Toto Wolff has blasted former Formula 1 Race Director Michael Masi for “destroying” Lewis Hamilton’s chance of winning a record eighth World Championship, branding the Australian a “lunatic”.
The events of the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix still live strongly in the memory of many people, and none more so than Mercedes boss Wolff.
Hamilton and Max Verstappen had endured a fraught, contentious and already testy title fight, with Abu Dhabi, the final race of the year, as the title-decider.
After was such a gripping season, the race itself was anti-climactic, with Hamilton taking a comfortable lead and seemingly on course for a record eighth title.
That was until Nicolas Latifi crashed on Lap 53, which brought out the Safety Car, and subsequently, the confusing decision by Masi to let lapped cars overtake, which gave Verstappen – who was on fresh tyres – the chance to take Hamilton, which he duly did when racing began again on the final lap.
Verstappen took the win, and the title, leading to Wolff to furiously tell Masi over a team-to-race control radio that it was “so not right”.
Masi coldly responded to Wolff that “it was a motor race,” but the Australian did not return in the role for next season, after the FIA admitted “human error” led to what infamous moment.
Speaking to The Telegraph, the Austrian appears to still hold a great deal of contempt for Masi, and recalled the harrowing experience of that final lap of the season.
“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.”
Susie Wolff recalls the ‘disbelief’ and ‘upset’ of Masi’s title-swaying decision
Wolff’s wife Susie, who is currently promoting her memoir ‘Driven’, joined him in the interview, and gave her account of the incident.
“It was disbelief,” she said. “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.”
Mrs Wolff is currently on a media tour to publicise the book, and also spoke of what happened on that night, clarifying that she held no grudge against Verstappen.
“I was so upset in Abu Dhabi, and not because Max won. He was a deserving champion. It’s nothing against Max,” she said.
“It was the way it happened. The fact that Lewis was so deserving on that day. He was the better driver. He was winning that race.”
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