Formula 1: There’s a new most hated figure in motorsport

If he wasn’t already, Michael Masi has to be the single most hated figure in the world of motorsport, specifically Formula 1, after Sunday.

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen won the first Formula 1 world championship of his career on Sunday at Yas Marina Circuit by leading only the 58th and final lap of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

During a one-lap shootout prompted by a controversial safety car period, he passed Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton in turn five of the 16-turn, 3.281-mile (5.280-kilometer) road course on Yas Island in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

But it is how Verstappen was set up to do so that is the talk of the Formula 1 world.

We’ve all seen races end after late restarts due to unexpected caution flag periods. Massive leads have evaporated and drivers who weren’t the best throughout the entire race end up taking the checkered flag ahead of more “deserving” drivers. It’s happened in Formula 1, it’s happened in IndyCar, it’s happened in NASCAR, etc. That’s racing.

However, the controversial confusion and changing of minds/decisions that led to Hamilton restarting ahead of Verstappen with one lap to go, nobody in between, and the latter on far newer tires is going to be talked and argued about for decades.

And taking the brunt of that criticism for that controversy is race director Michael Masi.

After Verstappen had made a pit stop for new soft tires during the safety car period for the Nicholas Latifi crash, Hamilton was told on the radio that the lapped cars would be allowed to pass the safety car. But he was told that the time it took to do so could very well lead to the race — and the world championship battle — ending behind the safety car.

It was then announced that, in order to get the race restarted, those cars would not actually be allowed to pass the safety car. So even with Verstappen on new tires, he would have had to pass five lap cars, plus Hamilton, in the matter of one lap to win the title.

Hamilton basically needed to run a decent lap to win the title.

But with two laps remaining, it was announced that this had changed; those five cars would pass the safety car, and the safety car would be in at the end of the lap, leading to a restart with one lap remaining with Verstappen behind only Hamilton.

It didn’t take Verstappen long to pass Hamilton, though Hamilton was able to mount two serious challenges later in the lap that ultimately came up shy.

Hamilton led 51 laps. Verstappen led one.

Mercedes filed two protests about the finish, but both were thrown out by the FIA. They have since lodged their intent to appeal.

As that controversial sequence was unfolding, Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff was on the radio with Masi.

“Michael, this isn’t right. Michael…”

During the final lap, he continued.

“No, Michael, no! No, Michael! That was so not right!”

Hamilton himself spoke to race engineer Peter Bonnington during the lap.

“Yeah, this is getting manipulated, man!” he said.

Bonnington responded.

“I’m just speechless Lewis…absolutely speechless.”

After Verstappen won the race, holding off Hamilton by 2.256 seconds, Wolff was back in touch with Masi.

“You need to reinstate the lap before,” he said. “That’s not right.”

Masi responded with what ultimately amount to a “sit down and shut up”-type remark.

“Toto, it’s called a motor race, okay? We went car racing.”

Plenty of fans have been calling for changes to the FIA all year. Mercedes and Red Bull alike were quite miffed at how the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix was handled the prior week, and for multiple reasons.

And Masi has become a master at, for lack of a better word, trolling both Wolff and Red Bull team principal Christian Horner with one-liners all year.

He doesn’t check his e-mails during races, remember?

So this sort of arrogant attitude wasn’t anything new, and given the position he has regularly been in with these two over the last eight and a half months, it’s not hard to see why.

As for what’s “right” and what’s “wrong”, there’s a reason I’m putting those words in quotations. What I do know is that if Team A had been Team B and Team B had been Team A, both sides would be taking 180-degree turns on their opinions. There are too many examples from this past season to choose from to prove that point.

Based on late tire strategy, we very well could have seen this 1-2 scenario flipped, too — and with the same level of controversy.

The recurring problem that I see among fans is that the FIA is only “unfair” when the decisions go against their driver; that’s the only time you ever hear cries for “consistency”. When Hamilton is penalized, it’s “FIABull”. When Verstappen is penalized, it’s “maFIA”. When Ferrari is involved, it’s “Ferrari International Assistance”.

For the rest of us, well, literally last week we tried to warn you that inconsistency in past rulings could lead to something like this.

We tried to warn you that the stewards had too much power.

We tried to warn you that swapping Team A and Team B would result in that kind of a difference in opinions.

“Right” or “wrong”, a controversial ending to one of the greatest seasons in Formula 1 history isn’t what we wanted to see.

A last-lap past for the championship is almost what you’d expect to end this epic season, and leading up to it, we all wanted to see the title decided on the track.

But because of how that battle was set up, Masi has effectively become public enemy number one.

Nothing will ever take away that moment for Verstappen, nor should it. But the controversy surrounding what led up to it is what everybody is talking about. And that does neither one of the two drivers, two of the greatest drivers in the history of Formula 1, who were involved in this year’s titanic battle any bit of justice.