Scorpaguy wrote: ↑20 Oct 2019, 03:34
Please note I was not picking a fight/choosing sides/defending eventualities...just stating facts. However, IMHO, all lucid FIA officials have known that both title fights were effectively over long before Suzuka.
It's got nothing to do with what they know, that's the point. They knew Massa deserved a penalty, they knew locking up wasn't a penalty for Hamilton, they know deliberately hitting another car under a safety car is pretty much a black flag offence and they knew Leclerc deserved penalties.
It's not about what they know, it's about the fans. They don't want to be the ones that fans go "well done for killing the championship" when they apply a decision in race that actively reduces their points and ends the title fight. When Ferrari did that themselves then the stewards/FIA felt free to punish as was frankly necessary and required. This is actually fairly common in other sports in that a ref in a league game with serious title consequences may not give an obvious red card or penalty and give a yellow card or wave away a penalty because it seems too big a thing to do in such a game. It's poor officiating in football and poor in F1.
The difference is in F1 it's not only badly done, it's also frequently in favour of Ferrari. THese days it's more about protecting Ferrari's embarrassment and not hitting them when they are down but back in 2008 it was straight up cheating. Giving Hamilton the penalty for locking up or taking away a win, that was just straight cheating and isn't the same as more recently but still showed the same, wait till they felt the decision could work scenario.
Worth highlighting that after Canada loads of fans started questioning who the stewards were, what their qualifications were and picking on one in particular they didn't really know but turned out everyone within F1 respected the hell out of him iirc when it came to stewarding so was fans randomly picking a guy to hate on. There is a reason why stewards don't want to make the big decisions.