F1: Masi likely laughing hysterically at his replacement Race Directors
Toto Wolff, who cost Lewis Hamilton the race win and world title in Abu Dhabi last year, but pushed the blame to then F1 Race Director Michael Masi (see related article outlining how Mercedes screwed Hamilton), lobbied FIA President Mohammed Ben Sulayem hard for Masi to be fired.
Masi was indeed removed from his position for giving the fans and the sport a race, instead of a parade, for the world title, and replaced with two Race Directors plus more people working remotely to help them in their decision-making.
The complaint was that Masi let some cars unlap themselves (those between Hamilton and Verstappen) but not all. Even if Masi told all the cars to unlap themselves, there would have been no lapped cars between Hamilton and Verstappen, and Verstappen would have destroyed Hamilton on the final lap, regardless, because of Mercedes’ poor decision-making.
It was not Masi’s fault, Verstappen’s fault, or Red Bull’s fault that Nicholas Latifi crashed and caused the late caution in Abu Dhabi with Hamilton holding a healthy lead. But it was the fault of Toto Wolff and Mercedes in what they did not do in the split seconds after the crash that ultimately cost Hamilton the win.
Wolff and his team of Mercedes’ strategists choked in the moment, so pissed that Latifi crashed when he did, that they lost focus on the decision they had to make in those split seconds.
Back to now……..
And with all these people doing the job of one man (Masi) have made mistake after mistake all year long, the latest being Sunday at Suzuka where a tractor was allowed on the track to retrieve Carlos Sainz’s crashed Ferrari in very poor visibility conditions with cars speeding past.
Masi, replaced long-time F1 Race Director Charlie Whiting who died suddenly in 2019 in Melbourne, must be home in Australia getting a good laugh at what Toto Wolff and his yes-man, Mohammed Ben Sulayem, have created to replace him to deflect criticism away from Wolff’s poor performance.
They can only be described as inept. Masi must be shaking his head in disbelief, or perhaps he doubled over, unable to stop laughing.
Mark C. reporting for AutoRacing1.com