F1: Vettel, Ricciardo and Norris say Masi should stay as Race Director
Daniel Ricciardo, Lando Norris and Sebastian Vettel said they hope Formula One race director Michael Masi keeps his job after the Australian made a controversial safety car call in the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix
Masi has come under fire for his decision to alter the safety car procedure by getting only the lapped cars between race-leading Hamilton and second-placed rival Max Verstappen out of the way after a late-race crash.
The decision set up a last-lap showdown between the two title rivals and allowed Verstappen, on fresher tires, to pass Hamilton and win his first title.
Mercedes made a major strategic error and left Hamilton out on used tires, not once, but twice. No one is talking about the this Mercedes decision (and Hamilton likely had a say in the decision as well) and its role in the final outcome. Mercedes prefer to sweep their error under the table and focus the blame on Masi. First of all, the fact Latifi crashed and caused a caution led to all this in the first place. And as far as the lapped cars go – suppose Masi allowed all the cars to unlap themselves a lap earlier? Then the rules would have been followed 100%, it would have still been too late for Mercedes to then pit Hamilton, and the Mercedes decision would have still left Hamilton out to dry — Verstappen would have won either way! Stop blaming Masi! Mercedes blew it! — Autoracing1.com
“It’s not the easiest sometimes to be in the shoes of the referee or Michael’s shoes,” said four-times champion Vettel ahead of the launch of his Aston Martin team’s new car for 2022.
“But I think he’s done a great job especially filling in after [former F1 race director] Charlie [Whiting] passed away so sudden.”
“It’s still a tough one to answer, but I think the obvious thing that we all want is consistency,” said Norris when asked for his thoughts on the Abu Dhabi fallout and Masi’s future.
“I think it’s still good that we have different stewards for different weekends because you don’t want that bias going in with anyone. So I think a lot, like 95% or 99% of things are good, we just want that consistency.
“You see us make mistakes as drivers, it’s easy for people to see that, and it’s the same with them, right? It’s human to make mistakes.
“And if that was just something that happened in such a quick time, then that’s the way it is.
“I support Michael and I think a lot of other things he did were great last season or the past few seasons we’ve been working with him.
“A lot of things are good. It’s just ironing out these small things which can have a big impact.
“We have confidence that things are going in a good direction. And they are realizing areas where they can improve or just make less mistakes, or whatever. From that side, I have confidence.”
“I don’t know either what’s his future, but I hope he sticks around because I think overall he did a very, very good job,” said Vettel.
“I think there’s a lot of controversy for the last race.
“There shouldn’t be. If you look at the bigger picture, he’s done really well.”
Ricciardo agreed that the Abu Dhabi incident was not grounds for Masi to be replaced.
“If Michael wants to stay, then he should stay,” he argued.
“I don’t think one event should be the picture of everything.
“I went home for Christmas and inevitably friends, family were like ‘oh that last race, what do you think?’
“So it was certainly mixed, I would say a little bit more were like ‘not sure how I felt about that’ but then others were like ‘well that was pretty entertaining last lap, title gets decided’.
“I had a front-row seat for some reason, so I was like ‘is this really happening? this is nuts’.
“It was a moment in time for sure, and not everyone is going to appreciate that moment in time. But I think lovers of the sport are still going to be lovers of the sport.”