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Michael Masi has been the talk of the town for F1 fans ever since the 2021 F1 season ended. The race director was the epicenter of arguably one of the more dubious endings of an F1 championship in a long time.
How Masi went out of his way to ensure racing on the last lap of the race has left a bad taste in the mouth of so many fans, with arguably Lewis Hamilton fans being the most outraged bunch of them all. #MasiOut has been trending on social media ever since the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix ended and Max Verstappen was crowned World Champion.
The FIA has not helped matters either by being ambiguous in its handling of the aftermath, and the lack of clarity has only made things worse. Hamilton fans have come out in large numbers demanding Masi's head on a platter, with numerous calls for him to be removed from his position as Race Director.
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While the outrage is understandable, it has been amplified by the way the FIA has handled everything, making it all the more questionable. The question, however, remains: will getting Michael Masi fired right the wrong of what happened in Abu Dhabi?
Will it ensure that something like that doesn't happen again? The answer is no, it won't. Firing Michael Masi doesn't change anything. In this piece, we talk about why the suggestion of getting rid of the Australian as race director does nothing for the betterment of the sport and is in no way a solution for what happened in Abu Dhabi last season.
Before we go ahead and discuss what led to the debacle of the Abu Dhabi GP, however, it bodes well to clarify a particular detail beforehand.
There was no favoritism towards Max Verstappen
An accusation that has been blatantly thrown around with regards to how the safety car restart was handled revolves around an inherent favoritism for Max Verstappen. There are suggestions made that the sport did not want Lewis Hamilton to win another title as F1 was already reeling from Mercedes' dominance in the turbo era. And because of this, Michael Masi tilted the balance of the title fight in Verstappen's favor when presented with the opportunity.
Such suggestions fall flat if we just rewind the Abu Dhabi GP to the first lap of the race where Hamilton went off the track at Turn 6 and gained an advantage. He was, however, neither asked to give the position back to Verstappen nor to back off sufficiently so that the advantage was nullified.
Should Hamilton have ceded the position to Verstappen at that stage? It was a 50-50 decision, as some thought he was pushed off, while others thought he gained an undue advantage. If the race director was inclined to give any kind of favoritism to the Dutchman, then he could have done it at this point.
With Verstappen back in the lead, the complexion of the race and the title battle could have changed completely. It could have turned out to be in his favor as well. Yet, when Red Bull reached out to Masi to plead their case, he shut them down.
This was just one of the many instances throughout the season where marginal decisions went in Hamilton's favor. Such occasions completely nullify the suggestions of Verstappen benefiting from an inherent favoritism. More importantly, they are proof of Masi's credibility as an unbiased race director.
With that out of the way, let's take a look at what contributed to the Abu Dhabi debacle.
The open channel communication was too big a distraction
The first thing that needs to be called out is the utter pointlessness of making public the radio messages between the teams and the race director. The race director's job is intense enough already. Add to that the element of answering to the Mercedes and Red Bull representatives, while the whole world listens and critiques your every move, it just pushes things out of control.
Toto Wolff was seen emailing diagrams to Michael Masi after the British GP crash. Christian Horner, too, had been butting in at various intervals. Then in the last race of the season, we had Wolff openly lobbying race control to stop them from bringing out the safety car. And, of course, who could forget the infamous 'No, Mikey, No' towards the end of the race.
The open channel of communication is a tool meant to be used as F1 breaks the fourth wall and shows the fans what happens behind the scenes. It was, however, turned into a public negotiation platform by teams, further complicating matters.
Imagine working at a high-intensity job with the entire F1 world breathing down your neck. A global audience witnessing every snippet of the conversation that you have and questioning every move of yours. It's just an impossible environment to do the job to the best of your ability. As a result, Michael Masi was caught in a lose-lose situation.
The ghost of the Belgian GP debacle played a role
Looking at the season finale on its own can lead to people missing out on the true context of what Michael Masi had in mind when he 'went racing' in Yas Marina. To an extent, what happened in Abu Dhabi had a lot to do with what had happened earlier in the season at Spa.
To refresh everyone's memories, last season's Belgian GP was severely impacted by torrential conditions throughout the weekend. The track saw wet conditions that were borderline dangerous on occasions. This led to the race getting canceled after a handful of laps were completed behind the safety car.
While the drivers were awarded half the points for the positions they finished in, calling the Belgian GP a race was a farce in multiple ways as not even a single proper lap of racing was completed.
F1 came under a lot of scrutiny for what happened in Belgium as the race ended behind the safety car. Most of the criticism was directed towards Michael Masi on that occasion as well. Going into the season finale, it could be argued that the race director was under severe pressure to not let this event end behind a safety car like earlier. So, he did whatever he could to, in his words, 'go racing' on the last lap of the race.
Michael Masi just had too much on his plate
If we talk about Michael Masi exclusively, it's safe to say that the race director was put in a dire situation. He had to navigate his way through some critical decisions in the race, while simultaneously having to answer the sometimes childish rants from Mercedes and Red Bull. Through it all, he also had to ensure he did not face another backlash in the media with yet another race ending behind a safety car.
This was a classic case of an official being overburdened by too many things at the same time, which was truly a recipe for disaster. Did Michael Masi handle the situation in the best possible way? Not really. Is he, however, the one to be solely blamed for the debacle in Abu Dhabi? Definitely not. You're setting people up for disaster if you overburden them with too many things, and this is exactly what happened here.
While Masi might have made a mess at the Abu Dhabi GP, however, firing him is not going to make everything right.
What needs to change then?
Now, this is what the focus should have been on instead of calling for Michael Masi's head all this time. Talking about the changes required, the first step has to be keeping the communication between the teams and the race control private. The intended benefit of such a step was not realized last season as it turned into a lobbying channel.
The second step has to be clarity on how F1 wants to pursue racing in the future. There were clear instances of Michael Masi not being entirely sure of the direction he wanted the race to take. If there was clarity in Abu Dhabi, then the lapped cars could have been moved out of the way much earlier. The controversy around only a few lapped cars unlapping themselves would never have popped up.
As a third step, there needs to be a clear directive from the FIA on how they proceed in certain situations. The late lap crash in Abu Dhabi and the aftermath was an example of F1 trying to go racing when something like this happens. In the past, however, they were fine with races ending behind a safety car. A change in mindset regarding how they want to approach racing from now on should be clearly conveyed to the teams and the fans to prevent backlash in the future.
As Jenson Button mentioned recently, the lack of clarity has hurt the sport the most, and that is what needs to be taken care of. Instead of developing a mob mentality and going after Michael Masi's head, this is probably the best time to analyze what went wrong, find loopholes and fix them. Getting rid of the race director would just be the ideal example of making nothing more than a symbolic gesture. This will not aid the sport in any way, making it a futile step at the moment.
