by 
Formula 1 officials have reviewed a protest by Mercedes against the result of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix and, with the help of VAR, have retrospectively awarded a penalty to Manchester United.
The controversial end to the title-deciding race saw Lewis Hamilton pipped to the championship by Max Verstappen, but Mercedes argued that rules were incorrectly applied by the race director.
Upon review of all available evidence, the FIA agreed and decided to rectify this by awarding a spot-kick to the Old Trafford side, to be taken before the start of their next fixture.
Both Mercedes and Brentford FC, who are now likely to start Tuesday’s game at Old Trafford a goal down, expressed disappointment with the result but have accepted the outcome.
Mercedes spokesperson Simon Williams told reporters, “We are glad that Michael Masi has acknowledged his mistake and, while we were hoping for the remedy to be something to do with F1, we do recognise that any retrospective review of a sporting decision has an extremely high probability of seeing a penalty given to Manchester United.
“We will now move on and focus on next season, where hopefully we will see the same sort of consistent and uncontroversial application of the rules as VAR has brought to the Premier League,” he concluded, while somehow keeping a straight face.
The Grand Prix in the United Arab Emirates was so incident-packed that Mo Salah, watching from home, fell off his chair, resulting in a penalty also being given to Liverpool. Penalties were then awarded to Manchester City and Chelsea too, to avoid accusations of favouritism amongst the officials, because that’s apparently just how things work now.
