Abu Dhabi 2021: Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen arrive level on points, and Hamilton leads by more than ten seconds. Five laps from the end, Nicholas Latifi crashes and the safety car comes out. Race director Michael Masi lets only the five lapped cars between the two title rivals go through, sets up a one-lap shootout, and Verstappen passes on fresh soft tyres to become champion.
Under the normal rule every lapped car unlaps itself and the race finishes behind the safety car. Run it again: Hamilton wins a record eighth title. Masi keeps his job (in reality he was removed in February 2022). With nothing left to prove, maybe Hamilton never moves to Ferrari, so Carlos Sainz keeps his seat in red and Williams never needs him. Instead, Williams gets a teenager it had already looked at: Kimi Antonelli. Max still wins 2022, 2023 and 2024, so he ends on three titles, not four, and in 2025 Lando Norris still beats him by just two points. And Latifi, whose crash started it all, was out of F1 a year later.
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