14/12/2021
NEWS STORY
Ross Brawn has revealed that in the wake of Sunday's Grand Prix, teams will not be allowed to lobby the race director during races from next season.
One of the aspects made available to fans this season in a bid to spice up the action whilst giving 'behind-the-scenes' access, has been to make fans privy to the radio communications between the teams and race control.
In Saudi Arabia we heard the sporting directors from Red Bull and Mercedes effectively bargaining with Michael Masi ahead of the race restart, the FIA's race director agreeing exactly where Max Verstappen would line up on the grid.
However, things were taken to a whole new level on Sunday as we heard Toto Wolff and Christian Horner both making their demands of the race director.
"Why aren't we getting these lapped cars out of the way?" asked Horner during the controversial safety car period.
"Christian, give me a second. Okay. My big one is to get this incident clear," replied Masi.
"Michael, this isn't right!” pleaded Wolff as the race resumed and Max Verstappen was all over Lewis Hamilton.
“No Mikey! No Mikey! That was so not right!" the Austrian added as Verstappen headed off into the distance.
"You need to reinstate the lap before, that's not right," demanded the Mercedes boss.
"Toto, it's called a motor race," replied Masi.
"Sorry?" said a clearly baffled Wolff.
"We went car racing," insisted Masi.
Earlier in the race, indeed following the incident at the start, Horner called on race control demanding that Hamilton hand back the position.
As debate over the race continues, Ross Brawn has revealed that from next season the line of communication between team bosses and race control will be broken.
"We will stop this contact next year," he tells Auto Motor und Sport. 'It's unacceptable that team bosses put Michael under such pressure during the race.
"It's like the coaches negotiating with the referee in football," he added.
"Toto can't demand there shouldn't be a safety car and Christian can't demand the cars have to un-lap," he continued. "That's at the discretion of the race director."
While the news is to be welcomed, surely the announcement of the intended ban should come from the FIA and not Brawn who is an employee of (Liberty Media owned) F1.
Check out our Tuesday gallery from Yas Marina, here.