Should Teams Be Allowed To Speak To The Race Director On The Radio?

It’s pearly to say that we’ve enjoyed the introduction of the FIA to team radio unconcentrated graphics. It’s given us some insight into the kind of conversations people on the pit wall have with Race Director Michael Masi, and increasingly often than not, it’s given us a laugh or made us reach for some popcorn.

However, throughout the elapsing of the season, the soundbites we hear have gone from weeping well-nigh undecorous flags to yelling “NOOOO MICHAEL, NOOO, NOOO MICHAEL THAT WAS SO NOT RIGHT,” on the final lap of Abu Dhabi. Also, shoehorn it, you read that in Toto’s voice, didn’t you.

With increasingly and increasingly people questioning the influence teams have over potential FIA decisions, or the need to constantly have Masi on the line in specimen something doesn’t go their way, we asked Katy and Tommy their thoughts!

Katy says teams SHOULD be unliable to talk to the Race Director

I think teams having a line of liaison with the FIA and its Race Director is essential for safety, like stuff worldly-wise to notify the FIA of incidents that might have been missed and are worthy of punishment or suburbanite feedback on track conditions.

It should moreover only be limited to one representative from each team, such as Jonathan Wheatley at Red Bull, and not Christian Horner when he feels like it.

However, plane when suburbanite radio is relayed to the Race Director, it’s not unchangingly actioned.

During the Belgian Grand Prix qualifying older this year, Sebastian Vettel told his team that the Q3 session should be red-flagged. “Too much water, there’s a lot of rain here in [Turn] 5,” he told his engineer. “We should red flag, in my opinion.” 90 seconds later, Lando Norris had crashed at the top of Eau Rouge.

It’s a unconfined example of a suburbanite giving spare detail that the FIA don’t have. However, plane in this case, Vettel’s radio was played to Masi, who heard it and still decided versus red-flagging the final part of qualifying.

When recording the WTF1 podcast for Abu Dhabi, one Team WTF1 Member suggested plane having a ‘Hawk-Eye’ system as they use in tennis, and honestly, I think they could be on to something.

The rules of Hawk-Eye in tennis indulge each player two challenges per set, which ways they can question if a wittiness has been labelled as stuff “out” incorrectly. With so few opportunities, each use is important and needs to be used carefully.

Perhaps F1 could introduce something similar, like only getting three 15 second conversations with the Race Director if you wish to raise a point. It ways that the time is precious, and you can’t just use it as a ranting session.

Every time that FIA Team Radio graphic pops up pic.twitter.com/TTrJsZjNyg

— WTF1 (@wtf1official) June 18, 2021

Overall, this whole situation is a mess. Conversations well-nigh limiting time spent on the radio to the Race Director shouldn’t plane be necessary if teams respected the boundaries and used their line of liaison appropriately. Masi should moreover be firmer with his instructions and orders if he’s to stay in his job next year.

Tommy says teams SHOULDN’T be unliable to talk to the Race Director

While the FIA Team Radio graphic was a sunny listen at first, for me, it got increasingly and increasingly problematic as the season went on as we could hear just how much say team bosses had in decisions.

Too much of this season has felt like Toto Wolff and Christian Horner are making the calls and not the Race Director. I’d plane go as far as saying the whole Abu Dhabi safety car controversy could have been avoided if Masi had just been left to his own devices and not had Wolff shouting at him not to restart the race and Horner unsurprisingly doing the word-for-word opposite.

You could plane hear Masi telling Horner just to let him sort the situation out, but he should have been much sterner with it. All that would take is not permitting the teams to speak to him in the first place.

While F1 is very variegated to other sports, in football, if a bad tackle is made, they don’t indulge the managers onto the pitch to oppose why it shouldn’t have been a foul because, of course, they’re unchangingly going to be unjust to their own team and try to manipulate the referee.

So why are Team Principals unliable to have so much influence in the visualization making when they’re unchangingly going to when their suburbanite no matter what the situation? It adds nothing.

To imbricate off the safety aspect, I get the need sometimes for the teams to be worldly-wise to speak to the officials to warn well-nigh unrepealable situations. Why not employ a race’ fourth official’ who can pass on relevant information to the Race Director and ONLY relevant information? Not warlike ranting to do anything to help their suburbanite escape from any wrongdoing.

Should teams be unliable to speak to the Race Director? Let us know in the comments.