Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton accused the FIA of manipulating the epic title fight in the 2021 season shortly before losing his Formula One title to Red Bull’s Max Verstappen. A series of questionable race control calls at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on Sunday meant Verstappen passed Hamilton on the final lap to win his maiden title.  “This has been manipulated, man,” Hamilton said over the radio. The comment was heard on Hamilton’s onboard channel on F1 TV.

Win for Max, heart for Lewis: How the world reacted to Abu Dhabi GP

Hamilton was cruising to victory when Nicholas Latifi’s crash on lap 53 of the 58-lap race brought the safety car on to the track.  Red Bull pitted Verstappen for soft tyres after the safety car was deployed while Hamilton stayed out on his worn out hard tyres.

Race director Michael Masi then allowed five backmarkers to unlap themselves on the penultimate lap, making it much easier for Verstappen to surpass Hamilton.

Also read: Max Verstappen ‘enjoys’ F1 title win after Mercedes lose protest appeal

As per the rules, the safety car should have gone back on the following lap which was the last lap of the race.

Also read: Max Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton light up F1 finale; Kimi Raikkonen bids farewell

Mercedes lodged two protests on Sunday night, both of which were rejected by race stewards. One was “against the classification established at the end of the Competition, alleged breach of Article 48.12 of the 2021 FIA Formula One Sporting Regulations.” The second protest was regarding alleged breach of Article 48.8 of the regulations.

However, they have given notice of intention to appeal one of the decisions. 

Also read: Max Verstappen vs Lewis Hamilton: Moments that defined F1 2021

Meanwhile Verstappen has admitted that the FIA may look to change the rules that led to his controversial last lap victory.

“Always after things like this, you are going to look into what can we do, or what should have been done,” he said. “It’s the same in football. Should it have been a penalty? Shouldn’t it have not? What can we improve? These kinds of things you’ve got to bring up for sure.”

“But I and the team didn’t do anything wrong. We just raced when there was a green light so that also made it really enjoyable for us to be celebrating.”

(With PTI inputs)