FIA took wrong decision in Abu Dhabi: 'Hamilton was dominant'

Mercedes

F1 News

5 February 2022 at 10:21
Last update 5 February 2022 at 10:47
  • GPblog.com

The season finale at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix is still a hotly debated topic two months later. Former Formula One driver Karun Chandhok also shares his opinion and discussed two solutions that would have made the end of the season a little fairer.

Lewis Hamilton was dominant during the last race of the season, until a safety car came on the track due to Nicholas Latifi's crash. The FIA decided to let the cars that were between Hamilton and Max Verstappen pass, so that the duel between the two rivals could take place on the last lap.

Red flag or let cars in between

Chandhok disagreed with this approach, mainly because the seven-time World Champion was extremely dominant throughout the race. A red flag would have been the best scenario, since there would have been a short sprint race of a few laps. Both drivers could then have been on the grid with new tyres for a standing start, after which they could fight for the world title in the last few laps.

The other option discussed by the former Formula One driver was that the cars did need to stay between the two drivers. The Dutchman had softer tyres and could have easily overtaken all the cars and could have fought the Briton on the last half of the final lap. "I think we would have still had a very exciting finish in both of those scenarios, but it would have felt a little bit more fair to Lewis who did a brilliant job dominating that race until that last safety car," Chandhok said in the Fuelling Around - Stars Talking Cars! podcast.