Last Friday, Mercedes driver Bottas spun his car in the second practice session at the Red Bull Ring when he exited the team’s pits after attempting to start in second gear to reduce wheelspin.
Bottas avoided hitting anything or anyone while turning and was assisted by McLaren mechanics nearby to turn the car around and get onto the track.
But McLaren team manager Paul James also quickly jumped on the public radio to the race control and told Masi that it was “absolutely ridiculous”.
Masi said he agreed and would look into the matter, with a subsequent investigation by the stewards that ultimately resulted in Bottas receiving a three-place penalty for dangerous driving.
Bottas and Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff both called the sentence “harsh”, with Wolff saying he was unimpressed by rival teams claiming “Armageddon” because of the incident.
Masi said no teams other than McLaren had complained about the incident, but stressed that he would still have referred him to the stewards even if nothing had been said.
“To be fair, in situations like this, when such incidents happen, we go straight to the screen and put the ‘under investigation’ or ‘noted’ whatever it is to tell everyone in the pit lane what it is happened, “said Masi.
“But to be fair what this incident was, even if McLaren hadn’t said anything, I would have asked the stewards to investigate.”
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Bottas had dropped from second to fifth place on the grid due to the penalty, but the Mercedes driver was able to recover to third place in the race on Sunday.
The transmission of radio messages between teams and Masi is a new element that has been available on the F1 world feed since the Spanish Grand Prix earlier last month. Masi, however, denied that the stewards could have been affected by the radio message from McLaren and revealed that they were unaware of it.
“The stewards don’t actually hear anything about this communication between me and the teams,” said Masi.
“And [they] also don’t listen to the comments on the races. So you are not aware of this side of it in any way, shape, or form. “
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