The great Mario Andretti has backed under-fire FIA race director Michael Masi for his decision to not red flag the race after Nicholas Latifi crashed five laps before the end of the race. Andretti revealed that he would've made the very same call as the Australian whose job is now on the line with complaints from the Mercedes F1 team, Lewis Hamilton's silence, and absence from social media since the race and furor in the British media.
Masi made the unusual call to allow the cars between Hamilton and Verstappen to unlap themselves and brought the safety car back in immediately to ensure that there was one lap of racing. But Verstappen had pitted in the safety car period for fresh tyres while Hamilton who till that point had comfortably led the race was on worn hard tyres. With Verstappen on fresh rubber right behind Hamilton, the Dutchman took a dramatic win by overtaking the 7-time world champion on the last lap to win his maiden world title.
Max Verstappen was set to lose the race and title, till the safety car turned the tide for the dutchman
Hamilton said on the radio that the situation had been manipulated and apart from a short post-race interview in parc ferme, he didn't appear in the post-race press conference nor did he show up for the F1 season-ending gala which was mandatory. Many believed Masi had robbed Hamilton of a record-breaking 8th worth title which would've meant that the Briton went past Michael Schumacher's record which was set in 2004.
"I would have done exactly the same thing. It's as simple as that. Okay, there's been a lot of talk that the race should have been red-flagged. Well, you know what? This accident happened with six laps to go. Under normal circumstances, the track should have been cleared in two laps easily, and then you allow the backmarkers to unlap themselves. But unfortunately, in Formula 1 you have to depend on locals to do the safety work and they were very slow in cleaning up the situation," he said in an interview with Planet F1.
What many haven't realised is that when Masi decided to call the safety car he assumed that car would be cleared quickly, but then it caught fire which complicated his situation as he didn't want the titanic duel between Hamilton and Verstappen to be decided behind the safety car.
"This is one time when I really think Michael Masi did the right decision to just allow the lapped cars to unlap themselves that were in front of the top five competitors and then to make sure the race was finished under the green, because this was the most anticipated race of the season from a beautiful season and for that race to end behind the Safety Car would have been a tragedy in my opinion, and this way created the excitement. It was racing and it was fair. You can never predict what will happen during a race. Nobody knew Latifi was going to crash, it's that simple and so you have to be ready for those eventualities and sometimes you act properly, sometimes you wish you had done things differently. But that's nothing different to what has happened in the sport before, you know - you can debate this until the cows come home," said the former world champion.
"It's fair, Max Verstappen earned what he got!"Where Max did the overtake on the last lap, Lewis left the door right open. I think he could have protected that, but he underestimated how close Max was, quite honestly, in his mirrors, so Lewis can't complain and everything happened the right way, in my opinion, considering the circumstances," he added.
The Mercedes boss, Toto Wolff, had hinted that Lewis Hamilton may not return to F1 after being disillusioned by what happened in Abu Dhabi, but recent signs suggest that he will indeed be back. But it seems Michael Masi will likely lose his job as FIA race director.
