Mercedes boss Toto Wolff revealed he still ponders over Lewis Hamilton’s lost Formula 1 title to Max Verstappen in the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix “every week.”
Hamilton and Verstappen, two of the greatest drivers in the sport entered a winner-takes-all grudge match in the final race of the 2021 season.
With a handful of laps to go it looked as if Hamilton would win the race and with it a record eighth title until the Safety Car was called into action in controversial fashion.
Only the lapped cars between Hamilton and Verstappen were waved by the Safety Car, and the additional lap of required running wasn’t completed.
Coupled with a tyre advantage, Verstappen made a last-lap pass to take his first Drivers’ title.
“There’s a moment every week where I think about it, but I mainly think about it because I think Lewis should have deserved to be the greatest of all time with eight World Championship titles – and you can argue all along about that year,” Wolff told the High Performance podcast.
“I think Max and Lewis were deserving champions. There were instances during the year where Max lost some points that he shouldn’t have lost.
“You look at Silverstone today, you look at the crash in Monza both of them had, so both deserving champions. But on that particular afternoon in Abu Dhabi, it was unfair.”
The fallout from Abu Dhabi 2021
Then Race Director Michael Masi lost that position amid his widely debated Safety Car procedure.
Months after the 2021 season finale, the FIA published a report whereby it said “The process of identifying lapped cars has up until now been a manual one and human error led to the fact that not all cars were allowed to unlap themselves.
“The report finds that the race director was acting in good faith and to the best of his knowledge given the difficult circumstances, particularly acknowledging the significant time constraints for decisions to be made and the immense pressure being applied by the teams.
“The results of the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix and the FIA Formula One World Championship are valid, final and cannot now be changed.”
Toto Wolff ‘angry’ Masi cost Hamilton eighth title
Three years on from the race that cost Hamilton a record eighth title, Wolff revealed the overriding emotion he felt as the 2021 season finale concluded.
“[I was] not anything like depressed or sad, just angry,” he said.
“Angry that an individual was able to take an eighth championship away from the best driver in the world by [a] bad decision.
“Lewis, he learned to manage his emotions very strongly. Even Lewis, after a few days, was in an okay space.
“Now, that thing still goes with us and is with us because of the very unfairness that happened on that particular day, but it is not like in our mind all the time and makes us suffer.”
Wolff sought to ‘guide’ Masi throughout 2021
One of the major fallout from the 2021 season finale was the FIA limiting radio communication between team personnel and the race director.
Masi’s decision-making in the final laps at Yas Marina three years ago was impacted by constant lobbying from both Red Bull and Mercedes, which no doubt made his job harder than it needed to be.
Still, Wolff revealed that throughout the year, he was lending advice to Masi in order to help the former Race Director.
“I really tried to speak to Michael and guide him all along the year, and speak to him and say, ‘Listen, I’ve been in this sport for a long time. Listen to the drivers. Don’t always be stubborn in your decision making. Don’t be arrogant.’
“And I tried that for the good of the sport, and obviously also for us as a team, not to be vulnerable to situations that could be totally detrimental.
“So in that sense, this is just, what happened is inexcusable. Now, you could say the empathy should make me realise how he feels.
“I realise how he feels, and I know that’s not good and bad, but he could have thought about it all year long when people, not only me, tried to support in the right way.
“So sometimes you have to just realise that someone is just doing his own thing or taking his own decision. So for me, I don’t care about it anymore.”
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