One of the most contentious decisions that resulted in Max Verstappen being crowned world champion over Lewis Hamilton was the fact that race director Michael Masi decided to call the safety car when Nicholas Latifi crashed at turn 14. Leave alone the haphazard communication which first indicated that lapped cars wouldn't be allowed to unlap themselves and then the second directive that enabled the lapped cars between Hamilton and Verstappen to unlap themselves triggered the Mercedes protest which asked for the last lap of the race to be disavowed.
Now, the situation was quite simple for Masi -- as discussed with the teams -- he revealed that it was agreed that he would try to end a race in racing conditions whenever possible and not behind a safety car. With the title up for grabs till the last lap of the race, it would've been a strange ending to what has been one of the greatest F1 seasons of all time.
Both Hamilton and Verstappen had their career best performances this season making for a spectacular finale
But Masi's call which admittedly, is allowed as per the FIA regulations created an imbalance in the title fight. Lewis Hamilton hadn't pitted and was on hard tyres which had been put on lap 14 of the 58 lap race. The moment the safety car came out Red Bull pitted Verstappen for fresh soft tyres. For Hamilton pitting was never an option. Verstappen was already on relatively fresh hard tyres so in the case he didn't pit Hamilton would've found himself behind the Dutchman. A crash with Verstappen would've given him the title as he had won more races over the course of the season.
Another problem was that if Masi had allowed the entire field to unlap, then likely the race would've finished behind the safety car and Hamilton would've lost track position. Even in this case, he would've lost the world title. So there was confusion in the Mercedes garage and regardless of what happened with the safety car situation, Hamilton would have been at a disadvantage.
But Masi could have done one thing to ensure we had a race at the end, one with a fair fight. After Latifi's crash, he could have red-flagged the race which would mean all the drivers would be back in the pits, and they would be allowed to change their tyres. Then there would be a standing restart. Hamilton wouldn't have been a sitting duck with 44 lap old hard tyres up against a Red Bull that was basically low on fuel and on soft tyres, the type of trim it is in on a Q3 lap and that too in the hands of Max Verstappen.
But Masi had told Karun Chandok ahead of the Abu Dhabi GP that there would be no red flags at turn 14 for crashes. This is something Sky Sports commentator David Croft revealed. And going by the rules, the safety car is usually brought out when there is a crash, a red flag is only brought out when there is a serious incident. Many people have claimed that a red flag was brought out at Baku when Verstappen had a shunt at over 300 km/h on the straight when his tyres blew up.
The same happened when he crashed with Hamilton at Silverstone. The same happened even in Jeddah when the track was also deemed to be very dangerous by many including former F1 world champion Nico Rosberg.
From Masi's point of view, a red flag wasn't in play for the type of crash Latifi had. He had been struggling at that corner the entire weekend and basically lost control of the car after some contact. It wasn't a mega accident, but the safety car had to come because there was a lot of debris and the marshalls were busy cleaning up the mess and the car had to be towed off the track.
