World champion Max Verstappen says it is very unfair that Michael Masi has been thrown under the bus.
Verstappen said it was unacceptable to have allowed team bosses to talk to Masi.
He said the decision to remove him was really incredible.
Masi failed to follow the safety-car rules correctly in two different ways in the final race of last year.
Masi seemed to follow Red Bull's advice as he sought to comply with a previously made decision to try to prevent races finishing under the safety car.
When the race resumed, Lewis Hamilton had dominated the race and was on course for an eighth world title, but Verstappen passed him to become world champion.
The new organisation for race control was announced by the governing body. Masi was replaced by two individuals who will share the role, a support structure for the race director has been introduced, and teams will no longer be able to talk to them directly.
Masi will be given a new role.
Of course people talk about what was decided in Abu Dhabi but can you imagine a referee in a sport screaming at his coach all the time?
It is impossible to make a decision.
F1 allowed team members to talk to him while making decisions. It was necessary for Michael to make decisions on his own.
The people who sacked him allowed that to happen. I find it incredible to sack him for that.
I feel bad for Michael because he was a good race director.
I don't have anything against the new race directors. I felt sad for Michael and I sent him a text.
Masi was put in a difficult position when he took over the race director role, according to the Dutchman.
The race director was one of the roles that Whiting performed.
Verstappen said it was hard to take over from someone like Charlie, who had so much experience.
And also Charlie had help around him, and maybe Michael just needed a little bit more.
Wolff denied last week that Mercedes had withdrawn their appeal because Masi would be replaced.
Wolff didn't know where that came from. It was necessary to restructure how decisions are made in F1, sporting and technical decisions.
Last year was a great season but it created a lot of polarisation with decisions that were not always easy to understand.
Wolff denied that the race was fixed.
He said that the circumstances and decisions that came about for them was a shock.
Three laps to the end, we got a message that the lapped cars were not allowed to unlap themselves, and three minutes later there were two messages that came out of the blue.
The championship was gone after what happened in the background unknown to us. That is not something that has been done before.
We have to move on from that. We need to put the measures aside.
We are not going to forget it because it is not possible. We can begin with encouragement with the steps taken.
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