Formula 1: 3 ridiculous lies to shoot down before 2022
By Asher Fair
Formula 1 lies: No. 3 – Michael Masi deserved to be fired
Obviously, this one is somewhat “beating a dead horse”, considering the fact that Michael Masi is no longer the race director for the 2022 season. Niels Wittich and Eduardo Freitas are set to act alternatively as race director, assisted by Herbie Blash as permanent senior advisor.
But he probably didn’t deserve to be sacked.
Yes, Masi is the man who ultimately made the controversial decision, but that very statement was only possible because of the fact that he was set up to fail.
On 22 occasions throughout a span of eight and a half months, he had to deal with constant radio messages of teams whining and complaining and making requests and playing the victim card — and for 300 kilometers at a time.
It’s so easy to conveniently pick out five minutes on a Sunday afternoon and say that somebody “cracked under pressure” and that somebody else would have done a better job. It’s so easy to focus on those five minutes and ignore the fact that he had just spent a full season trying to please everybody at once even when nobody was ever going to end up being pleased unless they were handed the championship trophy on a silver platter.
For those who think I’m making excuses for him, I absolutely am — under the premise that there can be absolutely no excuses made for the FIA allowing him to be put into that position.
It can’t be pinned on one man moving forward, and after the 2021 season, there needed to be changes to ensure that there is no room for subjective decision making at the top. Fortunately, it appears that those changes have been made. Unfortunately, they came at Masi’s expense.