So does Masi get fired? Let's be honest Masi screwed up the 1st lap incident/ruling. And the end of the race was no less farcical. We deserve much better from F1. What would Bernie say?
He deserves to go. I was low key hoping for Max to win, but that ending was manufactured to hand Max the win. Even on old tires Hamilton was keeping him at bay.
Fired? Probably will get a pay raise when they see how much more viewers and money they made this last race.
Nobody's arguing that Hamilton drove a championship performance, drove better than Max. Ending will be controversial for some time
Kudos to lewis and his family for being a class act. I wanted Max to win all season, but Lewis was robbed today by politics.
Perhaps the mods can rename the thread “We sad Lil baby Brit Elton Hamdashian didn’t win”. PS Masi still sucks even though Max won and deserved to win more than Elton.
Masi is laughing on the way to the bank. RB sent him a big paycheck already. He broke two FIA rules for Safety Car. Unreal...
He actually broke no rules because of the clause that allows the race director to make the ultimate calls determining the actual “race”. He can not interfere with things like cars weight, or aero legality etc, but when cars are on track he is the last word. The spirit of the overtake rule in a safety car situation is to “remove any lapped traffic that may interfere in the outcome of the leading cars race. During a safety car the top two positions ALWAYS start nose to tail, not with 5 cars between them. The man had literally seconds to decide what to do to provide a safe restart that would allow for a green flag restart, and he did just that. So give the guy a little bit of a break, if he did something that cost someone a life or serious injury then call for his firing, but this was not the case. He had zero agenda in this case but to group up the leaders, as is the rule, and let them race. If Hamilton had retaken and won, and he very nearly did, you all would be applauding Massi’s decision to let them battle it out on track under green conditions.
What Merc are really reacting to is that they have been shown a change in attitude toward them. They really thought they were going to be able to pressure race control to end under safety car to preserve their track position. Historically ol’ race control would have jumped when Mercedes said jump and have asked how high? Not today.
If I were Mass, I’d be brushing the resume pronto. Sadly, his resume is now more battered than that of a homicidal maniac. He’s got to go. And with regards to todays farcical race ending, that requires an immediate rules change to simplify the problem for future race directors. If there is a safety car within 5 laps of the end of a race, then there should be an immediate red flag to reset followed by a standing restart.
No! This isn't Nascar! If it ends under yellow, that's racing. But please, no un-necessary red flags.
Even though Masi is the guy that people want to hold responsible for a lot bad decisions made this season, a lot of the finger pointing is unfair. 1) The Stewards decision is not a reflection of Michael Masi. Masi doesn't hand out the race penalties, the Stewards do. 2) Masi often has to make decisions in seconds while the race is going on, his first priority being safety to the drivers and marshals. 3) Masi has a boss too. For anyone that believes there is corruption and influence F1 and the FIA, then it's reasonable to assume that someone has Masi's ear on how to make decisions based on what fits the script of the race, or the championship. It's hard to believe that incompetency resulted in one of, if not, the most dramatic season's ever, that just happened to go down to the very last lap of the season. I do not think Masi should be replaced, I think he needs some support as Brundle suggested, and we need some clearer rules that the FIA can't hide behind. Whether it's Masi or someone else, if the FIA is filled with corruption, then it doesn't matter who the race director is, the same thing will happen.
He messed up the first call and to a degree the end: They should have red flagged the race. That said he had to make a decision within seconds and he did the best thing possible: SC and allow the first few overlapped drivers to be overtaken. That compromise allowed the race to end under green. Red flag would have been better, but we're all smarter in hindsight. I have to say though that I was immediately thinking about red flag because of the few laps remaining, what was at stake and the car there stranded with a bunch of debris. To answer the question: no, keep him, but educate him, it's not an easy job, but I've seen worse in F1 PS: I can't imagine that the C-level executives in Stuttgart want to win the championship in a Swiss court. That's gotta be detrimental to their marketing strategy. In the off-chance they win it that way, I'd never buy a Merc and my best buddy will sell his. Don't be a sore loser, be proud of your 7 WDC and 8 WCC titles instead.
Really depends on when the teams were told the unmapped cars were staying or going. Did it affect team strategy? Massi inserted himself into the outcome and by the way we heard Horner on the radio it certainly sounds bad. I do have a huge issue with car 33 being alongside and not in line as the safety car was ending. Just poor form ant the end of an exciting and hard fought championship
Bas, I asked this in another part. Do you feel this role and some of the rules only got brought to light this year due to real competition? It has AGES since a battle like this happened. Small calls / mis-calls would never see the time of day.