After Hamilton’s dramatic last lap overtake by Red Bull title rival Max Verstappen in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Mercedes has presented two appeals.
Max Verstappen won the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on Sunday evening claiming his first World Championship title. This was after a dramatic last lap overtake on Hamilton at Turn 5 which brought a lot of controversy surrounding the situation under which the overtake was initiated.
Mercedes presented their appeal to the FIA for Verstappen’s overtake on Hamilton under the safety car. They also presented another on safety car procedure itself questioning why only a number of lapped cars were allowed to overtake the Safety Car.
Lewis Hamilton had dominated over the final race in the 2021 Formula 1 calendar which would decide the title champion as he was on level points with Verstappen. Stretching his lead over the Red Bull driver as the race progressed, it was certain the Briton would add one more championship title to the seven titles under his name.
Fortunes changed after Williams’ Nicholas Latifi crashed bringing out the Safety Car on lap 53. With only five laps left, Red Bull took advantage of the delay to bring in Verstappen for fresh soft tyres. Meanwhile Hamilton opted to stay out and maintain the lead and track position despite running on old tyres.
As Verstappen headed back to the track, there were five lapped cars between him and Hamilton. Still rallying behind the Safety car, the Race Director Michael Masi cleared the lapped cars to overtake the safety car despite disallowing the same initially. With the lapped cars out of the way, Verstappen was now trailing behind Hamilton and the battle to the chequered flag was imminent.
Verstappen soon got to overtake Hamilton on Turn 5 maintaining the lead all the way to the finish.
