“He went through a lot”: FIA President Mohammed Bin Sulayem reveals Michael Masi got fired to remove pressure on him

FIA President Mohammed Bin Sulayem dismissed Michael Masi from the race director duty to help remove ‘the pressure  from his shoulders.’

Masi acted in good faith with the decisions made at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. However, the president felt changes are important to avoid further ‘human error’.

Speaking about this, Bin Sulayem said: “To take the pressure and the stress from him. He went through a lot, and we are grateful for the three years that he invested with us and he put his time in.”

Is Michael Masi still in the plans?

FIA President Ben Sulayem informed the media that the team is still negotiating with Masi as he is a key figure in motorsport.

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“Now we are negotiating with him, of course, to stay in the FIA. He is an important figure to us. So our people are negotiating, I would say, not a job, but another place for him within the FIA.” he said.

“Now we want to move on, we have finished with the race analysis, now we have a new race in Bahrain, the beginning of the 2022 [season], with all the new cars, all the excitement. We should enjoy it, leave that behind us and make sure we have a good new year,” he added.

Structural change due to human fatigue

FIA has changed the structure by appointing two new race directors along with a sporting director. Virtual race control is now in order.

The FIA president did explain the changes stating: “Formula 1 is such a hi-tech and dynamic sport that we cannot run race control like we used to. A race control director cannot be just one director. That’s the reason we brought some of our stuff back like Herbie, for example, to support the race director.”

BREAKING: The FIA have confirmed that ‘human error’ was a factor in the 2021 Abu Dhabi GP title controversy, but say race director Michael Masi acted in ‘good faith’ and that the results from the race and championship are ‘valid’. pic.twitter.com/g945keMliC

— Sky Sports News (@SkySportsNews) March 19, 2022

He further added, “On top of that, we also have to do rotations, not just one. Because if you talk about 23 races, human fatigue is there, you’re talking about travels, so that cannot be so. This is also a solution.”

What’s that? It look like a theatre? – Mohammed Bin Sulayem

Speaking about how virtual race control room was implemented, Bin Sulayem said: “The idea came to me in January when I made a visit to some of the Formula 1 team and we went to one of the launches.”

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“I said ‘What’s that? It looks like a theatre?’ And they said ”This is actually a race control, but virtual’. I said ‘Why don’t we have one?’ I asked if we had one, and they said no.”

He also informed the media that it has been operational since Friday (practice) stating the below:

Before the start of the #F1 #BahrainGP 🇧🇭, I wish all drivers and teams a great 2022 @FIA @F1 World Championship season! pic.twitter.com/K1NRqp3ySl

— Mohammed Ben Sulayem (@Ben_Sulayem) March 20, 2022

“So we have invested in it and it’s actually working [since Friday]. So we didn’t promise, we are delivering. So they [the VRCR] will have another race control director, officials, they will have the legal department, they will support it.”

“But the virtual race control will not be running the race. The race will be run from the country itself,” he concluded.