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I have not had a chance to watch the full race, but recent history left me pretty comfortable with the first lap business. The precedent was starting to look pretty sound that dive bombing the car in front and pushing them off the track on corner exit was a valid way to overtake. The type of thing that in club level motorsport would involve an "Animated" discussion later at the back of the pits. At a non Tilkedrome type track with ten thousand acres of high grip runoff the "Overtaken" car would likely end up beached in kitty litter and out of the race, or in a wall. It could still have cost him the championship but I would honestly have preferred to see Hamilton keep to the track limits and if Max ripped both their wheels off, so be it.
My issue with the outcome was that the race director effectively made himself the race (And title) decider. Stick a safety car out there and Redbull were always going to roll the dice with sticking new tyres on. If the race ended under the safety car, nothing lost. If the lapped cars were sent through (Or just the ones between the leaders as was boiled up for this race) then they would be right behind the leader on nice fresh softs while the leader is on geriatric tyres that might be a couple of seconds a lap slower. Mercedes was ALWAYS going to sit it out instead of diving in for tyres, dive in and all Redbull had to do was cruise past into first place on track and a good chance of a win, certainly a much better chance than they had from behind the Merc without a tyre change, assuming the race ended under a green flag. If it ended up under the safety car as would probably have been expected then they would walk around for the win.
There was no downside to the Safety car for Redbull, and nothing but downside risk for Mercedes, but the "Anything for a green flag last lap" approach took a potential advantage for Redbull and turned it in to a real one.
It is a real pity that the season will probably always be remembered for this and not the competition. It is close to unarguable that they are the best two current drivers, and they are in the best two current cars and I hate to see the title decide by the stewards or the courts.
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