Christian Horner opens up on Michael Masi's axing after Abu Dhabi fiasco: 'He made one mistake'

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner finally opened up on the controversial Abu Dhabi Grand Prix last year.

There was huge drama at the end of the race as the FIA Race Director Michael Masi only allowed certain lapped cars to unlap themselves to have a more exciting conclusion to the race and season.

Unfortunately, that left Lewis Hamilton as a sitting duck in front of Max Verstappen on older tires, and the Dutchman eventually flew past him to win the race and the Driver's Championship.

In its summary of an investigation into the incident after the race, the FIA found Masi made two critical errors in that he called the safety car back into the pit lane without it having completed an additional lap as required by the Formula 1 Sporting Regulations, and also did not allow all of the lapped cars to re-join the lead lap.

The one mistake

Horner has remained very tight-lipped about the whole ordeal, instead choosing to focus on the celebrations surrounding Verstappen's maiden title win, but he has now acknowledged at least one mistake by Masi.

"He made one mistake in that he didn't allow all lapped cars to un-lap themselves," Horner told The Cambridge Union. "I think there was three cars that were kept at the back of the field and unable to [un-] lap themselves. That was the only mistake that he made.

"So I thought it was tremendously harsh for him to be hung out to dry, particularly in public, and then the trolling that he got and the abuse that he got online without really support the federation behind him," Horner continued.

"There was a lot of decisions he made last year that we felt went against us, whether it was yellow flags in qualifying in Qatar or the Silverstone incident with Lewis. But I did feel sorry for him that