The generational divide that Formula 1 needs to decide on

OPINION: After a thrilling 2021 Formula 1 season that went down to the wire between Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton, questions still remain about what is and isn't acceptable behaviour when battling another driver on track. A decision regarding those rules needs to be made, one way or the other.

When a Formula 1 world championship is as closely fought as it was between Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen this year, it is inevitable that the fans in both camps will not see eye-to-eye on a number of matters.

But the scale of the divide between the two opposing sides this year was perhaps exacerbated by the very different approaches that the pair appeared to have about the rules of racing. Here were two drivers from different generations, who were going into battle without total consensus about what is and isn’t allowed.

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Author Jonathan Noble

Jonathan Noble is Motorsport.com’s Formula 1 editor. Having graduated from University of Sussex Jonathan worked for sports news agency Collings Sports reporting on F1, F3, touring cars and other sports, with articles appearing in The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, Reuters, Autosport and other publications. In 1999 he moved to Haymarket Publishing to become a senior editor at Autosport Special Projects, and one year later he became Autosport’s grand prix editor. In 2015 he moved to Motorsport Network, becoming the F1 editor for Motorsport.com. He is also a member of the Guild of Motoring Writers, and sits on the FIA Media Council.

Jonathan has won multiple awards for journalism - in 1991 he was the winner of the Guild of Motoring Writers’ Sir William Lyons’ Award for young journalists, in 2010 he was awarded the Outstanding Individual accolade for consumer journalism in the Haymarket wards, in 2011 he won Haymarket’s Scoop of the Year, and in 2018 he was awarded a prestigious Medaglia d’Oro at the Lorenzo Bandini Awards for his contribution to F1 journalism.