Martin Brundle shockingly defended Michael Masi, saying that he is doing a thankless job and needs help.
Masi was the ultimate villain of the 2021 season. His team’s verdicts were super inconsistent throughout, but he saved the worst for the last, with the place being the title-deciding season finale in Abu Dhabi.
There, Lewis Hamilton was on course to becoming an eight-time world champion. He was way ahead of Max Verstappen, who wasn’t able to catch him despite having better tyres. However, Masi bent a late Safety Car’s rules, allowing backmarkers to pass and Verstappen to get near Hamilton.
The Dutchman then passed his rival to take the championship on the last lap. The Race Director’s politics had ruined what was an exceptional season. However, Brundle shockingly defended Masi, and called for him to be having some support.
“You have got to make some quick decisions,” he said, as quoted by GP Fans.
“Michael Masi needs… Herbie Blash was Charlie Whiting’s right-hand man. Michael Masi needs some more people around him.
“I think he has got too much on his plate, running around looking at new grands prix, we now have a 23-race season coming up, in 13 weeks we have got 10 next season, he needs some support up there in my view.”
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“The sporting regulations are 99 pages and you need to read every word of those carefully because they all mean something,” he continued his defence of the Australian.
“You will still never come up with a regulation for every potential consequence of circumstance as we saw. You can’t.
“It will always be, in the end, at some point a referee’s decision, a referee’s judgement call. It is the same in football, rugby, cricket is a really good example – somewhere along the line you have a referee who makes a judgement call and you have to give them the ultimate respect,” he concluded.