06/12/2021
NEWS STORY
As Christian Horner suggests the need for a Charlie Whiting at the helm, Helmut Marko effectively accuses the FIA of bias.
In many ways it was like one of those Friday night scraps of days gone by, all that was missing was the cries of "leave him alone, he's not worth it", "oh, you want some then?" and "come on then, if you think you're hard enough".
Rather than the on-track shenanigans, the inaugural Saudi Arabian Grand Prix will also be remembered for the battles over the airwaves as drivers, team bosses and (un)sporting directors argued with each other and race director, Michael Masi.
At one point, Masi could be heard bargaining with Red Bull whilst attempting to placate Mercedes, only to subsequently almost give up as he sounded to be buckling under the pressure.
Meanwhile, social media was already alight, with fans demanding a firm hand to take control, and at race end, Christian Horner agreed.
"I've said it for too long, we're over-regulated," insisted Horner, whose title hopeful was handed two time penalties over the course of the evening.
"There's rules about ten car lengths," he added, referring to Max Verstappen's claim that ahead of the second restart Lewis Hamilton was purposely dropping back behind 'pole man Max Verstappen, "but the formation lap isn't a formation lap if it's a restart.
"It feels like there are too many rules," he sighed. "It felt like today the sport missed Charlie Whiting," he continued. "I am sorry to say but the experience he had.
"It's obviously frustrating but it's difficult for Michael and the stewards, particularly at this type of venue and this type of circuit with the amount of debris and the types of corners there are but it's the same for everybody.
"I think it was a tough race for them to manage today," he admitted. Obviously there was a lot of debris. "There was obviously a lot of traffic backwards and forwards with race control over the various different incidents and then safety cars, virtual safety cars, restarts and obviously it was difficult to keep track of.
"I think there were many lessons out of that race that will be discussed at length over the coming weeks," he added. "Obviously, every decision pretty much went against us today as they did in Doha a couple of weeks ago, then we saw two incidents yesterday, it's been variable to say the least."
Meanwhile, Helmut Marko, never one to fear speaking his mind effectively accused the FIA of bias.
Speaking ahead of the investigation into the notorious 'brake testing incident', at which the stewards deemed Verstappen had indeed "braked suddenly and significantly", Marko was having none of it.
"Our engineers are preparing, we can prove Max was constant with his braking, he didn't brake test like Hamilton said," insisted Marko, according to Autosport. "Then he crashed into our car, he unfortunately put two cuts in the rear tyre. That was so severe that we couldn't attack anymore. We had to take speed out.
"That was the one thing," he continued. "The next thing was at the second start, Hamilton was more than ten car lengths behind (the safety car), Vettel got penalised in Budapest when he did it. But with this manoeuvre he (Hamilton) was preparing his tyre better for the start. Then he pushed Max off... no reaction.
"We feel we are not treated the same," he said of the FIA. "It's a very one-sided decision-making here."
Asked if he feels Verstappen has reverted to his 'old ways' and is becoming too aggressive and simply needs to 'cool down', Marko replied: "I don't think there is any reason why he should cool down.
"It's the match between Mercedes and Red Bull, and the match between Max and Lewis. Just remember what happened in Silverstone, what's happened in Budapest. Don't forget that."
So that's a no then Helmut.
Check out our Sunday gallery from Jeddah, here.