McLaren ‘strongly disagrees’ with Masi’s yellow flag logic

McLaren team boss Andreas Seidl was at odds last weekend in Baku with F1 race director Michael Masi’s decision not to investigate those drivers that had failed to slow at the scene of Max Verstappen’s crash in the closing stages of the race.

McLaren singled out AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda who sped past the Red Bull driver’s accident on the main straight despite the deployment of double waved flags that implicitly signify that a driver must reduce speed.

Seidl radioed Masi from the McLaren pit wall to convey his surprise that Tsunoda was not put under investigation for speeding, to which the F1 race director replied that in that case “the entire field should be penalised for not slowing under double yellows, in accordance with the regulations”.

However, Seidl insisted, stating that the Tsunoda’s infringement was “obvious”.

“All of them are obvious,” responded Masi who said that he would address the issue at next week’s French Grand Prix drivers’ briefing.

But Seidl was unhappy with Masi’s leniency towards a situation that appeared to the McLaren boss as “obvious”.

“From my point of view, things were happening out there today which were clearly not OK,” Seidl said after the race.

“Also putting it into the context of what we got a penalty for, for example, yesterday [in qualifying] – but again that’s all we can do, we can only report it.

“If the race director thinks there’s no investigation required because everyone is doing it, which is something I strongly disagree with, you need to ask Michael Masi what he’s after then.”

Read also: Masi saw no reason not to restart Azerbaijan GP

Seidl wasn’t the only one at Baku to have a bone of contention with race control, with several drivers baffled by the delay in sending out the safety car following Verstappen’s crash which littered the track with debris.

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc called the belated decision “a joke” and said he would put the issue on the table at next week’s drivers’ briefing.

While unsatisfied with last weekend’s calls, Seidl considered Masi to be doing a “great job” overall as F1’s race director.

“In general we are very happy with the job Michael is doing, which is a very difficult job,” he said.

“But the most important thing from our side is transparency and consistency and a good dialogue which we usually have with him.

“Of course there are situations from time to time where you disagree. That’s normal: we’re on the competitor side, he’s on the FIA side.

“But I guess if you look back now the time since he took over, I think he did a great job.”

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