Michael Masi has been defended for his botched handling of the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix which led to Max Verstappen snatching the world title from Lewis Hamilton in controversial circumstances.
Masi was the Formula 1 race director in charge of the season finale last December. Verstappen had been leading the championship in the final few weeks of the year, but Hamilton's comeback had brought him back into contention and, leading comfortably with just a handful of laps to go, the Brit's eighth world title looked secure.
But a safety car period, caused by a Nicholas Latifi crash, thrust that into doubt. In his haste to make sure the title was decided under racing conditions, Masi rushed the safety car procedure and so Verstappen, on his fresh soft tyres, had the opportunity to overtake on the final lap – a chance he took.
The fallout was huge, and Masi was later replaced after the FIA admitted that "human error" had played a part in the outcome of the race, and the title race. Hamilton and Mercedes found it difficult to accept, while team boss Toto Wolff made it clear he does not want to hear from the Australian again.
But not everyone affiliated with the Silver Arrows has been so scathing. The team's former technical director Paddy Lowe has plenty of sympathy for Masi, who has since left the FIA to return to Australia.
"I did feel sorry for the race director actually," he told Planet F1. "I think he got the wrong end of that really unfairly to me. There was no right or wrong answer there. He did his job, he was the ref."
Lowe also revealed that, despite his past affiliation with Mercedes, he was "quite happy" to see Verstappen secure his first world title – even though it was at Hamilton's expense. He added: "I love jeopardy in racing, so I like to see different things happening and people struggling through but succeeding.
"It’s been a lot of variety in the [2022] season, I know Max won a lot of races but there has, despite that, been a lot of variety. So I think that's good. Good to see Max secure a championship without any argument – I was quite happy that he won it last year, actually, which is probably controversial, but Formula 1 is a sport of jeopardy. It always has been.
"Nothing’s fair in Formula 1. I've been on the wrong side of fairness many, many times and then [on] the right side of good luck as well. That's the nature, that's the interest, that's the excitement of the sport, actually. It's not a sport where everything should go to plan and always the best person by some analysis should win. That's why we watch and love the sport and there's never a right answer anyway to anything."
