The call Masi should have made to ensure the 2021 finale had the integrity F1 deserved

Let's get this clear immediately: Max Verstappen is a worthy and excellent 2021 Formula 1 world champion and congratulations to him and his Red Bull team for the season they produced together. His is a supreme talent that deserves titles.

He crossed the line into unacceptable driving at times with some of his moves against Lewis Hamilton this year, but that doesn’t take away from his speed and determination, which deserved to be rewarded with a championship.

But the way in which the last laps of Abu Dhabi finale played was wrong in basically every sense. Not that that means Verstappen or Red Bull deserve to lose the title or race win as a consequence – they did nothing wrong.

Taking the laps limit out of consideration, race director Michael Masi should have ordered all lapped cars to overtake the safety car – as is usually the case. There’s ambiguity in the words “any cars” in Article 48.12 of F1’s sporting rules concerning this practice, but just removing the cars between Hamilton and Verstappen in the queue was uncomfortably against what has come before.

But it is the rest of Article 48.12 where there is much more of any issue, as it states “once the last lapped car has passed the leader the safety car will return to the pits at the end of the following lap” and therefore indicates the race should have finished under the safety car – with the laps remaining now back in as a factor because the order for unlapped cars to come through was only issued on the penultimate lap.

It’s no wonder Hamilton called it real time: “This has been manipulated.”

Nicholas Latifi, Williams FW43B

Photo by: Erik Junius

But there was a way to have avoided this utter shambles, one which has rightly stained F1’s reputation in the eyes of many. Masi simply could have red-flagged the race in the aftermath of Nicholas Latifi’s crash.

It would have truncated proceedings, sure, and extended the TV time-run (surely no bad thing for broadcasters or F1’s owner in such circumstances), but it would’ve given Mercedes the chance to match Red Bull’s tyre strategy, removed the lapped cars and given F1 fans one final showdown between the contenders.

And it would have been fair to both parties. This considering that Hamilton had the race won once it became clear Verstappen’s earlier fortune to pit under the virtual safety car wasn’t paying off with his newer hards, and had worked to get by the backmarkers already. Plus Red Bull had put him in a position where he couldn’t pit and safely retain track position under the safety car in large part thanks to Sergio Perez’s thrilling (and sportingly fair) earlier defence.

But there was a way to have avoided this utter shambles, one which has rightly stained F1’s reputation in the eyes of many

There may even have been important grounds to stop the race anyway considering the debris field around the Williams at Turn 14 at Yas Marina, where Kimi Raikkonen crashed hard in FP2 – the tight, unforgiving left now much faster after the track’s reprofiling works. Barriers always need assessing and debris can easily lead to punctures – and is suspected of causing Lando Norris’s late-race-wrecking tyre damage.

Such a move would've satisfied Article 50.1 of the sporting regs, which explains in what circumstances a red flag is needed, but only if done immediately when Latifi crashed and accompanied by a full explanation from race control. The team/Masi radio messages broadcast this year are helpful in terms of transparency, but full justifications are vital.

With both Hamilton and Verstappen lining up for another standing start on the softs – that rule, introduced for 2018, looking ever-more a part of F1’s ‘Netflix-effect’ new soul – it would have removed the safety car rules farce and given both a fair crack at winning. My money would’ve been on Verstappen.

The risk of a collision many had rightly feared pre-race would've been higher, as Verstappen was still ahead on count back, had the race’s fastest lap point sealed during his pace on new hards post-VSC. But it would've allowed Hamilton an actual chance to defend with the same rubber and he may well have been more aggressive in defence too. He couldn’t have afforded not to be.

Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes W12, Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB16B, Sergio Perez, Red Bull Racing RB16B, Lando Norris, McLaren MCL35M, the rest of the field at the start

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

The 2021 season has not been a good year for the FIA in sporting terms. It has done brilliantly to get in another campaign, this time a full one, during the pandemic, but some calls have been utterly bizarre.

The Interlagos non-call led to the Jeddah debacle. But as F1 gets further removed from those disgraceful events in Saudi Arabia, it’s clear that Verstappen was 'playing to the whistle' there. He was racing as he understood it to be because of the FIA’s dithering. But it was never on and such an understanding should never have been allowed to be there in there first place by the governing body.

There is a pervading sense that things have just been made up as situations arise and that F1’s extensive sporting rulebook is now pretty pointless if one regulation can apparently supersede another and the race director can overrule rules if he deems it necessary – which were the key justifications for Mercedes’ second protest over the safety car debacle being thrown out.

F1’s rules simply do not seem equipped to cover what happened last Sunday and that isn’t a good thing.

Drivers are confused. So are fans and that has contributed to the horrendous toxicity that has surrounded this amazing campaign. And it’s pretty significant that even Red Bull thinks “the whole system needs to be rethought” for “consistency”, per its motorsport advisor, Helmut Marko.

At the time of writing, Mercedes is still considering the merits of a full appeal over the decisions to dismiss its race protest. There isn’t any substance to the accusation Verstappen overtook under the safety car, but there is a real problem in how the lapped cars were allowed to overtake and how the FIA essentially cleared Masi’s call afterwards.

The next stage for this saga would be for an FIA International Court of Appeal hearing, but it could yet go beyond that to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. That would be massive.

Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB16B, Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes W12

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

“There was a challenge to the FIA, which was resolved very quickly,” says Duncan Bagshaw, partner at the law firm Howard Kennedy and an international arbitration and litigation expert.

“The FIA, marking its own homework, perhaps unsurprisingly said that they stood by the decision of the race director. Mercedes do have a case and I think it is quite likely they will take it to a court of arbitration because so much turns on the outcome of these races they may feel they really have no choice. This decision was by the race director himself applying a rule under the regulations which is, I would say, very clear and quite explicit about what has to happen in this situation.

“Everybody wanted to see that race finish in racing conditions but the rule makes it very clear that any cars that have been lapped by the leader have to be allowed to pass the leading cars and the safety car before the race is restarted and he did not allow that to happen.

Verstappen doesn't deserve to lose the title in such circumstances and Hamilton doesn’t deserve to win in in a manner unbefitting a racer

“It’s very important for Mercedes to give the message that racing is the most important thing to this sport and that they respect the outcome of the race on the track but they must also accept the fact that commercially this is a sport that revolves around money. They have obligations to Lewis Hamilton, their team, their sponsors and many other people, it may be not so much they want to challenge this decision, that they want this season to be decided before a committee of arbitrators but simply that they don’t have any choice.”

Masi can't call a late-race red flag now. Perhaps he'll never call another F1 race given the current fiasco will be a key point to address for the soon-to-be-elected new FIA president.

But if the saga continues and does go as far as CAS, it isn’t a given that Mercedes’ appeal would be unsuccessful. Verstappen doesn't deserve to lose the title in such circumstances and Hamilton doesn’t deserve to win in in a manner unbefitting a racer.

It doesn’t suit F1's traditional fair play racing philosophies either, although motorsport has a long history of legal spats, and has been less about that since the days of Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher. But it'll make a great episode of Drive to Survive and herein lies the real problem.

The contentious events of Brazil and Abu Dhabi this year suggest F1 has fully embraced sacrificing sporting integrity for the for the sake of an entertainment product that certainly sells.

But sport, even when not providing the highest of thrills on occasion, is entertainment enough. Enhanced, not hurt, but being properly maintained and adjudicated for the clear understanding of all.

Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes, 2nd position, congratulates Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing, 1st position, in Parc Ferme

Photo by: Steve Etherington / Motorsport Images