FIA completes investigation
Controversial F1 final down to ‘human error’
03/19/2022, 3:55 p.m
After the controversial Formula 1 finale in Abu Dhabi, the world motorsport association FIA is now publishing the results of its investigation. The rule guards attest to the then race director Michael Masi to have acted “to the best of their knowledge”. But Masi has to bear the consequences beforehand.
Three months after the controversial Formula 1 season finale in Abu Dhabi, the world automobile association FIA presented the results of its investigation into the incidents. Just before the first race of the new year in Bahrain (Sunday 4 p.m./Sky and in the live ticker on ntv.de), the FIA largely acquitted its then race director Michael Masi of any guilt, but criticized the circumstances.
Masi “acted with good intentions and to the best of his knowledge”, especially against the background of the “difficult situation” in which the time for decisions was extremely limited and “immense pressure was exerted by the teams”.
After an accident, Masi had called the safety car off the track faster than usual, and he had only allowed the lapped cars to return to their positions between Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) and Max Verstappen (Red Bull). So Verstappen had exactly one lap to attack Hamilton, which he used and won the title. A “human error meant that not all wagons were allowed to round themselves back”.
Masi no longer race director
With a view to the safety car, however, the sporting regulations offered room for interpretation, in which Masi moved. In addition, in the run-up to the event, everyone involved repeatedly expressed the wish not to end a race behind the safety car.
The most important conclusions from the season finale had already been drawn. Masi is no longer race director, Niels Wittich from Germany and Eduardo Freitas from Portugal now take turns. In addition, the race director should have to carry out significantly fewer tasks at the same time in the future. Direct communication between teams and the race director will also be severely restricted.
When dealing with lapped cars, software will also be used in the future, the report said. This is to rule out human error. In any case, a crucial word had already been changed in the regulations: From now on, “all” cars (“all cars”) that have been lapped should return to their positions before the restart, previously it was clearly “any cars”.
A kind of video assistant will now also support from Geneva. This center has a purely advisory function for the race director, it will not interrupt or delay his work. The data set is said to be comparable to that of more than ten football games running simultaneously, “including more than 140 video and audio sources”.