Wednesday, January 05, 2022
Marko wants to protect race director
Red Bull consultant calls for the Formula 1 VAR
At the wild season finale of Formula 1, the angry radio traffic from the racing teams crackles down on race director Michael Masi. That should now be the end of it, demands Helmut Marko, motorsport advisor in the Red Bull team. He wants a model from football, and Mercedes is also calling for changes.
Helmut Marko, motorsport advisor in the Red Bull team of Formula 1 world champion Max Verstappen (Netherlands), calls for radio communications between the team bosses and race management to be restricted during a Grand Prix. Instead, the Austrian has a similar model to that in football. “There is video analysis, for example,” said the Austrian in an interview with Servus-TV.
In this video analysis, only one person in charge is in contact with the referee, and Markos thinks that this should also be the case in Formula 1 in the future. Race director Michael Masi must be able to decide with a clear head and without influencing what is not possible when the team bosses talk to him all the time: “They talk all the time. That needs to be shielded.”
Mercedes motorsport boss Toto Wolff had already suggested something similar shortly before Christmas at a press conference. “We were given the opportunity to speak directly to the race director. And because we fought so hard for the interests of our teams, we all went too far,” said Wolff. He has to touch his own nose, “but so does Christian Horner (Red Bull team boss, editor).”
At the heated season finale in Abu Dhabi in December, when Verstappen snatched victory and the world championship title from the leading Mercedes star Lewis Hamilton (Great Britain) after a much discussed decision by the race management in the last lap, Wolff and Horner had almost non-stop persuaded Masi.
According to Wolff, direct contact with the race management should in future be reserved for the teams’ sporting directors: “They should point out situations in the race that the race manager may not have discovered, but they shouldn’t influence or exert pressure.”