Inside Line: Thank you Max and Lewis, sad it ended badly

There are three sides to this story: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly and there is more than one Ugly...

First off, a big thank you to Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton for slugging it out, incessantly for 22 rounds, delivering a season for the ages, a contest fought (literally) to the bitter end, and decided on the very last lap.

I guess it is no surprise this one was going to end badly. After all they had crashed into each other twice and 'scraped paint' often enough as their respective teams threw everything at this tightest of contests.

On Sunday night neither put a foot wrong, Hamilton and Verstappen did all they could do until those final stages, where Nicholas Latifi became Max's Timo Glock.

Remember Timo, the guy Hamilton overtook to defeat Felipe Massa in Brazil back in 2008?

At the time Felipe was World Champion... so the Massa family thought that day at Interlagos, until Hamilton got by Glock to score enough points to steal the Title from the Brazilian, in Brazil. It was brutal

Karma is a bitch and clearly has a long memory, as 13 (!) years later it dished out a similar dose of Massa-pain to Hamilton. The title was his last night at Yas Marina Circuit until it wasn't. Slightly different circumstances denied Lewis his eighth Title, but the parallels are clearly there.

Talking of Lewis, all I can say is what a Champ he is. All weekend he was cool and calm; having lost the Title in such a contentious and chaotic manner will have hurt deep, but he got a grip going over to Max and congratulating the man a dozen years his junior who just beat him.

His first words: "Firstly a big congratulations to Max and to his team. I think we did an amazing job this year."

Of course, that's part of his script, but at least he had the balls and sportsmanship to deliver those words as if he meant it. It's called composure and class which our seven-time F1 World Champion has huge amounts of in his repertoire. Pure respect and pride for the Champ.

Just imagine if the roles were reversed?

Well, thankfully for Max they are not, as he too did nothing wrong on the night apart from being blitzed off the line, from pole forced to tuck in behind fast-starting Lewis for almost the rest of the night; until he found himself behind Hamilton's Mercedes, on well worn Pirelli Hard tyres, in a Red Bull shod with a fresh set of Softs.

It was game over there and then. Lewis defended gamely but he had run out of ammo.

Verstappen made no mistake on the restart, although he nearly did when he got trigger happy before the restart, but then attacked early and took control of the one-lap sprint race that ultimately decided this Title.

Michael Masi. The hitherto little known (outside of F1) Aussie thrust in the deep end after Charlie Whiting's untimely passing, fumbled too many times this year and has to bear the brunt of some atrocious refereeing decisions that will forever be a stain on what was a most incredible season.

Forget the catalogue of bad decisions during the course of the year, most blatant being his failure to reel in Verstappen's dirty tactics during the Brazilian Grand Prix. That failing went on to haunt him until the very last lap of the race in Abu Dhabi.

In sport, the best referee is the one no one knows is around, he allows the game to flow and becomes almost hidden on the playfield.

Masi was seldom that all year, he was too high-profile for all the wrong reasons, most notably on the Sunday night of the sport's most important race - the Grand Prix of the century - with more eyeballs watching F1 than ever before, when it mattered most, he and his FIA Stewards dropped the ball massively with the decisions they made (or didn't make) from the moment hapless Nicholas Latifi crashed his Williams to change the entire complexion of the race and ultimately the Championship.

The chaos that ensued clearly showed that Masi and his men had not done their homework ahead of this race. They had not factored in all scenarios, which surely they would have discussed before such a crucial encounter, the stakes being so high.

On TV, it was clear they had not entertained such a scenario because no one knew what was going on while Masi, trying desperately to sound calm, fielded calls from agitated blokes on the Red Bull and Mercedes pitwalls. In the end, he blatantly ignored the rules with the restart and the lapped cars overtaking.

Some made it through, others not when the rules state that the race can only resume, for safety reasons, a lap after all cars have un-lapped themselves. This was not the case in Abu Dhabi.

That's a very, very bad decision. Fairer and far smarter would have been to red flag the race the moment they fired off the fire extinguishers on the stricken Williams. If safety was an issue they would not have allowed marshals on track retrieving the car under yellow flag conditions, at least not where Latifi pranged where it is very narrow.

Had they done that, Masi and his men were damned too, Red Bull would have cried foul because the advantage they got to pit and bolt-on fresh Softs would have evaporated because under red flag conditions Hamilton would've been able to change tyres.

Furthermore, if Hamilton had pitted when Latifi crashed, Max would've probably stayed out and it would have been role reversal.

We all saw what happened, and there is no one who can be pleased with Masi's role in the finale, and looking back on his report card, he failed this year and must be accountable for too many bad decisions made this year.

The Ugly bit of this piece is simply to say: Masi should be fired.

And the FIA must consider a permanent set of stewards and recruit another Race Director because F1 was an embarrassment on Sunday night at Yas Marina, on a night the sport should have enchanted all it left many neutrals among us disappointed..

For the guts and graft they put into their campaigns, and the magnitude of their talent and skills, Lewis and Max, Red Bull and Mercedes plus all F1 fans did not deserve the mess Masi and the Stewards served us on Sunday.

While many are having a go at Toto Wolff for taking the fight off track and possibly to court - although it is highly unlikely that Max will be stripped of the Title - I applaud the Mercedes boss for that, as it is what should be done to expose the FIA's shortcomings and force them to fill the role of F1 Race Director with someone who can do the job.

It's the principle of the matter which will set a precedent to ensure such shoddy officiating never happens again.

However, amid his highly visible rage and radio slanging matches, Wolff neglected to shower his team with praise they so deserved, winning an eighth consecutive F1 Constructors' Title is a remarkable feat.

More than 1,000 people who have made sure Lewis' car is the best of the best for a decade, deserved a shout out from their boss whose composure throughout the pressure-cooker race was unworthy of the head of such a mighty team.

For Mercedes, it was a big constructors title victory with the big bucks prizemoney that come with it, which Wolff belittled by his antics.

The people Lewis always thanks after he wins, deserved better from their boss on Sunday night.

In defense of Merc, imagine the shitshow if the roles were reversed and Red Bull were the losers; Christian Horner, the Doctor and his Bulls would do the exact same thing: contest it, take it to court, threaten to leave the sport; the usual etc etc.

It's part of the game when margins are so unprecedentedly fine.

On the sporting side it has to be said that Max Verstappen is a worthy F1 World Champion, the best man did win it and thoroughly deserves it, as does our sport.

However, the fine line between first and second in 2021 was as tiny as it has ever been.

In closing, as an F1 fan, it was hard to be neutral this year, I feel hungover but I'm very happy for Red Bull and Max but at the same time feel pain for Lewis and admire Mercedes for being the most dominant team this sport has witnessed since 2014.

In closing, after 22 incredible rounds, I can't help but feel sad that a most beautiful F1 season ended so shoddily and awkwardly. We all deserved better.