Michael Masi gets fired/replaced?

This has not been discussed much but Masi had 4 options at his disposal.

1. As soon as Latifi crashed immediately throw a red flag. This allows the race to be frozen in time while the track is cleaned. All cars have the option of putting fresh tires on and there are no back markers to worry about. This would have allowed for a 3-4 lap shootout on about as equal terms as possible. Option not taken.

2. Throw a safety car, clean up for however long it takes, while immediately allowing lapped cars to un-lap themselves and restore the grid without traffic. If done immediately there was time for a one lap dash. Hamilton would have still been a sitting duck but it would have been within both the rules and precedent.

3. Throw a safety car, clean up, and let the grid resume without allowing the lapped cars to pass the pace car. Here there would be enough time for a one lap shootout but Max would first have to clear 5 lapped cars. This was the initial decision that was taken and announced before it was changed half way through the last yellow flag lap.

4. Finish the race under safety car.

All 4 options were well inside the rules and well supported by precedent. As it was the red flag option was skipped and there was no time to go back. The decision to let lapped cars un-lap themselves was not taken with enough time to let all 8 lapped cars pass the pace car so that window too closed. Of course the race did not end under safety car and nor did it re-start for one lap with the lapped cars still in place. Again all supported by precedent and the rulebook. In fact only finishing under the safety car advantaged Hamilton so the other three would always have hurt him but that's life sometimes. At the very least the rules supported these options.

As it was the race director allowed only some cars to un-lap themselves AND broke protocol of how to allow the pace car to enter when this is being done. Both of these are rule changes 'on the fly' and 'created' a 5th option that is in no way supported by either the written rules or precedent.

One of the real ironies here is that the very people who were the most vocal about wanting the championship (lower case on purpose) to end in a sporting manner (the FIA) were the very people who interfered the most with the outcome by making politically motivated decisions that directly affected the championship outcome.

 

Paul i see your little logo next to your name gone, you no longer a mod?


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Fair summary… to be fair I’m not calling for the guy to be fired… I mean who knows: maybe he is getting death threats, maybe he has severe panic attacks going out now, he might have a family or something and at the end it’s just a sport of guys living in their own bubble in Monaco [emoji1169] so whoever wins it’s all good, it’s a pretty secluded selfish sport just like golf is.


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And it wasn’t so these last year and most of this year while HAM was winning?

 

I came out of my hole for this one guys. The irony of this all was unbelievable, and supported with good arguments coming from both sides. Masi made a call, one of many he had at his disposal, any and all would have been well-supported. This was such a unique set of situations that it was almost rhetorical, no right answer but any answer was ok. Frankly I was low key hoping Max would pull a Senna and torpedo Lewis on lap 1 to just get it over with and not have to deal with the political garbage that was down absolutely going to happen. I am just glad this season and WDC did not end under a safety car.

 

Spot on! When the discussion is about the referee of a basketball game, you have a problem. The same is true here...too many times have the words 'Masi' and 'inconsistent' and 'wtf' been bundled together this season. The drivers had become more and more vocal of the confusion he's creating as the season progressed.

 

Do yourself a favor and watch a great race again.

As Brundle said, the best finale to the best season in 25 years.

 

If Max didnt make the pass on new tires

Oh my the asterisk is so powerful.

 

Ya know if Max couldnt get the pass done or crashed you Lulites would be covered in vaseline right now in ecstacy. Lapped cars passed, track went green, lulu couldnt get it done. OVER

 

The record books will always show Max as the winner. And through no fault of his, or Lewis, there will always be a footnote. People still talk of Prost, Senna, Schumaker - this has already been added to the list. Many F1 championships have associated footnotes. I don't care which team/driver you follow, there is no way of avoiding ugly with this one - same issue would result if Lewis won under same circumstances.

 

No footnote, no asterisk. He won fair and square.

Every championship has its good luck/bad luck stories and so does this one.

HAM has had the great luck of being in the most dominant car in history for 8 years and we don’t see any footnotes about that. Except on here

 

Masi screwed the pooch. I am glad next year, there will no longer be contact between the teams and the race director. However, if he wants to stay in this position, he has to grow a set of balls. He waffles back and forth like a jellyfish, and capitulates to the whim of the team bosses. The optics are bad, like he is on the take.

 

Let’s revisit this in 10 years and see if nothing is mentioned.
The next championship Max wins will likely be prefaced “no question about this one”. There’s no avoiding the circumstances- it’s already a part of F1 history.

 

The only one who attempted to constrain and manipulate the race is Toto.
He's an unprofessional, slimy, hypocritical buffoon who came more prepared to litigate than race.

MB lost the race fair and square - Raced cynically, overly cautions, lethargic, entitled, relying on their "magic engine" and Toto's lobbying / coercing.

RB won the race fair and square - Raced positively, focused, determined, hard working, superb team work, didn't let the wrong call on lap 1 derail their race.

There is no perfect officiating. Wrong calls are NOT manipulation. One has to win in spite of everything.

 

Watch up to lap 57. Those were not "manipulated".

 

I’ve been saying that all year and been ridiculed. Hell even during this very race I said so, at the start and after the race finished one of my first comments was that Masi should resign in shame!

 

There’s no way back for Masi. He can’t handle the pressure. He’s influenced by team managers. His on the fly rule changes are not fair to all. He has lost the confidence of the grid and fans.

F1 will lose money because of this. I expect some sponsors to threaten to pull out. I also expect that behind the scenes Merc will be expecting a massive pay off in order to drop this case.

What a monumental shambles.

 

They should get the fiaWec race director.

Masi has long been incompetent. Many max fans have been saying it. What I find particularly hilarious is Lewis fans only finding out on the last lap of a 22 race season. No sympathy from me.

 

The Masi "controversy" is being used to attack Max's WDC. That's how they get neutral parties on board. They just want a "fair" system.
The BBC already brought out "equitable" in their articles questioning the result.

BBC, LH et al: This is being manipulated, man. It's systemic.

Rule 1: Accuse the other party of the things you're doing. Toto was manipulating the race throughout. Been doing it all season.

If MB want to discuss the system, they should do it without any strings attached.
Not use the "Masi controversy" and the "system" to discredit Max's WDC.

Masi did the right thing and said the best thing: It's called a motor race.

Racing won. Corruption lost.

 

I got a feeling this wont, i feel the ICA will over turn the result and finish it under the safety car as per the regualtions for which they must apply at all times just like the Race director is required to follow them at all times.

The fall out for failing to follow its own rules could be the end of F1 as sponsorships pull out for not wanting to be associated with a company lacking integrity and most importantly the sporting integrity of all the racing series that follow those exact sporting regualtions from f1 all the way down to Karting and touring. then you have the claims from merc, losing out on potential sponsors and so on and so on could end up with the FIA having to pay out hundreds of millions it wont be able to afford as its reputation plumets and sponsors and broadcasters start pulling out hosting the SHOW ( I wont say sport because as it stands the f1 championship has no sporting integrity thus its no longer a sport ) ........ wonder how my consumer rights are protected by being miss sold a show under the impression its a sport???

 

Exactly.

The only reason Lewis was even in contention still was because of idiotic calls made by the stewards and race direction in the first place. But the British media and Lewis fans conveniently forgot about that. They think a championship is only one race long, apparently

 

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