FIA Thread

[101FlyingDutchman]

Honestly what DID you expect? This was the predicted outcome as soon as the “investigation” was announced!

[silver]

On the back of their findings, it makes absolute sense that FIA should bring Masi back. If it was just a human error and there were other factors contributed to it, then it's only logical. Hope FIA recognizes it and now acts in "good faith".

[chrisc90]

Still got the same amount of pressure on the RD that the report details. Why isnt there a panel or a guy heads looking after different parts of the procedures in place. marshalls, flags, lapped car numbers, safety car, team radio etc. If they can share that workload between 2-3 people instead of 1 it would reduce the work load on the sole RD

[diffuser]

So FIA are still pretending, in Para 32, that it was to finish under green. What a dishonest disgrace. It was always going to finish under green, that was WHY Michael Masi was not going to unlap the lapped cars.

And why do they have to lie like this? Because they, or their partners F1, told MM to do the partial unlapping.

Lie? just cause you don't like what they say, doesn't make them liers.

They said Masi based on the regulations had to do another lap of safety car.
They also said that Masi not allowing all the cars to unlap themselves was human error.
No requirement by the rules to finish under green.

Teams makes decisions based on what are the expected interpretation of the rules. They know how many laps it takes to clean up an accident. So teams make pitting choices based on that.

[diffuser]

Still got the same amount of pressure on the RD that the report details. Why isnt there a panel or a guy heads looking after different parts of the procedures in place. marshalls, flags, lapped car numbers, safety car, team radio etc. If they can share that workload between 2-3 people instead of 1 it would reduce the work load on the sole RD

I would say 3, you don't want a tied vote.

[diffuser]

Honestly what DID you expect? This was the predicted outcome as soon as the “investigation” was announced!

It was the predicted outcome from the moment it happend. it was wrong.

[maxxer]

So after the FIA investigated th FIA, the FIA found that the FIA did nothing wrong.

However, the FIA did find that the big bad team bosses made the FIA make a mistake, so here's what the FIA is doing to protect the FIA from this in future and make the FIAs job easier for the FIA to do.

We hope the FIA well now feel better about Abu Dhabi and that the FIA will be able to do the FIAs job much better.

Fiafiafiafiafia

What is weird for me is that on one hand viewers dont like the micro management of drivers which was banned for awhile
But the FIA is actually doing the same with all their messages.If you switch the radio off the other cars would have seen on the safety car allowed to over take and go.

[Wouter]

The craziest thing about the FIA report summary on Abu Dhabi is this:
- Masi acted in good faith
- The rules weren't clear enough
- He had too many tasks as a race director
- And he had too many nagging team bosses on his mind.
- He had to deal with procedures that could be interpreted in different ways.

It's only logical that you send him away...

[SchuMassa]

The craziest thing about the FIA report summary on Abu Dhabi is this:
- Masi acted in good faith
- The rules weren't clear enough
- He had too many tasks as a race director
- And he had too many nagging team bosses on his mind.
- He had to deal with procedures that could be interpreted in different ways.

It's only logical that you send him away...

Guess why Mercedes did not push this issue further and dropped the protest...

[chrisc90]

Still got the same amount of pressure on the RD that the report details. Why isnt there a panel or a guy heads looking after different parts of the procedures in place. marshalls, flags, lapped car numbers, safety car, team radio etc. If they can share that workload between 2-3 people instead of 1 it would reduce the work load on the sole RD

I would say 3, you don't want a tied vote.

The vote is for the stewards, surely?

The RD is in charge of the protocols I mentioned above. If assistant director 1 said that the accident was clear and all vehicles off track, they can relay that to the main guy who doesnt have to 'monitor' the marshalls and vehicles on track. If assistant direct 2 said all laps cars had joined the lead lap, after working it out whos where etc, together with monitoring something else, team radio, or whatever, can tell the main RD that those procedures are fulfilled.

That way, the main RD only needs the 'green light' or 'yeh, my roles are looked after/implemented' from the other guys looking after those before getting everyone racing again.

That way you end up with say a 60-20-20% split in responsibility across the RD team. Reducing workload and being able to better manage the situations.

[AeroDynamic]

So, The championship was decided by pressuring and lobbying the race director into human-error? nothing new.
FIA marking their own homework, you can't expect much more.

Either they are giving the stewards a pass for backing the human-error or taking the 'different interpretation' that Masi took, or they imply that somebody (Masi?) lobbied the stewards position to follow Masi's interpretation?

[izzy]

So FIA are still pretending, in Para 32, that it was to finish under green. What a dishonest disgrace. It was always going to finish under green, that was WHY Michael Masi was not going to unlap the lapped cars.

And why do they have to lie like this? Because they, or their partners F1, told MM to do the partial unlapping.

Lie? just cause you don't like what they say, doesn't make them liers.

They said Masi based on the regulations had to do another lap of safety car.
They also said that Masi not allowing all the cars to unlap themselves was human error.
No requirement by the rules to finish under green.

Teams makes decisions based on what are the expected interpretation of the rules. They know how many laps it takes to clean up an accident. So teams make pitting choices based on that.

You haven't honestly addressed the point, I can't help noticing. Explain what finishing under green has to do with it

[LHamilton]

To me it's quite obvious what happend. The owners and the people in power wanted Lewis and Max on the same piece of race track as often as they could've been, to give both drivers the most "fair" chance to fight for the title. Whether the drama of having both drivers close to eachother played a part, only those people would know. I would guess, with the rise of DTS, the answer to that is, yes.

So on one hand, we would have Lewis and Max close to eachother (with no drivers inbetween them most perferably) to give them the best chance to fight on track. And as a biproduct of that, it would increase the excitement/drama of the sport.

Obviously, that's not how racing necessarily goes. And the season proved that. Many times (even before Abu Dhabi) there were many decisions (or indecisions) made that led to competitive integrity taking a backseat for the sake of entertainment. I feel like the 2021 season was not the only time it has happend, but it was amplified due to the nature of the competitiveness of both Lewis and Max.

So as a result, the decisions made in Abu Dhabi were made due to the reasons described above. Hamilton were seemingly roaring away to another title (I'd argue with some luck due to how many points Verstappen dropped to DNFs.), but with Latifis crash there was another chance to get Max and Lewis as close as possible. Why didn't they red flag it? I don't know. My first thought when I saw the crash was that it probably would be a red flag. Masi probably contemplated both alternative, but when you're in the middle of trying to please both the owners (in terms of the entertainment aspect) and on the other, the racing, integrity aspect, you find yourself having a difficult decision to make. It probably wasn't helped that he had RB and Mercedes in his ear trying to make the decision.

Do I think there is some human error in there? Yes. Do I think Masi was totally at fault or spottless in his decision-making? No. I don't think that Masi was totally at fault for the decisions, but I also think he did some wierd decisions in his spell as Race Director. However, I do think he was used as a scape-goat for the situation. To show that the sport had done "something". Because the Abu Dhabi left a lot of people with sour taste in their mouth.

Am I happy Masi is gone? Not necessarily. Am I sad? Not really. I'm sad that he was used as a scape-goat. But as I said, there were SOME wierd decisions in there. Do I think the changes fixes things? Not necessarily. Especially if the owners are continueing going down the route of entertainment before integrity. Let's see this season if we get similar competitiveness in the Championship.

[chrisc90]

So FIA are still pretending, in Para 32, that it was to finish under green. What a dishonest disgrace. It was always going to finish under green, that was WHY Michael Masi was not going to unlap the lapped cars.

And why do they have to lie like this? Because they, or their partners F1, told MM to do the partial unlapping.

Lie? just cause you don't like what they say, doesn't make them liers.

They said Masi based on the regulations had to do another lap of safety car.
They also said that Masi not allowing all the cars to unlap themselves was human error.
No requirement by the rules to finish under green.

Teams makes decisions based on what are the expected interpretation of the rules. They know how many laps it takes to clean up an accident. So teams make pitting choices based on that.

You haven't honestly addressed the point, I can't help noticing. Explain what finishing under green has to do with it

It was in all teams best interest to finish under green flag. Paragraph 32. Desirable to finish under a green flag/racing conditions if safety allowed. Was it safe to race? Yes. Was it the desired ending for all teams to finish under a green flag? Yes.

[NathanOlder]

So the championship was decided by human error from the referee, the ref was sacked and we move on. I guess thats the Fia saying the wrong guy won the race that day and we took the necessary measures.