Autobayng News Team
A former Formula 1 driver who served as an FIA steward in 2021 says former race director Michael Masi “gifted” that year’s world championship to Max Verstappen.
The FIA fired Masi over his mishandling of that year’s season finale in Abu Dhabi. He arranged a rolling restart on the final lap of the race after only allowing some of the lapped drivers to rejoin the lead lap.
Masi’s reorganisation of the field cleared the way for Verstappen to pass Lewis Hamilton on the final lap, winning the race and clinching the championship.
Danny Sullivan was a driver steward in two rounds of the 2021 F1 season, but not the contentious finale. He said Masi’s decision left Hamilton defenceless.
“The stewards never had a call on any of that stuff,” Sullivan told Epartrade. “People were yelling at him that they didn’t want to finish under yellow because it didn’t look good.
“That’s why he waved by five cars, which basically gave Max a shot. Well, under the rules, he’s supposed to wave by all lapped cars. But if they had done that, they wouldn’t have finished the race. They would have had to finish under yellow, because the other lapped cars were back further in the field.
“So he let the five by, and then he put Max right behind Lewis. Max had stopped for tyres – Lewis had not – he’s on qualifying tyres, he’s on reds. Lewis’s tyres had 44 laps on them. There was not a chance in hell that he wasn’t going to pass him at that stage. He [Masi] basically gifted him the world championship on that decision.”
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
The FIA confirmed Masi had made a “human error” when it issued its report into the controversy three months later. It recommended reducing the race director’s workload for future seasons.
Sullivan said the pressures of the championship had taken a toll on Masi, who replaced long-serving race director Charlie Whiting in the role three years earlier.
“To be fair to Michael, he’s 23 [sic] races into the season. These guys are travelling non-stop, they’re being beat up all the time by teams, everybody. There’s all kinds of controversy. A lot of pressure, lateness, last five minutes of basically the season.
“And again, that’s my viewpoint. If you’re a Max fan – and I’m a Max fan, don’t misunderstand me – but if I’m Dutch and I am leaning more towards Max, I would say ‘but that was the call’. And it was, Max didn’t do anything.
“But it was not for me a good call. That’s my opinion and everybody can debate that and we will until we all stop.”
After leaving F1, Masi became a chairman at the Supercars Commission, then moved into a new role at MotorSport New Zealand at the beginning of this year. A 2022 interview revealed he has signed a non-disclosure agreement with the FIA.
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
Sullivan, who started 15 grands prix for Tyrrell in 1983, is not the only former driver to step down from the stewarding role in recent years. Johnny Herbert ended his 15-year participation in the driver stewarding programme last year, claiming some within the sport had lobbied FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem to replace him.
Sullivan described the pressure officials face as “a little toxic.” The 1988 CART IndyCar champion was also unhappy at being forbidden from speaking publicly about the decisions he was involving in.
“It just got [to be] a lot of travel [and] it got a little toxic,” he said. “The stewards [are] under a lot of pressure to make their calls correct and so forth – which you should be doing, but we were scrutinised without being able to respond, and I didn’t think that was really fair.”
He denied ever seeing any indication of bias among his fellow stewards. “I’d like to clarify one thing: there’s [a] driver steward in the room, but there are three other stewards in there as well, so it’s a panel decision. There’s been a couple of cases where I was overruled even though I thought that I was correct, but the other panellists disagreed with all the information that we had.
“And just to prove, the public would probably like to know this, the data that we have is unequivocal. There’s nothing like it. We got everybody’s in-car camera. We’ve got throttle traces, we’ve got brake pressure, we’ve got steering input, we’ve got in-car cameras. In a lot of the cases we interview the drivers, we can if there’s a situation after the event. So it’s very thorough.
“In all the years I did it, 14 years, I never felt any bias from anybody. Nobody was like, ‘well, that’s a buddy of mine, so I’m going to rule in their favour or anything like that’. It was pretty straightforward.”
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
Miss nothing from RaceFans
Get a daily email with all our latest stories – and nothing else. No marketing, no ads. Sign up here:
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
Formula 1
- Verstappen says he would “certainly not” have obeyed orders McLaren gave Piastri
- Ferrari’s F1 livery is ‘not good design’, says Audi’s new title sponsor
- Cadillac reveal ‘Barcelona shakedown livery’ for new team’s first F1 test
- Doohan exits Alpine eight months after being dropped from race team
- Ticktum describes rivals as ‘a*** lickers’ in social media rant over deleted comment
