FIA Decisions regarding 2022 released Feb 14, 2022 Michael Masi will be.....

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Originally Posted by F1nKS

Change the fueling requirement.

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or...we leave things as they are and the race director just follows the rules.
No need to change fuel requirements or add new language or whatever.
Follow the current rules.
There really wasn't a gray area at all. Masi just decided to do his own thing and the cowardly stewards backed him up. Hence creating the sh!tstorm we ended up with.
The fact that he lost his job and it required a whole inquiry as well as making a mockery of the entire season and unfairly benefitting one team, says it all.
When a crime or misdeed is committed, the solutions is not to change the rules so that it normalizes the crime, it is usually to punish the criminal so that it dissuades others from attempting the same malice.
It is also telling that the FIA saw no need to change any of those rules which further proves the damage Masi actually did.

I actually don't like the alternating Race Director. The job is not as complicated as it is now made out to be. inconsistency is going to be an issue. If they wanted to add a second director then there should be 2 at every race along with the support advisor. I guess they will be effectively be 2 at every race. We shall see what happens

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Originally Posted by Bagwan

Adding two laps could have drivers run out of fuel .

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Given that the cars use less fuel under safety car than normal running it shold be easy to come up with a formula like 1 extra lap for every 3 (or 4 or 5 ???) laps under saftey car and not have an issue with cars running out.

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Originally Posted by truefan72

or...we leave things as they are and the race director just follows the rules.
No need to change fuel requirements or add new language or whatever.

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Why would you ever want to finish the race under a safety car?

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Follow the current rules.
There really wasn't a gray area at all

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F1 is constantly changing the rules throughout the season

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Masi just decided to do his own thing and the cowardly stewards backed him up. Hence creating the sh!tstorm we ended up with.

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Rules allow the unlapping. The question is do you have to un-lap all the cars or can you do what Massi did and do a partial. Since they didn't reverse the decision then I guess he can.

It is not a shit storm. Ukraine is a shit storm.

Ultimately it was the right thing to do. If you want to call yourself a race, then you race. If you want to do a Sunday drive there are plenty of opportunities to do that - just not as a professional race car driver. Nobody wants to watch Sunday driving.

Massi's mistake was (1) even taking the calls of the team principals during the race, (2) not unlapping all the cars early in the yellow flag when there was plenty of time. He was going to face criticism one way or the other with Mercedes and Red Bull in his ear.

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I actually don't like the alternating Race Director. The job is not as complicated as it is now made out to be. inconsistency is going to be an issue. If they wanted to add a second director then there should be 2 at every race along with the support advisor. I guess they will be effectively be 2 at every race. We shall see what happens

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I had read that prior to Massi, there was a race director and an assistant. When Massi got elevated from assistant to race director they didn't backfill his position. In a season where there was a lot of action and highly competitive, he was getting overwhelmed which led to inconsistency throughout the season.

Massi wasn't removed from his position just because of the last race. He was removed because of the job he did for the whole season.

I'd much prefer races finish under green as much as possible myself, but not at the expense of over fueling to allow that to happen. Then the lesser teams and maybe even the bigger teams might roll the dice and add the (regular race distance) normal amount of fuel, betting on a SC not happening at race end. But who knows.... that might spice things up a little if we see some teams carry the extra fuel and other teams don't...

If you start playing with fueling requirements and always force the race to end under green with a minimum number of laps racing, you run into a mess. What if two SC periods happen near the race end?.... etc...



As for Masi being removed, anything stated that it proves is simply speculation. We were given no absolute reasons. Only the people that made that call know for sure. It could have been nothing more than knowing leaving him there would create a crap storm of accusations in the future. For all we know he got a giant bonus and a cushy job with no salary cut. People stating that it absolutely proves something are getting like the media.... claims without sources to back them up IMHO.

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Originally Posted by F1nKS

Change the fueling requirement.

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So , how many more laps of fuel would you have them carry , just in case ?

No , I don't think so .
If you relieve the need to take out the lapped drivers , you wouldn't have had the need for more laps at all , and it would be far more fair to those who had done that lapping already .
They already lose whatever distance they had worked to gain from the pack being jammed back together .

Remember , if , on the restart , they had Max still behind the cars Lewis had already gone by , they would still have had to move aside because of blue flags , and Lewis might have had some chance of staying ahead until later in the lap at least .
In that scenario , I still see Max winning it , but at least it would have seemed a little more fair .


I want to add one more thing .
Racing is full of moments that are simultaneously called "lucky" and "totally unfair" .


That race we saw was over when Latifi's incident occurred , had they been consistent with every other situation I recall , having watched for too many years to think about .
I don't particularly like it when a race ends under caution , but it can happen . It's luck , both good and bad , for us , too .
I can handle that disappointment .


In a way , ironically , I'm disappointed that it didn't end in a disappointing finish .

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Originally Posted by Bagwan

So , how many more laps of fuel would you have them carry , just in case ?

No , I don't think so .
If you relieve the need to take out the lapped drivers , you wouldn't have had the need for more laps at all , and it would be far more fair to those who had done that lapping already .
They already lose whatever distance they had worked to gain from the pack being jammed back together .

Remember , if , on the restart , they had Max still behind the cars Lewis had already gone by , they would still have had to move aside because of blue flags , and Lewis might have had some chance of staying ahead until later in the lap at least .
In that scenario , I still see Max winning it , but at least it would have seemed a little more fair .


I want to add one more thing .
Racing is full of moments that are simultaneously called "lucky" and "totally unfair" .


That race we saw was over when Latifi's incident occurred , had they been consistent with every other situation I recall , having watched for too many years to think about .
I don't particularly like it when a race ends under caution , but it can happen . It's luck , both good and bad , for us , too .
I can handle that disappointment .


In a way , ironically , I'm disappointed that it didn't end in a disappointing finish .

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Agreed.
and that is not just because Hamilton lost out.
If it went the other way it would be fair as well.
It is part of racing and hence trying to create a "racing finish" in an artificial and unfair manner was by far a much worse outcome than if they just followed procedures.

The Indy 500 has ended on a safety car a number of times.
So have some of NASCAR's biggest races.
Other significant F1 races ended under safety car procedures, which did not denigrate the quality of the race.
Under normal conditions the lead car was miles ahead anyway so why would a safety car finish have altered the outcome or seemed unfair if the 2nd place car was never catching up anyway under racing conditions.

Trying to change regulations to create a ridiculous 1-2 lap shootout is more farcical to me than a race victory earned by great driving.

Something new and seemingly not like the F1 of old is display and media sessions, being dubbed "show and tell" for the cars. The cars will be put on display for a period of time, and any major changes will be highlighted to some degree by a team member. Though they will likely keep the technical level low, it's going to be a chance for more detailed photos and at least some explanation of what is going on and intended changes.

The race director and a FIA delegate will pick various teams for a more in depth Q&A, being required to provide a more senior technical delegate.

I expect them to dumb it down for the masses, but it could be an interesting part of the weekend.