Michael Masi's one decision made it look like FIA was 'favouring Max Verstappen'

F1 race director Michael Masi made one decision which made it look like the FIA was "favouring Max Verstappen" at the end of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, it has been claimed. Pundit Karun Chandhok thinks Masi made an "error" by just selecting five cars between Lewis Hamilton and Verstappen to un-lap themselves under the safety car at the end of the race. Instead, he suggests leaving the lapped cars out would have been a "fairer solution" and "very exciting" for the fans.

Speaking to Express Sport, he said: "What Michael [Masi] should have done was leave the lapped cars in between there.

"What ended up happening was by selecting the five cars between Lewis and Max made it look very much as if it was favouring Max, which obviously it ended up favouring Max.

"For me that was the error he made.

"You could go back and say when the crash happened he should have done a red flag.

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"But that's a 'shoulda, woulda, coulda'.

"The decision to just leave the lapped cars where they were would have been a much fairer solution and would have been very exciting.

"Max would have probably passed three cars, four cars before turn five.

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"He would have passed the other two before turn six, seven and then by that stage Lewis would have pulled out two seconds maybe.

"Max would have had a tyre delta of two seconds for the second half of the lap.

"He would have probably caught Lewis at the last corner and it would have been an incredibly exciting finish.