Toto Wolff still finds it hard to understand why Michael Masi chose to bring in the safety car earlier than was allowed during the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. The former Formula 1 race director, who was suspended by the FIA ​​after the incident, decided to adjust the rules a bit to ensure that the great F1 season would end under race conditions.

It looked like the final race of 2021 would end behind the safety car, which would be a shame after the battle between Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton all year. To ensure that the denouement would be a true spectacle, the teams had agreed with each other and the FIA ​​to race as much as possible, although that no longer seemed possible, due to Nicholas Latifi’s crash at the end of the race in Abu Dhabi. But Michael Masi thought differently.

If the teams want to race, they can do so. The race director decided to bring in the safety car earlier and to start earlier than usual. This gave Max Verstappen the chance to overtake Lewis Hamilton on the last lap of the race and win the championship. And that still causes frustration for Mercedes boss Toto Wolff.

Wolff is disappointed for Hamilton

The Austrian still believes that Lewis Hamilton was robbed of his eighth title by Michael Masi and the FIA. In Wolff’s eyes, his driver – who is no longer the driver he was in 2021 – was unlucky that Masi himself made a decision that caused him a lot of pain. Wolff compares it to a number of dictators worldwide, who in his eyes are even worse than Masi and the FIA, but who also cause destruction and suffering.

“One individual was able to take away the best driver in the world’s eighth championship with a wrong decision… There are dictators all over the world and crazy politicians who cause so much pain. They are things that are absolutely not comparable to losing Lewis’ eighth title and it is not like it is always in our minds and makes us suffer, because even Lewis was fine again after a few days. But that episode still stays with us because of the injustice that happened ,” Wolff begins in the High Performance Podcast .

“I definitely think about it every week, especially because I think Lewis deserved to be the greatest of all time with eight titles. And you can discuss that year for a long time. I think Max and Lewis would have been deserving champions, but that day in Abu Dhabi was unfair.”