Former FIA race director Niels Wittich looks back one last time at the most controversial season finale of recent years: the 2021 Abu Dhabi GP. Max Verstappen secured his first world title there, partly due to Michael Masi’s decision not to end the race under a red flag. Masi was dismissed from the FIA after the controversial Grand Prix, according to Wittich, because the governing body needed a scapegoat: ‘He essentially did what everyone had agreed upon: create one last racing lap.’
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Back to 2021: after an exciting season, the title fight between Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton reached its climax during the Abu Dhabi GP. The two drivers traveled to the last race of the season with an exactly equal number of World Championship points, 369.5 points per driver. For a long time during the Grand Prix, it looked like Hamilton would come out on top, until Nicholas Latifi’s crash threw a spanner in the works. Under the subsequent safety car, Verstappen dived into the pit lane for soft tires. Hamilton stayed out.
When Verstappen rejoined the track, five cars – all already lapped by Hamilton and Verstappen – were between the two drivers. Race director Michael Masi decided at that moment to remove these five cars from between the two title contenders. In the very last lap, Verstappen thus overtook Hamilton and became world champion for the first time. Mercedes lodged a protest, and Masi was removed from his position as race director by the FIA after an investigation.
His successor Niels Wittich, who has also since left the FIA, however, does not believe Masi did anything wrong that evening in Abu Dhabi. “The rules did not strictly define everything. What he did was within his authority,” Wittich explains in a recent interview with Formel1.de. “He had a certain degree of discretionary power when deploying the safety car.”
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Choosing between two evils
Masi’s decision to remove the five lapped cars between Hamilton and Verstappen was also, according to Wittich, in accordance with the powers of the then race director. “Then came the issue of the lapped cars. Initially, (Masi, ed.) said that they (Hamilton, ed.) were not allowed to overtake. After that, he allowed it anyway, but he adjusted the usual procedure by not waiting an extra lap. That was within his authority according to the rules at the time. He essentially did what everyone had agreed upon: create one last racing lap. That resulted in a spectacular finish, an overtaking maneuver, a winner, and a runner-up. It could just as easily have gone the other way. That’s just how it is in sports.”
Scapegoat
The course of the final phase of the Abu Dhabi GP caused a lot of commotion and was met with protest from Hamilton’s then-team Mercedes. The FIA conducted an investigation. “And after this investigation, the conclusion was that Michael (Masi, ed.) had to go,” Wittich continues. “They essentially used him as a scapegoat. The FIA’s lack of support for Michael was truly disappointing for many colleagues and for myself.”
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