Michael Masi Gets Acquitted for Lewis Hamilton’s Sour 2021 Loss as Blame Shifts on Mercedes

Abu Dhabi 2021 is probably one of the races of lifetimes. Fans got everything – a tie in the lead for the championship, Max Verstappen pole, an early lead taken by Lewis Hamilton, wonderful defensive driving from Sergio Perez, and overall very good racing. The one thing, however, that most fans would remember is the mess the stewards made about the safety car and the last-lap shootout between Verstappen and Hamilton.

Verstappen had the tire advantage, and the rest, as they say, is history. For a long time, a lot of the fans have been calling Hamilton an eight-time world champion, despite the race loss, blaming Michael Masi for his poor interpretation of the rules. According to many, the race should have finished under the safety car, and the last-lap shootout was a farce. However, many pundits have recently blamed Hamilton and Mercedes for the loss.

Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton were at fault for Abu Dhabi 2021

Renowned Italian journalist Leo Turrini recently wrote about the whole 2021 debacle. He shared the same opinion with Bert Mylander, the Safety Car driver in F1 for well over 19 years. According to both of them, Lewis Hamilton should have pitted under the Safety Car for soft tires, and that would have most likely won him the championship!

Turrini wrote in the Italian publication Quotidiano Nazionale, “As [Bert] Mylander of the Safety Car says, if Mercedes had let Hamilton come in to change the tires at Abu Dhabi 2021, well, some frequenters of this pleasant place would not have spent so much time complaining. And Mr. Safety Car is absolutely right, as I have maintained since then: Lewis, who wanted to enter the pits, was screwed over by people who thought they were too powerful.” [Translated by Google]

Turrini shifts the blame away from Michael Masi and instead blames Toto Wolff, Peter Bonnington, and the Mercedes pit wall for the fateful decision. Of course, hindsight is 20/20, as they say. In the heat of the moment, had Hamilton pitted, and Verstappen hadn’t, and the Safety Car went to the very end, the same critics would have crucified Mercedes for pitting the seven-time champion.

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There is no point discussing ifs and or buts two years after the fact. In fact, after Abu Dhabi, the seven-time world champion is yet to get a single win, a strange dry patch for the Briton.

Lewis Hamilton’s dry patch

At this point, it’s like beating a broken bush. Thanks to Red Bull’s dominance, other teams have rarely had a chance to win a race. However, Lewis Hamilton, who had at least one victory next to his name for every season since his debut till ’22, this dry patch is definitely worrying.

Yes the W14 and W13 weren’t the best of the cars that they’ve created. Yes, there were a lot of problems with that car that just made it undrivable. However, they still managed to finish P3 in the constructors’ last year and P2 this year, and only George Russell had a win next to his name last season.

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However, Hamilton hoped that the dry patch would come to an end soon. When he spoke at the awards gala, he was hopeful of the improvements that his team would make over the winter break and that the car would be ready to fight for wins next season.