Nonsense, you say? Do YOU think Masi applied the rules in the manner/spirit that they are written? Certainly his BOSSES don't think he did. Simple question.
One would think that the Formula 1 section would be loaded with...Formula 1 threads? As I type this, the thread is the 4th highest on the F1 section...one would think F1 would be more important to talk about than a LH thread that is literally kept ALIVE by 5 LH haters. Don't you guys have anything better to do than talk about someone you clearly dislike? Unbelievable.
You asked "Masi applied the rules in the manner/spirit that they are written?", I said "Yes." He had discretion to do so based upon the rules as they were written with him as the race director. Whether people liked it or not, that's a different question.
Why though? His initial call of cars not to unlap was correct. Why, in your opinion, did he change it?
To not hand over a championship over a technicality and let two outstanding racers battle it out. That is what the fans around the world wanted, a racing finish to an incredible season battle. It was a damned if I do, damned if I don't moment. He made the call, which was legal by the rules as to his power as race director, and it left for a racing finish between the two gentlemen that were battling all season. The yellow fell at the worst time, and racing fans would have been furious around the world to end the race with a predetermined winner. Everyone wanted to see Hamilton and Verstappen go one on one to the finish. It had been a while since the season champion came down to the last race, and not only that, the last lap of the race. He felt that this was in the best interest of the worldwide fans (the people who actually pay the bills since sponsors wouldn't be there if the fans stop watching). Formula 1 has been growing over the years, but there have been real complaints that it had become a Billion dollar purchase of the championship the previous 7 years with Mercedes dumping billions into their program while the lowest 7 teams combined did not have the money to spend what Mercedes spent in a single year. Mercedes was developing hybrid vehicles and engines and controls for a decade before the other teams even had their first look at them. This was an unfair advantage and the world F1 fans were having enough. Formula 1 has to contend with politics also and if Masi would not have brought Hamilton and Verstappen together for an epic final battle for these two to fight it out, I think the world fans would have erupted and they could have been faced with significant loss of viewership. It's all about the money, not about pure racing and the strictest rules, which is why the rules were written to give the race director leeway to do what he did. The reason Masi was "retired" was that Mercedes threw a hissy fit about Masi's decision and threatened a lot of stuff, similar to what Ferrari did when Formula 1 was sold to the American Investment Company. To make Mercedes happy and save face, Formula 1 management "retired" Masi. Formula 1 needs Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull to stay in the series to keep the fans and viewership they have invested in trying to grow. If any of those guys leave, it would be very hard for Formula 1 to keep fans interested and growing. Therefore, right or wrong, it doesn't really matter. This is a business, a multi-billion dollar world wide business, and they have to keep fans watching or it will collapse. It really doesn't matter what that rule book says, if it keeps fans glued to the screen, then it will be done to keep the money rolling in. This is what I was getting at.
You lot pollute so many threads with the 2021 garbage it's unbelievable. Why not have a little section purely where LH fans can cry about him losing the title, so you don't have to make every other thread about it? This thread is active because Lewis has a habit of saying idiotic stuff that people like to laugh at. This thread is kept alive because LH fanboys continue to post in it, whether it's one of his quotes, another statistic, this or that....his fans and detractors then go to head to head about such statistics. You lot demand more respect, many of us thinks he doesn't deserve it. Kinda the whole argument.
So therefore it's a manufactured result and as a contested sport it is literally meaningless. So why even watch? And that is a long winded response to basically say that Masi was within the rules when he clearly wasn't, per his own admission. When Ferrari had an unfair advantage when dominating years in row, fans didn't leave the sport. Same with Redbull. Vettel won 9 races in a row, something Merc never did. The most races Hamilton won in a row is 5. So who were more dominant? And watching Max chase down Lewis with lapped cars would have been 10X more exciting than the garbage we got, guaranteed. I mean think about it. We had a majority of new fans watching due to DTS for the first time, they have no frame of reference to what "domination" Mercedes have had. The championship battle was what kept people glued, not the outcome, aside from the Netherlands.
You should have started your post with that paragraph. Then we would have known immediatly where you were coming from. From a business point it's debatable if it was positive, but for F1 as a sport it's absolutely devastating when a result is manipulated.
I just love it. The last few years the Mercedes team has been one of the worst in terms of (attempts to) manipulating F1. And that one special moment they did not get what they wanted, they cry wolf for years.
I don't know about Mercedes, I don't speak for them. In fact, I don't care who wins. But as a F1 follower, I found the events in 2021 troubling from a sporting point of view. It seems that nothing has been solved at the FIA this year. Still the same murky water ...
Exactly. And lets not forget that earlier in the race Hamilton did not get punished for overtaking off the track, whereas the race before Max a) gave ample opportunity to give the place up and b) got a further 5 second penalty for it! (on top of a 10 second penalty). If the championship was oh so manipulated, why didn't Lewis get told to at least give the place up? Why, when earlier in the race when there where 2 cars stranded on track in different sectors, and Mercedes didn't pit and Red Bull did, and Toto came on the radio and ordered Masi that there shouldn't be a penalty, is that manipulation perfectly fine? Maybe we got it totally wrong and somewhere in the rules does it say "Toto is allowed to order the race as he wants, everything else must be deemed manipulation".
Yup. The world is full of people being removed from certain positions even if they did nothing wrong.
The people on this forum do not make decision; they can only vent their feelings. But it happened that the FIA, Masi's employer, agreed with many about Masi's incompetence. The guy has been flip-flopping constantly during 2021, the Belgian GP being just an example. Masi won't be missed ...
I see the FIA representative being guilty in all this, not Mercedes. Masi should simply have followed the rules and listened to no one. The authority was with the race director, NOT Toto Wolff.
Apart from incompetence, usually they are people who bring embarrassment or create a scandal. But wait ... Masi ticked all the boxes !!!
