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Wolff told Masi "don't be arrogant" during the 2021 season
Toto Wolff has admitted that he still thinks about the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix "every week". Nearly three years on from the controversial race that saw Max Verstappen win his first drivers' championship and Lewis Hamilton agonizingly miss out on his eighth and record-breaking title, it's something that still plays on his mind as the 2024 season reaches its conclusion.
Of course, the 2021 season finale in the desert of Abu Dhabi will always be one of the most talked about races. It looked like Hamilton and Mercedes would be earning yet another world championship together, but after Nicolas Latifi's crash brought out the safety car, it turned the race on its head.
The then-race director Michael Masi then made the decision to un-lap all the cars in between Hamilton and Verstappen and none others, controversially meaning there would be one lap remaining to fight for the world title. Verstappen, who pitted onto fresher tires, was able to easily pass, sealing his maiden world title to the despair and anger of Hamilton, Wolff, and all of Mercedes.
Wolff talks about the "moment every week" where he thinks about Abu Dhabi
A heartbreaking moment like that is not easy to forget, and for Wolff, it is a moment that still sticks with him, despite the need to forget quickly in the world of Formula 1 . Speaking on the High Performance podcast , the Austrian boss explained why that moment still plays on his mind: "Every week. 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."
Wolff was then asked how he felt as soon as the checkered flag fell on the season finale, and the CEO continued by saying: "Angry. Not anything like depressed or sad, just angry. Angry that an individual was able to take an 8th championship away from the best driver in the world by a bad decision."
Looking back at his feelings after the race, Wolff said he was angry: "Not like depressed or sad, just angry. Angry that an individual was able to take away an eighth championship from the best driver in the world because of a bad decision. Now you have to put that into context. "
Wolff told Masi to 'not be arrogant' during the 2021 season
After that controversy by Masi and his handling of the race, he was then replaced as race director. But even during the season, Wolff said he always spoke with the Australian and gave him some advice throughout the year: "I really tried to speak to Michael and guide him all along the year. Speak to him and say listen, I've been in the sport for a long time. Listen to the drivers. Don't always be stubborn in your decision-making. 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."
"People, not only me, tried to support in the right way. So sometimes you have to just realize that someone is just doing his own thing or taking his own decisions. So for me, I don't care about it anymore. Now you and I spoke about it. We wasted three minutes of our time, but he has no relevance," Wolff concluded.
This article was created in collaboration with Cas van de Kleut
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