– After the controversial end of the 2021 Formula 1 season, the then race director Michael Masi came under enormous criticism and eventually had to vacate his post. The Australian was repeatedly accused of having acted arbitrarily against the rules at the time, but his successor Niels Wittich stands by him and says: “Michael didn’t do that much wrong.”
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In an exclusive interview on the YouTube channel of Formel1.de, the German speaks about the events of the season finale in Abu Dhabi and refutes the view that Masi should not have brought in the safety car one lap before the end.
Wittich knows that the regulations do not provide for this decision, but Masi had some leeway in his responsibility as race director: “That means he could deploy the safety car as he wanted,” he says.
“As he wanted it, is now too much said,” Wittich adds, but: “There was no 100 percent rule that says it has to be done this way or that, but he then had the freedom to adapt it a bit.”
Masi had decided at the time to remove the lapped cars between leader Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen and to restart the race one lap before the end, even though the regulations would have provided for another lap behind the safety car. With fresh softs, Verstappen was able to overtake Hamilton and become world champion.
Procedure was desired by the teams
According to Wittich, the procedure was in the interest of the teams and had been agreed upon in advance: “The teams and the FIA and also Formula 1, of course, placed great, great importance on every race always finishing under green,” he says. “That means no safety car drives through to the end.”
Abu Dhabi then put Masi in a dilemma: no matter what he had decided, it would have helped one of the two parties and not the other. Masi could also have opted for a red flag for an exciting finale, but “then everyone would have said: ‘Now you only made it red because there were still two laps to go’,” says Wittich.
“And for red, i.e., to interrupt a race, there are provisions in the sporting regulations. That means there must be a danger to life and limb for the officials or the track is blocked. So, in that case, it would be, we keep the show alive,” he says. “So you couldn’t do that.”
“In that respect, he did what he did.”
Masi only let the lapped cars between Hamilton and Verstappen pass and then restarted the race. “That was within his power,” Wittich emphasizes. “He did what virtually everyone wanted.”
There would have been discussions in every direction
The former FIA race director is convinced that the discussions would have gone in the other direction if it had been the other way around. “The fan thinks it’s stupid, one wins, the other doesn’t – but you have this discussion with everything,” he says. “That’s part of the sport.”
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According to Wittich, much of what some voices had suggested afterwards could have been done. “If one had done this, if one had done that, sure, all that could have been done, but that also would not have been consistent with all previous decisions, because it would then have been a decision that only applied to the final.”
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Nevertheless, Masi had to bow to political pressure after the race and was disempowered by the FIA and replaced by a dual leadership of Wittich and Eduardo Freitas, who shared the role of race director.
Before the following season, Wittich then went to the teams to ask them how they wanted it: “‘Should we make it red for every little thing? I don’t care, then we’ll do that, yes?’ And then everyone said, no, we don’t really want that either.”
“And we also said: ‘Do we want to make different rules for the final?’ And then they also said, no, we don’t really want that either,” Wittich recounts.
Wittich laments lack of FIA backing
What bothers him in retrospect is the fact that Masi had no backing from the FIA at the time. “That must be clearly denounced,” he says, “because everyone knew that when things get extreme, no one stands behind you.” For him and his colleagues, that was “very, very sad.”
Wittich emphasizes that this was different during the time of long-serving race director Charlie Whiting, because former FIA president Max Mosley always stood behind him. “If he said all trees are red tomorrow, then that’s how it was,” he says.
And it was precisely this backing that Masi lacked at the time – and Wittich himself also lacked it. “That’s why I’m no longer a race director,” he criticizes the current FIA President Mohammed bin Sulayem, who took over from Jean Todt shortly after the 2021 Abu Dhabi final.
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“Whatever happened, why he showed me the door: There was no neutral conversation or backing for his employees.”
