A Brief History
On December 12, 2021, the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix was won by Max Verstappen, beating Lewis Hamilton because of a mistaken conduct of a “safety car” restart at the end of the race. Later investigation showed that race officials “misapplied” the rules, costing Hamilton his 8th Formula 1 World Championship.
Digging Deeper
Sometimes game or event officials blow a call or fail to make a call and cost a team or player a championship or important game. Two of those incidents include:
In 2010, Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga was robbed of a perfect game by a wrong call at first base, when after retiring the first 26 Indians batters, the ump mistakenly ruled the batter safe at first.
In 1986, Diego Maradona’s “Hand of God” goal in the World Cup, occurred when Maradona illegally punched in a goal with his hand, a foul missed by the referee eventually giving Argentina the win over England.
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Epic WordSmiths. Full Throttle Formula One Fact File & Notebook 2021: A Fact-Filled Paperback Journal for F1 Grand Prix Racing Fans to Read, Write, Record and Review this Year’s Formula One World Championship Racing. Independently published, 2021.
Garlett, Kyle and Patrick O’Neal. The Worst Call Ever!: The Most Infamous Calls Ever Blown by Referees, Umpires, and Other Blind Officials. HarperCollins e-books, 2008.
The featured image in this article, a map by Anthony Alessio Tralongo of the layout of the Yas Marina Circuit, is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
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