Formula 1: End of a powerful illusion – Sport

Every magic trick consists of three parts. At the beginning the audience is presented with something mostly ordinary, a scarf, a rabbit, a top hat. The spectators can come onto the stage, touch everything, see for themselves that the rabbit is real, and breathe. Then the effect happens. The rabbit disappears. The spectators are amazed, but they don’t applaud just yet. Because making something disappear doesn’t make a magic trick. What was gone must be brought back. Therefore follows the third act, the most difficult part, the finale. They call him, as has been known since Christopher Nolan’s thriller prestige.

Above all, however, which separates the illusion from the magic, the rabbit was in truth never gone.

Lewis Hamilton’s illusion lasted 68 days. At least parts of the audience thought the racing driver had disappeared for that long after he had dramatically snatched the world championship title that had previously been believed to be safe on the third Sunday in Advent after a controversial safety car decision by race director Michael Masi. Well, the private citizen Hamilton had then been knighted by Prince Charles in Windsor Castle. But the Formula 1 driver Hamilton was missing. He skipped the press conference of the new world champion Max Verstappen and the season-ending gala, and he also immersed himself in his social media profiles in unusual silence. Until he was back on Friday and posed in a brilliant prestigio next to the new Silver Arrow, smiled and said: “I never said I would stop, I love what I do.”

Every word was true. He was never gone. The perfect illusion.

Of course, he needed time to process the events, Hamilton later said at a press conference. He is currently in England, the weather is “cold and grey, typically British”. It matched his mood after the last race of the 2021 season, when he had to pull the plug, switched off. He gathered his whole family around him in winter. “And there was a moment when I lost faith in the system,” he said now. “Accountability” is also elementary in Formula 1. And that’s why it’s now important to “ensure that something like this never happens again in the history of our sport”. He said: That a racing driver is snatched the title in an unlawful way – like him.

Michael Masi’s task is now shared between Germany’s Niels Wittich and Eduardo Freitas from Portugal

Parts of the scene are still concerned with the question of how much influence Hamilton’s farewell illusion had on the groundbreaking decisions that the world automotive association FIA made in the period between Hamilton’s disappearance and reappearance. More precisely: which he announced just the day before Hamilton returned to the stage. weeks, after the Fia had set up its own commission to deal with the chaotic circumstances in Abu Dhabi.

A four-point plan was made public on Thursday, which included the decision that race director Michael Masi had to vacate his post. In addition, the new race directors – Masi’s task will be shared between Germany’s Niels Wittich and Eduardo Freitas from Portugal – will be supported by a central command center similar to the video assistant in football. However, the authority responsible for Formula 1 will not be observing from Cologne, but from Paris. And probably not from a basement either. The measures are an important “first step,” said Hamilton.

Question to Toto Wolff, Mercedes team boss: Is Masi a pawn that Mercedes demanded as a condition for the racing team to refrain from pursuing the legal process to overturn the Abu Dhabi race result? Not at all, said Wolff: “Our waiver of an audit was never linked to a demand that someone had to go.” Rather, it was like this: “Changes to the structure were necessary.” The decisions of the race directors would have fundamentally polarized very strongly. “Abu Dhabi was just the culmination of a series of unconventional decisions. With a dramatic ending – which didn’t do the sport any good.”

Doesn’t some good illusion live from the fact that the viewer’s gaze is diverted from the hat to the surroundings?

Personnel changes, said Wolff, would be “the sole responsibility of the Fia”. And the new association president, Mohammed Ben Sulayem, “doesn’t let himself be talked into it”. Incidentally, he never had any doubts that Hamilton would continue. “It was always clear to us that there would be no resignation,” said Wolff. In December, however, the team boss had not actively dispelled these doubts. Then he said: “I very much hope that we will see him again. It would be an indictment for the whole of Formula 1 if the best driver decided to stop because of outrageous decisions.” In winter, it would only have taken a short shout from Hamilton out of the magician’s hat and everyone would have known that the Formula 1 driver was still there. Only the illusion would have destroyed it.

The spectators will not hear the political radio traffic between race control and teams in the future

The fact that Masi loses his job, but he is to be found an alternative job in Formula 1 shows that the question of guilt could not be clarified so clearly. He “mastered a very challenging job,” said President Sulayem of the Australian, who inherited the responsible post from Charlie Whiting, who died shortly before the start of the 2019 season, at very short notice.

And certainly Masi has also become the victim of a rule change that has proven to be toxic for the reputation of a sports referee: the wild idea that the radio communication between team bosses and race control was made available to TV viewers as an additional entertainment gimmick. This wonderful cracker had already provided many happy moments in the races before Abu Dhabi. Ultimately, however, the public was only able to attack Masi so mercilessly because he had become vulnerable not only because of his actions, but also because of his words.

Open detailed view

The British media in particular had recently played a radio message from Red Bulls sporting director Jonathan Wheatley up and down, which suggested that Masi had not only borrowed the justification for his decision, but also the words to justify it from Wheatley. In this saying, he advises Masi how to deal with the lapped cars that were between Hamilton and Verstappen during the final safety car phase. “You just have to get them out of the way and we’ve got a car race.” In the English text, Wheatley said: “You only need to let them go, and then we’ve got a motor race on our hands.”

When Masi then acted exactly like this – i.e. only the five drivers between Hamilton and Verstappen drive forward, but they could not be rounded back completely because it would have taken too long to start the race again – Wolff got excited immediately and called into his microphone that this decision was “so so not right”. Whereupon Masi replied to the Mercedes team boss: “Toto, it’s called a motor race, okay?” A motor race. The same wording.

“First it was said that the cars shouldn’t round back, three to four minutes later it was suddenly said out of nowhere that they should,” said Wolff on Friday. “Now we know what happened in the meantime.” Apparently he meant Wheatley’s influence on Masi.

Sulayem’s four-point plan therefore contained two further decisions: In the future, the spectators will not hear the political radio traffic between the race control and the teams. So that Masi’s successors, like Masi’s predecessors, can make decisions again after consultations in the secret room. Secondly, the sometimes contradictory set of rules for lapping the cars back during a safety car phase should be made so clear that the race control has precise instructions in their hands. Only Michael Masi no longer helps these novellas.

And now that Lewis Hamilton has jumped out of his hat, he immediately feels like turning the world upside down. “What doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger,” he said. “I’m focused on being the best I can be.” Toto Wolff also believes that this best Hamilton ever is in “attack mode”. The rabbit wants to do magic.