FIA confirm Michael Masi removed as race director

[Mr Jack]

FIA confirm Masi removed as Race Director, new Virtual refereeing room:

Eduardo Freitas and Niels Wittich will alternate as Race Directors. Masi will move to a new position.

 

[Mr Jack]

Firstly, Niels Wittich was in charge of the absolute **** show at the last round of DTM, so that really doesn't bode too well.

None of that was down to Wittich, though, and the idea that the RD should be responsible for that rather that for fairly applying the rules is the problem with Masi.

Secondly, having two separate race directors is just asking for inconsistency between races.

The RD shouldn't be doing that much that makes things consistent or not and the new virtual group should more than make up for it. Meanwhile, splitting the role should make it more manageable which will help with the level of stress that I think led to Masi's blunder.

 

[Mr Jack]

Removing the ability for team personnel to call up the race director would be better for that...

Well, they're also doing that. But the Race Directory has a lot of other work outside of the race weekend. Masi, for example, had to visit each of the new tracks before the race weekend and had the same crazy, bloated, continent hopping schedule as the teams to work all that around. The new approach allows better balancing of their workloads.

 

[Mr Jack]

He fixed the Race and broke the Rules, this was for all to see and only idiots think otherwise..

Masi f'd up no doubt, and I fully welcome his removal. However, I don't believe he was trying to fix the race result. He just didn't want to finish under yellows and chose to bin the rule book to achieve that.

 

[Mr Jack]

Also new rules on safety car use, and regarding the unlapping of cars under safety car, are coming out soon.

I don't think the old rules were the problem (the problem is that Masi ignored them) but I do hope they change to making lapped cars drop to the back and crediting them a lap.

 

[Mr Jack]

If they didn’t want to strip Max after the fact, I’d have been happy if they’d reviewed the race and simply struck the result from the record. This is the next best result imo.

Generally in sport, mistakes by referees are not litigable after the fact. A football team doesn't get a do-over because the ref fluffed a penalty decision, etc. Even in F1 penalties applied during the race can't be litigated after the fact (only time penalties applied to the final result). If they admitted fault but left the result as it, I'd also be okay with that.

 

[Mr Jack]

Masi didn't just fudge the last race, he fudged loads of decisions that went in Max's favour.

Most of these decisions weren't Masi's to make; they were made by the Stewards.

 

[Mr Jack]

It doesn't matter, the agreement was in place and clearly Masi only attempted to keep to that. I think it was a wonderful end to the season as Max deservedly, as it would have been if Lewis had, won the WC.

There was never an agreement for Masi to break the rules. Don't be soft. Overall, I think Max did enough to be a worthy winner, and he didn't nothing wrong in racing to the opportunities granted him. I don't begrudge him his championship.

What is badly wrong though is the amount of vitiol withIn this forum and elsewhere towards the poor man, who was only doing the job the FIA set him up to do and had done a good one throughout his time as race director. He was the only individual, who when selected, had the credentials and experience to replace Charlie.

I agree the level of vitriol has been unacceptable. Not so much here, but definitely elsewhere. That seems, unfortunately, to be the new normal and I don't know what is to be done about it. That said, criticising high profile individuals who fail in their roles is legitimate. And Masi did, and has. I don't agree he's been a good race director through his time, I think he's been pretty poor. The track limits farce and several dubious safety call being the most obvious. Abu Dhabi was were he stepped from doing poorly to making an unforgivable mistake.

One wonders, if it had been the other way around, would there be the the amount of rubbish and wrongful and outrageous attacks upon this man as there is now.
I very much doubt it and I feel for Masi...

You think Max fans would be less vitriolic? You're having a bath, mate.

 

[Mr Jack]

Max would have got past them pretty quickly and would have set off after Lewis with about half a lap to go. I don't know whether he'd have got past or not but either way, I'd have been satisfied with the result because it would have been consistent with the rules.

I'm not sure it would have been, but it wouldn't have been completely ad-libbing some rules for the lols in such an unbalanced and unfair way. I'd have been okay with it, I think.

 

[Mr Jack]

I wonder what his new position is....

In some ways the obvious move would be for him to take over the role of one of the people who is replacing him, but I doubt the FIA will want to as straightforwardly demote him.

 

[Mr Jack]

I think people have blown a dodgy decision up so much in their own heads, and have turn Masi in to such a villain that they've lost the plot a bit...

Hanlon's razor applies: "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by incompetence". Masi isn't a bad guy, he was just out of his depth and made a bad mistake at a key point. I agree with his removal but I don't wish him ill.

 

[Mr Jack]

I'd also put money on F1 management telling him that they can't end under safety car. Say what you will about how things ended, it was huge for F1 publicity vs the alternative.

It's public knowledge that they'd all discussed and agreed the desire to finish under green flag racing. However, I don't think anyone expected Masi to interpret that in such an extreme way.

I know they say any publicity is good publicity, but in this case, I don't think that has played out that way. It was a shocking way to end one of the biggest sporting competitions in the world, after such a closely fought season.

Not only that, but they'd done things like making it free-to-view on Channel 4 bringing in many more viewers than for most races. A lot of people were watching and they very publicly embarrassed themselves. I'm sure it went down well in Holland though.

 

[Mr Jack]

So what's the problem? There's no reason to make it easier for the chasing car. If P1 had to lap the cars then so should PW etc. It just seems additional faffery to get them to unlap themselves.

Imagine you're 2s behind the car in front, you've been lapped, they haven't. SC happens, now you're an entire lap behind and have zero chance of catching up whilst they're right up there with the car in front. It's not fair.

I maintain they should drop the lapped cars to the back instead of making them pass, and credit them a lap.

 

[Mr Jack]

Biggest problem with that is that you're crediting a car for a lap that it didn't have to drive around. So how does that square with the rules on reliability of parts, race distances completed and so on?

Doesn't seem like a problem worth worrying about to me. Safety cars already impact all of those things.

 

[Mr Jack]

What is the difference between letting them pass, or dropping them back?

The difference is that dropping them to the back takes much less time, and doesn't require any additional laps of safety car to achieve.

 

[Mr Jack]

Sorry I don't understand your example. How would you not be lapped yourself if you're 2s behind the car in front?

Gah, sorry, obviously I mean "you've been lapped, they haven't". I've corrected the post.

 

[Mr Jack]

As for human error, they've adapted to that in the past.

Off the top of my head... When a celebrity waved the chequered flag a lap early, they actually took lap the flag was flown as the last lap and not the actual last lap. So no process to change? Really?

But... that's the opposite of adapting to human error. The flag defines the end of the race (article 59 of the Sporting Regs now, article 43 at the time).

I dunno, seems to me what they did is pretty much how it goes in sport: see England getting an extra over due to a scoring error in the cricket, or when we didn't get a replay when Madonna's "Hand of God" came to light, or countless other mistakes in football, rugby and the like. Even in F1, there's no right of appeal for a penalty applied during the race yet it's acknowledged that the stewards don't always get it right.

Masi eff'd it up. His error put a massive cloud over the end of an otherwise outstanding season. He paid with his job, and F1 has introduced various measures to ensure it doesn't happen again. This was as much as could be hoped for, realistically.

Time to move on, as much as it irks.

 

[Mr Jack]

Even if for a fleeting moment he went slightly in front it isn't an overtake as he quickly allowed Lewis back in front. Under the safety car conditions this will happen but as long as the place is given back then zero rules are broken. You try driving right behind a car that constantly accelerating and braking at nearly 100mph whilst maintaining a close distance and see what happens.

Max drove much closer to Lewis than I've seen other drivers do, presumably because they know they're not allowed to pass. Actually, I can't think of another example other than when Seb drove into Lewis (twice) and got a little tap on the wrist for it.

You should accept that the stewards would have looked at it and decided no offence took place.

Yeah, like F1's stewards are totally consistent, reliable, trustworthy, and have no conflicts of interest.

 

[Mr Jack]

I think Max is overly aggressive on safety car restarts. I always thought drivers were supposed to line up behind each other, not get as far alongside as they possibly can. He did it again last weekend to Charles.

3 weekends running now. But since the Stewards gave it official approval at AD, why would he not?

 

[Mr Jack]

Masi has now officially left the FIA to "...relocate to Australia to be closer to his family and take on new challenges.”

I was unimpressed by his time in F1, but I don't think he was in any way a bad person just poorly supported and not up to the task he was given. I wish him well in his future.