Ted Kravitz: “Michael Masi cost Lewis Hamilton the championship”

Masi’s official departure was announced just under two weeks ago after the FIA announced that he would be leaving the sport's governing body to be “closer to his family and take on new challenges”.

The news came seven months after the controversial ending to the 2021 F1 campaign.

Masi was dropped as race director for this season after his poor handling of the 2021 title decider.

The Australian failed to apply the FIA’s sporting regulations correctly, failing to allow all lapped cars to overtake the Safety Car.

As a result, this handed Verstappen a clear run at Hamilton on the final lap to overtake him and thus secure the title in dramatic circumstances.

The events were investigated by the FIA and the findings led to his removal.

Speaking at the end of his qualifying notebook, Kravitz spoke about Masi’s departure and how he cost Lewis Hamilton an eighth world title.

“Am I hanging onto Abu Dhabi? Well Lewis is, Toto is, the injustice of Abu Dhabi, heaven knows a lot of other people are and I think it’s important that we close the book,” Kravitz said.

“Is Michael Masi… so this week, between here and Austria we had the closing of the door, the closing of the chapter of the race director Michael Masi who didn’t interpret his own rules the way that they were written and that cost Lewis Hamilton the eighth title, gave it to Max Verstappen. 

“The last we heard the FIA were discussing with Michael Masi about some other role within the FIA he might do and then we’ve heard nothing for ages, and now just between Austria and here we hear that Michael Masi has left the FIA and has gone back to Australia. Has there been some sort of agreement, has there been some sort of settlement has there been a legal case? 

“We don’t know. Why has Michael Masi left at all when all the FIA would say about Abu Dhabi there was some human error but essentially everything was handled as it could have been, maybe not should have been, could have been. We’ve spoken about the FIA can’t say anything more because of the legitimacy of the world championsip. 

“Anyway, it’s not Mercedes’ problem, they closed the door they say on Abu Dhabi earlier on in January when Michael Masi was effectively not going to be race director anymore. The fact that it’s now official between Masi and the FIA is nothing to do with Mercedes but I think the rest of us… can we some now have some closure? Open question. Can we now have some closure on Abu Dhabi that Michael Masi is nothing to do with F1 anymore, potentially ever and is gone with our best wishes as a human being, of course, back to Australia to live with his family. Maybe we can.”