The Fix at 300 KPH 22 times per year
Abu Dhabi 2021 was the night Formula 1 lost its soul. I watched as a screaming Christian Horner demanded “Let them race, Let them race” as the safety car wound down the last 2 laps of a race that Hamilton had led majestically by 14 seconds by this stage. Interesting that CH saw the only way of levelling the field between HAM and VER was for the latter shod on 1 lap old softs and the former on 40 lap old hards. It’s truly a salute to HAM’s supremacy. I’d have loved to have seen what CH would have been screaming had the roles been reversed- “Unlap all the cars. Don’t you dare allow them to race. Unlap all the lapped cars first!!!! SCREAM, SCREAM.
Just goes to show how, for many of us, what you believe is mostly a product of where you are, not of what is fair. And what really, really defeats me is how the other teams and drivers went along with this globally televised blatant theft by the whitest and dirtiest racist, racer (team included) of them all. The lapped cars could so easily have buggered it up. That Verstappen saw this is a just and fair victory is a given. He is F1’s answer to Trump. And he did say “Oh he’s won 7 times, he can afford it”.
I watched the last laps as Verstappen’s uncle in race control tore up the rules and obeyed Christian Horner’s “Let them race”, and the world’s only Black world champion was robbed of an eighth title, and not just for a dramatic, Hollywood finish, but mainly to drive home the point that HAM had a bullseye painted on him. Perhaps the rest of the drivers felt it was time for a new ‘champion’ even if they had to sacrifice their integrity. They called it “human error.” YES! Done as a deliberate act of malice in the name of integrity, honesty and fair play, Right! Of course! I see that.
F1, home of engineering purity, impossible reflexes, merit measured in thousandths of a second, and defeat delivered from the jaws of victory by the very stewards of integrity and honesty in the sport. HAM became the fall guy for the institution’s need to prove it was bigger than any driver, never mind a black driver, and VER the jackbooted white thug: blunt instrument of a system hungry for new white supremacist theatre.
The enabling of the bully
They tell us Verstappen’s aggression is “hard racing.” What I see is a driver who learned early that the stewards would flinch first. Monza 2021 was another blatant two fingered salute to HAM. He was clear of any daring move to challenge his lead through the chicane, but, sadly not immune to a kamikaze attack that parked VER’s car on top of his. I’m just surprised that they didn’t penalise HAM for not allowing enough room for another car to pass (irony). VER penalty: meaningless. The message crystal clear—crash if you must, your uncles in race control are as blind as bats.
Each season since has reinforced it. The radio tantrums, the blocked passes, moving under braking, forcing drivers off the road, that would earn others grid drops, the smug shrug after contact: all waved away as boyish, harmless mischief. When Hamilton protests, he’s called entitled; when Verstappen fumes, he’s called passionate. The difference in tone is not subtle—it’s racialised language doing what it has always done, punishing dignity and rewarding defiance when it comes from the right colour face. And, each time it happens, it normalises dirty racing - by VER.
In Mexico he fouled 3 times and not only did race control turn a blind eye, but post race analyses (by white ex F1 drivers) laughably presents their decisions as reasonable and fair. HAM is attacked on a chicane corner by the usual overly aggressive VER who forces him off the road: Result: HAM 10 second penalty (he started in 3rd and was still in 3rd when this shit went down); race control to VER: sail on white brother and take 3rd; we got the coon out the way: WE RACE AS ONE: as one racist organisation. Yeah! We all know.
What’s even worse is that VER was only in a position to attack HAM on the chicane because he (VER) had cut the previous corner and passed the car in 5th. Race control: dead silence. At the chicane VER forces HAM off the road; race control: 10 second penalty for HAM (lucky, lucky HAM): from 3rd to outside the points courtesy of race control, Please don’t thank them. All part of the service. And, what service, for RB and VER.
The team that could do no wrong
And then came the money. The cost-cap breach of 2021—an overspend of roughly two million dollars—was shrugged off as an “administrative error.” Two million is the price of two-to-three tenths per lap, a margin that wins titles, (which is why there is a cap), yet the punishment was laughable: a fine and a reduction in wind-tunnel time (itself a function of past performance- so, not much less time). No points lost, no trophies touched. Red Bull paid, CH smiled, and proceeded to obliterate the field for three straight years. And VER carries the number 1 on his car, an arrogance not one other driver would care to assume. Perhaps in brackets ($2million) after the number would help clarify the how.
Every other team saw the message: the rules are flexible for those who are part of this weird right wing Christian nationalist nonsense. Regulatory capture in its purest form. Red Bull’s dominance is not just technical brilliance—it’s the compound interest on leniency, a blind eye and a deaf ear.
The silence of the referees
The FIA’s job is to referee, yet its behaviour resembles that of a nervous parent protecting its favourite child. Penalties are handed out to others for microscopic infringements; I have yet to see a Red Bull car infringe the baseboard thickness rule- Ferrari had both cars disqualified on one shitty day - or insufficient fuel, or driver’s weight. RB’s performance is pitch perfect every time. Red Bull sail through storm clouds untouched, the phrase “institutional bias” stops being hyperbole. It’s pattern recognition; when it’s no longer correlation, is it causation?
The sport’s slogans make it worse. We Race As One reads like satire when the governing body still hasn’t addressed the racism HAM endures online, in stands, and occasionally within the paddock itself, and even from VER’s family, friends and unpleasant parent. Diversity is printed on banners but not visible in decision-making or in driver/team conduct or behaviour. It’s theatre: virtue as branding.
Sadly, I don’t think there’s enough lipstick for this pig.
What they did to Hamilton
HAM didn’t just lose a title; he lost the arc of greatness. Eighth championships are history-defining—Schumacher’s (master race r) record broken, a new standard set and, without doubt, way beyond the reach of car no 1. Instead, his career was frozen in controversy and then smothered under the noise of Red Bull’s rise. The man who once made the impossible look effortless now races under the weight of permanent injustice. His composure, his quiet dignity, integrity in the face of continuous unfair treatment by the uncles, his refusal to lash out, it all exposes the cowardice around him; and not just from the body but his colleagues and adjacent teams. Perhaps it’s the Trump effect; keep your head down in case you attract the same treatment. Sure, OK, understood, but what does this say about your personal integrity, and are you really immune?
The sport needed him humble to make its chosen champion shine. They turned the greatest driver of this generation into the villain of his own story because acknowledging his superiority would have meant admitting their own bias.
The fan’s dilemma
I still watch, out of habit or hope, but it’s different now. Though it is lovely to see McLaren and other teams finally obliterate that 2 million quid advantage. Whenever VER scores a podium in a tight race, it is seldom the product of his own skills and abilities, considerable as they are; he always manages to leave a foul taste in the mouth; even when, or especially when competing with his ‘best mate’ Lando or whoever he last pushed off the road.
Watching Piastri and Norris beat each other and the rest of field gracefully and fairly (even if between themselves they may not agree) is a real pleasure. The best man on the day does win those tight battles and without uncles in race control looking out for them.
It’s not jealousy or tribalism. It’s the simple, bullying injustice of seeing integrity traded for spectacle. The race that once celebrated precision now rewards recklessness if the right logo is attached. The sport that preached fairness has become a mirror of the world’s oldest flaw: power protecting itself.
Maybe one day the balance will correct itself—through new stewards, new leadership, or just exhaustion with the charade. You’d think. But if recent events in F1A leadership are anything to go by, I’m not holding my breath.
Leadership as Humour
Formula 1 presents itself as the pinnacle of modern sport: technologically advanced, globally inclusive, and committed to diversity, equity and inclusion; just like Trump. Yet its governing body, the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA), is currently led by Mohammed Ben Sulayem, a former rally driver from the United Arab Emirates — a society where misogyny and unwarranted, arrogant male authority, and persistent human rights abuses, and extra judicial killings remain deeply embedded. This contrast between image and origin exposes a bitter irony: the politics of who controls global sport undermines the values it claims to promote.
That Ben Sulayem’s appointment in 2021 was hailed as a sign of Formula 1’s global reach, bringing representation from the Middle East, is as stunning (and as suspect) as the choice of Qatar as the venue for the world football championship, at the height of summer! The rationale for choosing an Arab, a poster boy for Talibani suppression of women’s right to exist, as leader and herald of women’s place in F1!
Wow!! Someone has an amazing sense of humour.
So, with no intentional irony or satire, it will surprise no one that within months, old attitudes resurfaced. In 2023, archived comments attributed to him described women as “not as strong mentally” for certain roles. But, he is 110% behind women in motor sport, his preferred position.
And he has achieved this integration through the F1 Academy initiative which gives talented young women track time, coaching, and exposure, but refuses to allow them to race as equals against their male counterparts. Wouldn’t he look a pratt if women drivers outperformed the men as they do in many high performance areas such as piloting fighter jets.
Perhaps the thinking is that women are “not as strong mentally”; must have overheard Aristotle; Ipsi dixit.
Men, for Pete’s sake grow up and stop bullying and belittling women. And stop telling them what to do with their bodies. We are all descended from mitochondrial eve; one mother, black, 200,000 years ago. Her DNA persists, 200k years later.
Women are the enduring fabric of humanity: men; we’re just sperm donors claiming a precedence on no basis other than physical violence and an ancient Greek misogynists’ opinion - early adopter of the Trump method- ignorance as basis for opinion. The shabbiest ethos of all.