Wolff acknowledges own role in FIA report: 'That put extra pressure on Masi'
F1 News
- GPblog.com
On Saturday, the FIA announced the report that F1 teams and F1 fans had been waiting on for months. The report contains the investigation results of the closing stages of the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. In the final phase, Nicholas Latifi went wrong, causing a safety car to ensure that Max Verstappen could win the world title. This was at the expense of Lewis Hamilton, to the frustration of Mercedes.
Pretty soon after the race, the FIA announced that they were going to conduct extensive investigations into all the events, and last Saturday all the investigation findings were put online for the public. These state that it was "human error" that led to not all cars overtaking the safety car, but that the result is final.
Wolff sees additional pressure on Masi in Abu Dhabi
Toto Wolff is pleased that the FIA has made the report public and now sees the 2021 season as a closed chapter, he explained to Sky Sports. "Decisions by race control can always cause controversy, and I believe that will always be the case."
There was also a role for Wolff in the report.
It described how he and Christian Horner created additional pressure by frequently speaking out on Masi's radio. Wolff thinks it's a good decision that team principles can't now reach out to the race management any more.
"We wanted to provide a good show by broadcasting it, but the team principles started to talk a bit more and that was more pressure," Wolff acknowledges.