Masi Leaves FIA

Wombat

Learner
Good riddance to the person who is responsible for the most despicable episode in F1’s history and the greatest blight on the sport’s integrity. The person whose disgraceful, illicit manipulations of the FIA sporting regulations (which he was obligated to uphold) resulted in the stealing not just of a race win but also of a historical record 8th WDC for Hamilton. But I also hold the FIA fully responsible for this great injustice. It essentially lent credence to Masi’s absurd rationale for his bogus manipulations of the sporting regs. by not calling them out and not using its authority to set things right by officially restoring the race win and WDC to the rightful winner (Hamilton). And this, despite its tacit admission (through its firing of Masi from his position as race director) that what Masi did was wrong. Masi didn’t have carte blanche authority to make up and change the sporting rules and procedures as he pleased. His decision making authority as head race official was limited to choosing his decisions only from among the options that are specifically stated within the sporting regs. (for example, whether to employ a virtual safety car or a full safety car, or whether or not to allow the lapped cars to unlap themselves during a full safety car period) and following the procedures as written. Again, he had no authority to change the FIA sporting regs. and procedures and make up his own. In fact, as head race director it was his job to ensure that the proper procedures (as stated in the FIA sporting regs.) were followed. He had no more authority to manipulate and change the safety car regs. than he had to suddenly just decide to start the race in reverse grid order (and he certainly would never have been allowed to do the latter!). It was such a farce for the FIA to even remotely entertain the notion that there was any validity in what Masi did!
 
Masi didn’t have carte blanche authority to make up and change the sporting rules and procedures as he pleased.
I couldn’t help but notice that the safety car procedures in the recent races in Canada and GB were conducted legally and properly, exactly as written in the FIA sporting regs. All of the lapped cars (not just the ones that were between the 1st and 2nd placed cars) were allowed to unlap themselves, and the field remained under safety car conditions until the lap after the last of the lapped cars passed the leader during the ulapping process. This is how that bogus safety car period in Abu Dhabi was legally supposed to have been run. The above examples just further confirm how the safety car procedures were illicitly violated. They unequivocally demonstrate that by the FIA sporting regs., the ADGP should legally have ended under safety car conditions and Hamilton thus was the actual winner (and deservedly so, given that he dominated the race and the illicit manipulations were the sole reason that the win was stolen from him). This incident will continue to be a disgraceful, scandalous stain on F1. A hundred years from now the fact that Lewis was the actual winner will still be clearly evident to anyone who watches a recording of that race. I hope that at some future time the FIA will develop a backbone and a genuine sense of justice and will overturn that bogus result and restore the win and WDC to Hamilton, the true, legal winner.
 
I think I mentioned eslewhere, I would like to see laps lost behind the safety car made up at the end of the race. Formula E has a calculation to add time on. If the races loses 10 laps behind the safety car, run at 50% of race pace, then an extra 5 laps should be run.

As for Masi, ta ta. No loss. The question should be how he got the job, and why he was allowed to keep it after the nonsense of Belgium.
 
Wombat this is a well trodden road & like senna/prost, Schumacher/hill & Schumacher/Villeneuve. it will be discussed & debated for decades to come
ive said this on the many threads. i still have a sadness about Micheal Masi & Abu Dhabi, i think that you cant pin the blame on masi, because ironically the only person that can be 100% absolved of any blame is max verstappen as the madness happened all round him.

yes masi cocked up big time it shouldve have either finished under safety car or been red flagged for a green restart. but the teams cant unanimously agree on the friday, that the race should try its hardest & do everything it can to finish under green then complain when what was agreed happened. lets also not underestimate the pressure masi wouldve been under. the eyes of the sporting world were on F1 in a way it hasnt been since 1990

the Pitwalls who should be ashamed of themselves showed exactly what F1 true colours are. their 1st thought was :censored: what good for the sport & the fans. not masi got enough on his plate with 5 laps to go with latifi in the wall & trying to restart the race. no im going to badger him on the radio, & try to manipulate him. but that F1 all over, if anything it was indy 2005 dejavu, the selfish stances are what disgust me far more than anything. i keep thinking would red bull & mercedes pitwall interrupt Charlie Whiting in similar circumstances had he still been alive, & the answer is unequivocally & obviously no, & for all the mistakes he made which made his job untenable. he was chewed up & spat out by the piranha club

even if its 0.1% like hungary 2021 & britian 2022 with leclerc, why did hamilton not pit, he was a sitting duck. on finished tyres & gave red bull an open goal to pit
 
It was obvious why Hamilton didn't pit, his position on the track at the time of the safety car would have given track position to Verstappen and in a one lap sprint there was no way he could have overtaken him on equal tyres, it was only last year, do people forget so quickly or is it a convenient lapse in the Masi argument.
 
i agree masi had to leave & he did many terrible decisions. but strongly disagree that masi has take 100% & others were blameless in the situation. that clearly rubbish

as it stood Hamilton stood no chance of keeping him behind, having done 40 laps on a set of hards. he was a sitting ducks & this is no different to why sainz beat leclerc in Britain 2022, Riccardo won china 2018 going from 5th to 1st & other multiple races when pitting for new tyres have got wins & podiums from nowhere. attack is always the best form of defence. but mercedes have always been risk averse. Hungary 2021 everyone pitted they didnt. cost them a win there.

it puts red bull on the back foot. it might have been the same outcome. but he vastly bigger chance with new soft tyres. compared to 25 lap mediums & a slipstream. it couldve been victort
 
Masi did not stand firm when it mattered but really this all built up from strange decisions by the stewards leading to the last round . The number of incidents involving Verstappen getting away in Brazil and Jeddah was where Red Bull knew they could twist his arm.


The only justice would be if Verstappen never wins another world title which he will no doubt unless Ferrari and Mercedes start being consistently faster so he has 4 cars to deal with.
 
@Wombat this is a well trodden road & like senna/prost, Schumacher/hill & Schumacher/Villeneuve. it will be discussed & debated for decades to come
ive said this on the many threads. i still have a sadness about Micheal Masi & Abu Dhabi, i think that you cant pin the blame on masi
I respectfully disagree with the points you make here. The examples you note are completely different in nature from the Masi episode. Those examples are of actual racing incidents that occurred between the drivers during the heat of battle. The salient point here is that, though there may be controversy over the subsequent rulings, those episodes were based on actual racing incidents; they were not directly created by or set up by race officials. In contrast, the Masi episode was directly created by the F1 management itself (through its head race official by illicitly changing the rules)—in other words, not by the competitors but by those who were in charge of running the event (and thus spawning the conspiracy theories that the result was fixed by F1). There is no debate here. It’s a fact that Masi illicitly manipulated and changed the safety car procedures and that this is what robbed Lewis of the race win and gifted the win and WDC to Max. I have no sympathy for Masi. Claims that poor Mikie should be absolved of blame because he was pressured and bullied are absurd. He’s an adult, not an impressionable 5 yr. old child. The FIA hired (and paid) him to be the head race official and thus placed him in charge of the races. Therefore, it was his job to take firm charge of that race. Accordingly, he should have told the competitors who were pressuring him to f*** off and just attend to running their teams, and that he was in charge and it was his job to run the race in strict accordance with the FIA sporting regs. Instead, he wimped-out, wilted to the pressure from RB and illicitly changed the very rules that he was hired to enforce. If he didn’t have the gumption to withstand the pressures then he shouldn’t have accepted the job (to which he proved to be so ill-suited). (And as I noted above, I also hold the FIA accountable.)

Also, the talk regarding the magnitude of the pressure to not end the race behind the safety car is so overblown. F1 races had ended behind the safety car before. This isn’t illegal and in fact, the FIA sporting regs. directly address this situation in Section 48.15. In addition, recall that neither Masi nor the FIA had any qualms about ending the Belgian GP farce behind the safety car (or even the fact that every lap of that farce was run behind the safety car). The reality is that there wouldn’t have been any controversy if the race had ended behind the safety car (as it should have) and the season would have just ended normally. Every knowledgeable F1 fan knew that immediately before Latifi’s crash (with a mere 5 laps remaining) Lewis had the race in the bag. The general sentiment would have been: “Well, we would rather have seen the race end under green conditions but Lewis had the race in the bag at that point so the deserving driver won.” And that would have been it. Instead, strictly for show, Masi illicitly changed the safety car procedures in order to run a bogus final green lap. By doing so, he cost F1 dearly by perpetrating the greatest stain in F1’s history, inflicting grave damage to the sport’s integrity and causing it to lose many fans that it otherwise wouldn’t have lost.
 
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Wombat That was well put a I guess we are only missing the Red Bull part...not that I condone it but has anyone been to Milton Keynes and labelled them phoney world champions since they love to brag about it all over town.

Masi really shot himself with the decision making in the races before..yes he was put in a position because Jean Todt did not want to manage but having made the decision to hold formation and invent a new rule. It is actually a PR disaster that the race director can invent rules at a whim
 
has anyone been to Milton Keynes and labelled them phoney world champions since they love to brag about it all over town
i would, but the road is closed from my side and i dont want to drive the extra distance with fuel prices as they are. If they drop, ill think about it
 
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gordon ramsay cooking GIF by Fox TV
 
just when you think the man cant get worse, the :censored: cheek of the man. how dare he, you deliberate run someone over with your car & then go visit them in hospital to see how there feeling. & hope masi told him that ":censored: off, if you & cronies had kept your gob shut maybe none this wouldve happened"

because yes for all masi faults. he was still trying to juggle 101 things. as well knowing there is 5 laps to go, trying to please critics & not make it anti climax, as the sporting world are watching this, in the biggest Race has seen since 2008 Brazilian gp? (viewing figures quintupled in uk as it was i believe the 2nd most watched F1 race ever in the UK with the former getting 9m?)
 
just when you think the man cant get worse, the :censored: cheek of the man. how dare he, you deliberate run someone over with your car & then go visit them in hospital to see how there feeling. & hope masi told him that ":censored: off, if you & cronies had kept your gob shut maybe none this wouldve happened"

because yes for all masi faults. he was still trying to juggle 101 things. as well knowing there is 5 laps to go, trying to please critics & not make it anti climax, as the sporting world are watching this, in the biggest Race has seen since 2008 Brazilian gp? (viewing figures quintupled in uk as it was i believe the 2nd most watched F1 race ever in the UK with the former getting 9m?)
How much was the backhanded compliment I mean bribery
 
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There is an unfair point of criticism regarding this sordid episode that hasn’t really been sufficiently addressed by the media. There are various pundits who have soundly criticized Merc, stating that they had made a terrible and incorrect strategy call by not pitting Lewis when the safety car was deployed (there are even Max fans and Hamilton haters who refuse to acknowledge the reality that Max’s win and title were gifted to him by Masi and the FIA and instead place full blame on Lewis’ loss on Merc for not pitting him). Merc certainly have made some horrible strategy calls but in this case their decision not to pit Lewis was correct. At the time of the Latifi crash/safety car call Lewis had a whopping 12 sec. lead. However, this wasn’t quite enough of a lead to allow him to be able to pit without then relinquishing the lead to Max. Merc knew that if they pitted Lewis, RB would keep Max out to assume the lead and therefore would just be handing the win to Max if the race finished behind the safety car. Merc was then left with making the critical assessment of whether or not the track crew would be able to clear up Latifi’s crash within the remaining 4-5 laps. The team calculated that Latifi’s mess wouldn’t be cleared up in time for a restart and that the race would end under safety car conditions and thus left Lewis out on track. And this was the correct call because by the official FIA sporting regs. regarding safety car procedures the race should indeed have ended under safety car conditions with Lewis as the winner. This is a fact, not an opinion. So, Merc deserves a break this time as their decision not to pit Lewis was the correct call. The team had no way of knowing that Masi would illicitly change the safety car procedures and despicably fabricate his own in order to bring the safety car in one lap too soon (i.e., one lap before the safety car period should legally have ended).
 
There is an unfair point of criticism regarding this sordid episode that hasn’t really been sufficiently addressed by the media. There are various pundits who have soundly criticized Merc, stating that they had made a terrible and incorrect strategy call by not pitting Lewis when the safety car was deployed (there are even Max fans and Hamilton haters who refuse to acknowledge the reality that Max’s win and title were gifted to him by Masi and the FIA and instead place full blame on Lewis’ loss on Merc for not pitting him). Merc certainly have made some horrible strategy calls but in this case their decision not to pit Lewis was correct. At the time of the Latifi crash/safety car call Lewis had a whopping 12 sec. lead. However, this wasn’t quite enough of a lead to allow him to be able to pit without then relinquishing the lead to Max. Merc knew that if they pitted Lewis, RB would keep Max out to assume the lead and therefore would just be handing the win to Max if the race finished behind the safety car. Merc was then left with making the critical assessment of whether or not the track crew would be able to clear up Latifi’s crash within the remaining 4-5 laps. The team calculated that Latifi’s mess wouldn’t be cleared up in time for a restart and that the race would end under safety car conditions and thus left Lewis out on track. And this was the correct call because by the official FIA sporting regs. regarding safety car procedures the race should indeed have ended under safety car conditions with Lewis as the winner. This is a fact, not an opinion. So, Merc deserves a break this time as their decision not to pit Lewis was the correct call. The team had no way of knowing that Masi would illicitly change the safety car procedures and despicably fabricate his own in order to bring the safety car in one lap too soon (i.e., one lap before the safety car period should legally have ended).
Tell that the idiotic so called fan who lives in denial that Red Bull would have not pitted Verstappen as a gamble then and made sure he had track position..... Masi did not do his job properly so are Red Bull and Mercedes going to challenge the decision? All Red Bull have been doing us coming out that Masi was under a lot of pressure to do the right thing...except he just repeated what the Red Bull guy said to him to Toto. Not only that but Red Bull's two championship have ? all over them... the day they get trounced again we can all say amen to that. Mercedes will come back and their challenge will be stronger than Ferrari's
 
There is an unfair point of criticism regarding this sordid episode that hasn’t really been sufficiently addressed by the media. There are various pundits who have soundly criticized Merc, stating that they had made a terrible and incorrect strategy call by not pitting Lewis when the safety car was deployed (there are even Max fans and Hamilton haters who refuse to acknowledge the reality that Max’s win and title were gifted to him by Masi and the FIA and instead place full blame on Lewis’ loss on Merc for not pitting him). Merc certainly have made some horrible strategy calls but in this case their decision not to pit Lewis was correct. At the time of the Latifi crash/safety car call Lewis had a whopping 12 sec. lead. However, this wasn’t quite enough of a lead to allow him to be able to pit without then relinquishing the lead to Max. Merc knew that if they pitted Lewis, RB would keep Max out to assume the lead and therefore would just be handing the win to Max if the race finished behind the safety car. Merc was then left with making the critical assessment of whether or not the track crew would be able to clear up Latifi’s crash within the remaining 4-5 laps. The team calculated that Latifi’s mess wouldn’t be cleared up in time for a restart and that the race would end under safety car conditions and thus left Lewis out on track. And this was the correct call because by the official FIA sporting regs. regarding safety car procedures the race should indeed have ended under safety car conditions with Lewis as the winner. This is a fact, not an opinion. So, Merc deserves a break this time as their decision not to pit Lewis was the correct call. The team had no way of knowing that Masi would illicitly change the safety car procedures and despicably fabricate his own in order to bring the safety car in one lap too soon (i.e., one lap before the safety car period should legally have ended).
i still believe thought that lewis hamilton was sitting duck on his 40 lap old tyres & mayve lost even under legal conditions. because as they say attack is best form of defence. in my opinion lewis would have had better chance in 2nd on new softs & forcing verstappen to keep going on the old tyres

& always thought under safety car conditions he couldve even made it. that gap is 11-12seconds in qualifying so under a delta time. he couldve got that pitstop in
temp 2.jpg
 
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