Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has admitted a mistake was made in the controversial restart of last year’s Formula 1 season finale, at which Max Verstappen won the world championship.
Verstappen overtook title rival Lewis Hamilton to win the race and the world championship after a restart on the final lap. But the outcome of the title fight was plunged into acrimony when it emerged FIA Formula 1 race director Michael Masi had not followed the rules correctly.
Hamilton’s Mercedes team were eventually persuaded not to appeal against the result, which meant the world championship was not decided in a court room. However the FIA agreed to examine the controversial end to the season and, 97 days after the race, issued a report concluding errors had been made in the disputed restart.
In its summary the FIA noted Masi made two mistakes: He “called the safety car back into the pit lane without it having completed an additional lap as required by the Formula 1 Sporting Regulations” and did not allow all of the lapped cars to rejoin the lead lap. Masi was replaced as FIA F1 race director before the new season began.
Horner has previously described the criticism of Masi as a “smokescreen” and accused Mercedes of “a concerted campaign… to discredit our achievement” of taking Verstappen to last year’s championship. However in a new interview he has now admitted Masi did not follow the rules correctly.
“He made one mistake in that he didn’t allow all lapped cars to un-lap themselves,” Horner told The Cambridge Union. “I think there was three cars that were kept at the back of the field and unable to [un-] lap themselves. That was the only mistake that he made.”
Horner did not refer to Masi’s error in ordering the Safety Car into the pits a lap earlier than the rules specified.
“So I thought it was tremendously harsh for him to be hung out to dry, particularly in public, and then the trolling that he got and the abuse that he got online without really support the federation behind him,” Horner continued.
“There was a lot of decisions he made last year that we felt went against us, whether it was yellow flags in qualifying in Qatar or the Silverstone incident with Lewis. But I did feel sorry for him that there should have been more support after that championship because he was in an incredibly difficult position.”
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