Max Verstappen wins Formula 1 in epic fashion

Max Verstappen is the new Formula 1 champion

Dutchman Max Verstappen has won his first formula 1 championship in an epic and dramatic but also controversial final race in Abu Dabhi.

But the Englishman Lewis Hamilton, also lost an opportunity to beat Michael Schumacher’s seven formula 1 championship victories, when as his team failed a strategy test on tyres.

Hamilton was gracious in defeat

Mercedes launched two appeals after the race; claiming Verstappen overtook Hamilton behind the safety car, and that the rules were not applied correctly regarding lapped cars being allowed to unlap themselves when race director Race director Michael Masi removed the safety car with one lap to go.

Initially Masi had said lapped cars would not be allowed to overtake, which would have left five cars between Hamilton and Verstappen for the one lap of racing that it looked like would be left.

Mercedes’s initial protests were rejected which allowed Max to be crowned, but Lewis’s team said they will appeal.

Some observers have argued that Max was assisted to victory as a way to bring new life to a competition that had become too dominated by one driver – who has seven titles under his name.

The Dutchman’s victory brought to an end to perhaps the biggest and bitterest competition in formula 1’s recent history.

In the end, no matter the dispute over rules, many people agree that Verstappen is a deserved winner.

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