The FIA has defended Masi's decision, stating that the Race Director has the "overriding authority" to amend any rule regarding safety car procedure as they wish.3 hours ago (copy and paste from Google)
Not a like for the reminder of his passing. For the memory of my favourite football quote, from his report of the Chelsea Leeds Cup Final replay, "only awarded a free kick on production of the death certificate"
Oh yeah, he's in charge and what he says goes. I still think he should have chosen to red flag the race, everybody lines up in the pits, everybody gets fresh tyres and then a nice fair sprint to the finish.
Except that a red flag there would not be in line with the rules, which require that the race director believes that the track cannot be safely traversed even behind a safety car. Which wasn't the case there.
You're the only one seemingly making up rules. The officials on the day followed the ones that are currently in place. You may not like their interpretation, but that's a separate argument.
Yes and changing his mind too less than a minute apart. No lapped cars will be allowed to unlap themselves. 30 seconds later they where doing the exact opposite. A total farce there are no other ways to sum it up.
Perhaps, but my main comment related to someone wanting the rules broken, which whatever else occurred, didn't happen at the end of that race.
Well, Masi didn't follow the rules, or at least the rules were changed on a whim. Only letting 5 lapped cars overtake the safety car, then the safety car coming straight in instead of completing another lap also robbed Sainz of the chance to finish second or even first. Tsunoda could have had his first podium. Such a strange decision but what's done is done. And we won't be agreeing on this anytime soon!
All those involved disagree with your interpretation, yet you propose a method that would have actually broken the rules.
I suggested what I would have done if I was the race director. Just so we're clear, I am NOT the race director. The correct procedure would have been to finish behind the safety car as countless races have done before, boring but fair.
And had you been the race director and red flagged it as you initially suggested, you would have broken the rules, which the Director on the day did not do, despite your interpretation.
If rules are open to interpretation, I'll interpret them however I choose in my position of imaginary race director. Safety car finish for everyone!
Only not all the rules are, and your initial suggestion (which you now seem to want to change) was a red flag, which would have been against the rules.
