Searcy, AR (LP)- Why do so many fans believe that Lewis Hamilton has been “Robbed” by Max Verstappen? Lewis Hamilton was having a dominant racing performance, and the team was looking like they were going to win World Champion, for the eighth time. But, with only five laps to go, Williams driver Nicholas Latifi crashed into the barrier. They brought out the safety car to the crash, this allowed Max Verstappen to stop at the pits in this lap to get softer, fresher tyres. In addition, the other cars in the race were stuck behind the safety car. Because of this, a major controversy began, as the race had about 2 laps to go. Three were many different opinions on what should happen in the race, and how it should end. The first one being that the race ends due to the safety car conditions. Second, there was only one lap of racing left after all the lapped cars have unlapped themselves. Last, there was only one lap of racing without changing the lap order.
“The FIA wanted to make it more exciting and didn’t want to end the race in the safety car; they decided to change the rule and unlapped the 5 cars so Max Verstappen could catch up and make the last lap unfair for the rest of the drivers” saids Luis Rodriguez. The FIA regulation it is up to the clerk on the course to decide if it safe to race. The FIA made a decision to make one lap of racing “WITHOUT” changing the order which means that lapped cars are not to be allowed to unlap themselves, this decision made sense. Since there was not enough time for all lapped cars to unlap themselves. If this scenario had played out Lewis would have won the World title since there were five lapped cars himself and Verstappen. These cars would have faced blue flags but it is highly unlikely that Verstappen would have passed all five cars and then passed lewis to win the race with just one lap to go. After this initial announcement things turned upside down the race director changed the ruling and allowed lapped cars in between Verstappen and Hamilton to unlap themselves. This totally shocked everyone with the race scenario. Now Verstappen was right behind Hamiltion.
