Michael Masi gets fired/replaced?

RE. DTM,
I'm not disputing the team orders that finally handed the title to Goetz (Mercedes), but really the responsible of this is Van der Linden (AUDI) who was within a shot at the title but was so obsessed in eliminating rival Liam Lawson (Ferrari) that he destroyed his own chance at the first corner of the last race.

After that incident, Mercedes just had to line up its cars in the right order to take the title. You can't blame them for that!
The real culprit is Van der Linden who reminded me of Verstappen on a bad day.

 

It's easy to understand. Mercedes had sandbagged during the middle part of the season. They weren't running at max power, because they knew that even though it gave them a HP advantage, the engines would be very unreliable and degrade quickly. So, they saved engines that would run at max power for the very last few races, as part of a deliberate strategy.

The other element was Lewis's rear wing. Funny business going on there clearly, were the wing was deforming under load in a way that reduced drag on the straights, but then was able to return back into legal form when parked. There are a few shots were it looked obvious, and the scoring on the wings I think told the story that Mercedes indeed were doing something in the grey area of the rules there.

Brilliant whatever they did, and even more brilliant to wait until the last 4 races, so the FIA and other teams couldn't investigate properly in time and figure it out.

 

I'm not picking any word. I'm citing the FIA sporting regs, which clearly give Masi "overriding authority" over safety car sessions, and for which the stewards upheld.

You can go "Nah ah! My interpretation, blah blah blah" all you want. It won't change anything. You and the entire Lewis echo chamber are not in charge of how the rules are interpreted, nor should you be. If you can't emotionally handle what happened, don't watch the sport.

 

Brilliant post!

 

Masi didn't break the rules. Repeating it a million times, won't make it true, nor will any social media campaigns change it.

No matter what conditions Hamilton lost under, he and his fans were always going to cry that it was unfair. That's the truth.

 

What is funny with you is that Mercedes is never to blame for whatever they have done..
Curious to see why
Some Nostalgia ?
Have you find some excuses for their own dieselgate ?

 

There is no interpretation. Look at the last lap. The SC rules were not followed. My truth is on film. You can rewatch the evidence anytime you want. The rules were not followed. Both you and I can interpet it anyway we want. But you can't interpet whats on film. No matter how you try to word it, Masi didn't follow SC rules. It doesn't matter how you interpet the words.

 

I don't have to repeat it. My truth is filmed. Show me footage of 48.12 being followed on the last lap, put up or shut up.

 

It doesn’t have to be the last 5 laps. It could be the last 10 laps. I don’t know the best answer to that - it just needs to be sufficiently close to the end of the race and leave enough time for 2-3 green flag laps.

2008 is irrelevant as that wasn’t confusion caused by the Race directors decisions.

 

Your'e wasting your time. The fact that they think the rules can be overriden by the race director is enough to tell you they havent a clue!
Tony

 

The fact is that Masi, willingly or not, manipulated the end of the race. That is undeniable.

I can live with Verstappen becoming WDC as a result of it, but the fact remains that he was given an unfair advantage at the end of the championship decider.

 

The sudden advantage was there due to Latify crashing, the timing and the limited opportunity to pit was what caused the advantage for Verstappen. That wasn't unfair, that's the nature of the sport.

If you listen to the radio messages between Hamilton and his race engineer they clearly and deliberately made the choice not to pit in the very limited time frame they had to do so. They wanted to maintain track position, that was the answer Hamiltons race engineer gave to Hamiltons question why he wasn't given new tyres. You can hear the dissapointment and despair in Hamiltons voice, he clearly wasn't pleased. And that was 4 or more laps before the race ended.

So based on the radio messages, both teams clearly took into account that there was a possibility that the race would be continued. Even though Toto himself was very vocal towards Masi later on, just ike he was mid-race by the way, when Kimi crashed. He didn't want a yellow flag then either. "No, No Michael let them race".

Well that's exactly what Masi did in the final lap. The only strange decision made by Masi was to only let the cars in between Hamilton and Verstappen unlap themselves.

Obviously I'm biased, but looking at the whole season, the luck Hamilton had al year (Bahrein track limits, Imola, Baku, Silverstone, Budapest) and the mistakes he made vs. the limited ones by Verstappen, it would've been really, really unfair if Hamilton won the 2021 WDC.

 

Get it
My reference about 2008 was about the excitement of the last lap.
Fans were really happy even if the outcome didn’t satisfy my Tifoso Attitude.

 

What part is unfair? That the cars could unlap themselves or that he was able to close up because of the safety car?

 

You said it !!!

 

The later because of the former.

That was handing the advantage to the Red Bull, having negated the lead the Mercedes has built up to the accident.

Up to that moment, Hamilton was "covered" by 5 cars between him and Verstappen, enough for him to sail to the chequered flag.

Taking away these 5 cars was giving the race to Red Bull, IMO.

I don't want to discuss this "ad eternum", since nothing will make me change my opinion.

I accept that history will record Verstappen as the winner of that race, and the 2021 WDC. I have no problem with that.

But, to me the circumstances were created by an official making decision "on the hoof."

 

The teams had talked and agreed before the race to end the race under green flag conditions. Nothing was ‘on the hoof.’

 

+1
And Mercedes had the choice to put fresh new tyres on Lewis car.
Easier to put the blame on a courageous man.
Hey Armchairs specialists! :
Do you know they will have some difficulties to find someone for the job if Masi is fired..

 

Got you. So Lewis allowed to unlap himself and putting on new tyres, gaining back 2.5 minutes in Imola was unfair as well...after all it took 2.5 minutes away from Max's lead.

 

Nail meets head enough said, It's also a waste of time trying to converse with anyone with a real unhealthy deep rooted dislike of Hamilton.

 

I would tend to agree with you too, the decision was badly executed but time was running out so in the heat of the battle, the race director (Masi) screwed up. The decision could have been reversed by the stewards .....and they have authority to do so, they didnt, so every official screwed up.

MV would not have won the race as by the time the cars had un-lapped themselves, the race would been over and had to finish under a safety car. As I said earlier, I dont give a hoot for either driver or any of them come to that.

Is there fair play in F1? - NO, never has been. I would much rather get vocal about the stupid rules surrounding the budget cap which will clearly be circumvented, testing and technical restrictions.

 

Each team took a gamble to pit or not. If Mercedes had chosen to pit they would have won. RB chose to pit and it payed off.

 

Bas, I told you several times, I discuss about Abu Dhabi here.

So don't bring any "whataboutism" in this conversation.

In the morning of Abu Dhabi GP, both Hamilton and Verstappen were on equal number of points.

So, whatever happened before during the season couldn't be corrected and is completely irrelevent in the argument.

 

Possibly but their decision at the time was the correct one, keep track position. Would it have forced RB to not pit for tyres? Who knows.

The major factor in this cock up is the rather crude & poorly drafted 2021 sporting regulations, clearly clause 15 is so poorly constructed that it is open to mis-interpretation, had the rules been much clearer then the officials would not have dithered.

You can drive a bus through 15.3 especially when referencing the safety car, no mention of the VSC for instance!

 

It only paid off because Masi remove 5 cars between them !!!

Had Masi not done that, Mercedes' strategy would have paid off !!