Wolff slams Masi as ‘lunatic’ who ‘destroyed' Hamilton’s record

As Hamilton found himself cruising to a dominant victory suddenly Nicholas Latifi found the wall on the exit of Turn 14.

This triggered a late race safety car, and the exit of Marshals onto the track to recover the stricken Williams car and clean the bits and pieces left on the tarmac by the accident and get the track cleared to go racing again. However, their efforts would never be quick enough to allow the race to be resumed.

After the debris from the accident had been cleared the regulations called for all cars to unlap themselves, and for one more lap to be run behind the safety car to allow the backmarkers to rejoin the back of the cue.

The only problem was that there were only two laps left before the chequered flag dropped, and as the regulations stood at the time, the race should’ve finished under safety car conditions, meaning Hamilton, not Verstappen, should’ve won the race, yielding an all-time record 8th world championship for the British driver, making him the man of the hour in Yas Marina that night.

The man responsible for maintaining the integrity of the regulations, then Race Director Michael Masi, decided to expedite the backmarkers unlapping themselves by only allowing the cars splitting Hamilton in P1 and Verstappen in P2, to overtake the field and resume their place at the back of the order.

Safety car procedures were also sped up to allow a last lap shootout to determine the 2021 world champion, and Verstappen, the one driver who doesn’t need to be asked twice to capitalise on a race-winning opportunity overtook Hamilton at Turn 5 in front of the roaring crowd and took the chequered flag in P1 and thus his maiden F1 title.

Speaking to the The Telegraph, Wolff once again holds Masi accountable for the events that took place that night: “I have not experienced the loss of control of a situation since I was a child,” he said.

“There is one lunatic who can basically destroy the record of the greatest champion of all time.” An FIA investigation was launched into the circumstances and the way everything played out that night and although the findings admitted a “human error” had indeed been made by going against the regulations as they’d been laid out, it ultimately determined that the now ousted Australian had acted in good faith.

Wolff’s wife, Susie, current managing director of the F1 Academy, also admitted to have been distraught by the turn of events in Abu Dhabi in 2021, saying to the British newspaper: “It was disbelief. That one person’s decision to interpret the rules, in a way that they had never been interpreted before, could have caused such an outcome. It sat so heavily with me, for a long time afterwards.”

Since then Mercedes has been unable to poise itself as a title contender following the introduction of complex ground-effect regulations in 2022, interrupting what had been a stellar streak of 8 Constructors titles and 7 Drivers’ crowns, leaving the German squad to fight for runner up prizes and the odd win here and there, which Wolff admits has taken a toll on him.

“Somebody else is collecting the trophies at the end of the season, and that hurts,” he concluded.

Currently the governing body is involved in several legal disputes. Mrs. Wolff sued the FIA for defamation over the 48-hours long investigation the Federation launched on her and her husband on the grounds of an alleged conflict of interest.

The FIA have also been summoned to the French High Courts, after presidential hopeful Laura Villars won an emergency hearing to raise her complaints regarding the quirk in the electoral proceeding rules that rendered hers, as well as opposing candidates Tim Mayer's and Virginie Philipott's bids, to run against incumbent President Mohammed Ben Sulayem null.

The governing body is also facing off against ex-F1 driver Felipe Massa's claims he was the rightful champion of the 2008 Formula One season due to an alleged coverup of the crashgate incident during the Singapore Grand Prix that year.

Had the race results been dismissed on account of the race having been rigged, as he believes they should've been, he, not Hamilton, would've been crowned champion that year in his homeland, Brazil.

The former F1 driver, does not seek the title, but a large sum of money - $85 million dollars - for damages resulting from his defeat.

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