Hopefully he comes back next year and wins 14 races and the championship in September

Maybe they should put him for reds

(the above was posted when the gap was ~14s and after the VSC. And put was supposed to be pit, DYAC, I was on my phone).

The day after and time to calm down from this historic moment for the Dutch. Would I be mad and felt it was stolen if it was the other way around? Yes absolutely. But over time I'd also reflect on several things leading up to the race and that final lap and shift some of that blame on Red Bull itself.

To counter the first point people here made: They didn't want to pit Lewis because that meant he'd have to pass Max again and risk contact.
With the history this season, the buildup to this race and the very clear warning given to both, Lewis would be WDC if Max ran him off the road. And Max if Lewis ran him off the road but that wouldst have helped him unless he could continue. Even a move that would force the other off the road would have been slapped hard enough to give the other the advantage.

The safety car: Letting only select cars by. There must be something, somewhere in the rules allowing it. Since the protest got rejected, I think its fairly safe to say so.
Also, it was pretty clear that they would have restarted the whole thing with 1, maybe 2 laps left. They would never have let this finish under SC. They'd red flag it otherwise.
Not pitting Lewis during the SC is a very bad judgment call by Mercedes. Worst case scenario, he'd be 2nd behind Max who is on older tyres while Lewis would be on fresh, faster tyres and having a faster car. The fear of collision is already addressed above.

So, back to the part where I quoted myself. Thats where, IMHO, Lewis lost the title. He was 14s ahead. At that point the whole Safety car was just a collective Dutch wet dream. If they pulled him in, he'd be ~10s behind Max on fresher tyres and a faster car.
When the SC came out they could have answered what Red Bull would do or just pit regardless for fresh reds.
The fear of finishing under SC, addressed above. The fear of colliding? Addressed above.

Mercedes had opportunity to strengthen the upper hand they had but never took it and it backfired in the last lap.

That's my 2 cents.
Replace Lewis/Mercedes with Max/Red Bull if roles where swapped and thats how I'd think about it then as well. Same as I still believe Lewis should have been punished a whole lot harder for Silverstone but also strongly believe Max should have simply backed off and finish at least 2nd and he would have lost the title there otherwise by not being wise.

i agree with most of what you said, however if massi had followed protocol consistently (based on previous race situations) the race would have finished behind the safety car - so no, it wasn't clear the race would restart. pitting lewis might have just as easily handed the race to max in that situation as well.

also, "There must be something, somewhere in the rules allowing it" is a bit naive. i don't think the result will be overturned, but lets not pretend that the fia is saying anything other than "because i said so"

Ok ok In Toto's defence he didnt know the camera was running on him but he should at least have known.

To further back up that sentiment, I have read through other forums and comments and what the people saying "well he could have pitted too" are missing is that Mercedes made their judgment (and you can hear Lewis's engineer say as much) on the fact that the standard rules and regs that have been enforced for ages would be followed.

They weren't expecting Masi to suddenly change his protocols from out of know where with no indication of such. If the normal protocols were followed then Hamilton would win, and that is what Mercedes based their judgment on.

Think about it for a second. How on Earth can teams and drivers properly stratergies and plan when the race director can just suddenly up end the norms at random, and then have his organization say well because we said so. And it is the same for driving standards. Norms and the rule book seem not to matter any more. How confusing is that!

Adrian Newey is the first technical director to design championship-winning cars in 3 separate decades.

BS man. They didn't pit for 1 reasone alone. They didn't want to lose track position. And RBR would always do opposite to MERC.
Plus check Alonso laughing when he heard they cant unlap. All Drivers were expecting that - bar Toto&team.

Just another post to add how class act Hamilton was in the post-race interview.

It's only fair to mention it, because we don't hear a lot from the same identified people who will dissect every word from him after races like Monaco, but will ignore the majority of the rest, which is more representative of his personality overall IMHO.

But that's normal. Some people will always be held to a higher standard, all else being equal. Some of us understand that on a deeper, more personal level than others ever will

Out of interest, how many more cars were a lap down? 3? They may have been able to squeeze them through and still get restarted. There have definitely been races where the lapped cars don't catch back up to the queue.

Can't think of any where some or none were allowed through, though?

I honestly wonder what would have happened if they didnt let those cars tru. Would it be unthinkable that they all let Max tru before the first corner? In that case Max probably still would be within striking distance and potentially made the winning move before the lap was over.

I think you'd get such field spread as the lapped cars wouldn't be as close on the restart Hamilton probably would have made it, even if all the lapped cars jumped out the way on the first straight.

Think Ferrari probably have a case to argue that if all lapped cars had gone through and the race still restarted Sainz could have got 2nd rather than 3rd

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