamilton took off into a lead he would hold until the last lap. But the first sign that this race might end up being decided by the race stewards, came at Turn 5 on that opening lap when Verstappen surprised Hamilton, who had left the door open, with a move down the inside. Verstappen stayed within the white line, while Hamilton was forced wide and missed the corner, taking a shortcut and gaining 30 to 40 metres.
Red Bull suggested to Masi that Hamilton had been overtaken and should give the place back, but the answer was no, so Round 2 to Mercedes.
Thereafter Verstappen could only chase as Hamilton drove away with the championship, so he pitted but Hamilton matched the move. The situation changed when a virtual safety-car was deployed to recover the Alfa Romeo of Antonio Giovinazzi. Red Bull pitted Verstappen again, while Hamilton stayed out on tyres that had done 25 laps, causing Hamilton to question his engineer.
"Bit of a risk leaving me out, no?" Lewis queried.
His lead was 18 seconds with 20 laps to go, a gap Verstappen began reducing by nearly a second a lap, but with 10 laps to go, Horner told Sky Sport his team "needed a miracle".
It came five laps later when Nicholas Latifi crashed his Williams, bringing out the safety-car.
Red Bull, with nothing to lose, pitted Verstappen for soft tyres, but he had five lapped cars between himself and Hamilton. Red Bull asked Masi to wave the lapped cars by, but Masi said he had to wait until the track was clear, which it was with one and a half laps to go.
Hamilton was going ultra slow and an impatient Verstappen was alongside him, a front wing ahead at one point. Mercedes' first post-race protest would be that he had overtaken Hamilton under the safety-car, a claim the race stewards quickly dismissed.
They noted Verstappen did "at one stage for a very short period of time, move slightly in front of Car 44, at a time when both cars were accelerating and braking" but he did then move back behind Hamilton and "was not in front when the safety-car period ended".
When racing resumed, Verstappen attacked and passed Hamilton at Turn 5, who tried to get by again on the long straight, but with DRS not activated, Verstappen crossed the line as world champion. Round 3 to Red Bull, but Hamilton was on the car radio.
"This has been manipulated, man," he complained.
There were emotional scenes as Verstappen climbed on top of his car to acknowledge the cheers of thousands of 'Orange army' Dutch fans. Horner was in tears, and Jos Verstappen looked shocked. To Hamilton's credit, despite the obvious pain of losing what would have been a remarkable eighth title, he shook hands and congratulated Verstappen.
Later his father Anthony warmly congratulated Max, and hugged Jos, a classy gesture, one world champion father to another. Horner went looking for Wolff, but he was too busy with the team's lawyer making a case for the FIA, and word of the Mercedes protests soon left a sour taste in the victor's camp.
"Big congratulations to Max and his team," Lewis told Sky Sports. "We did an amazing job this year. It's been the most difficult of seasons and I'm so proud of them, so grateful to be part of the journey with them."
Verstappen said: "We gave it everything, absolutely everything, we never gave up, and that's the most important thing.
"I think they know I love them," referring to his team. "And I hope we can do this for 10-15 years together. There's no reason to change ever. I want to stay with them for the rest of my life. I hope they let me but yeah, it's insane.
"It's unbelievable. I mean throughout the whole race I kept fighting. And then of course that opportunity in the last lap. It's incredible, I'm still having a cramp in my leg!"
The second Mercedes protest about the race director waving only five of the 11 lapped cars through, was also dismissed, the stewards ruling that the regulations requiring that were overridden by the call for the safety-car to come in at the end of the lap. Round 4 to Red Bull, as Mercedes didn't seem to accept that the lapped cars were not a factor, but Max on fresh tyres was.
Horner said the team "never wanted to end up in front of the stewards" after the championship had been decided and called the Mercedes protest move as "desperate".
"If they appeal, they appeal," Horner added. "We'll fight it in the appeal court and then in a legal court if they are going to go down that route."
It is rumoured Hamilton asked Wolff not to protest, but Mercedes gave notice they intend to appeal the dismissal of the second protest.
Red Bull tweeted: "We are a race team. We did not come here with a OC. We did not come ready to protest."
By contrast, Mercedes clearly did, as Wolff refused to talk to the media post-race, and instead was holed up with the lawyer that the team had brought from England, just in case. Hamilton refused to attend the post-race press conference. Is that grounds for another penalty?
If there is any cause for complaint, from either side, it is Masi being too easily influenced by team principals.
Earlier in the race Wolff was telling Masi not to bring out the safety-car during the virtual safety car period. When Masi was trying to decide to let some of the unlapped cars go by, Horner was pleading, successfully as it turned out, for him to do so, while Wolff was angrily demanding he do the opposite.
"No Mikey, no, no Mikey, that was so not right."
Then after Masi had made the call.
Wolff: "You need to reinstate the lap before, that's not right."
Masi: "Toto, it's called a motor race. We went car racing."
Game, set but because of the possible appeal, not yet match to Red Bull. George Russell and Lando Norris didn't like the fact that Masi wanted the championship decided by a last lap showdown, rather than finish under the safety-car, but the fans did. Fact is, the new world champion has been racing all year, even if Hamilton felt at times he was over the limit.
As he said after the Brazilian race, F1 is not a kindergarten. And at 24 years of age, he has done what Fernando Alonso did to Michael Schumacher in 2005 at the same age, and that is beat a seven-time world champion.
He didn't win the last race the way a racer would prefer, but in 23 races he has had 10 wins, seven second places, and four crashes, none of those through driver error. If Mercedes appeal and overturn the result and deprive a champion driver of his first title, it will harm the sport irreparably.