After three years on the role that saw him replacing Charlie Whiting inside Race Control as Race Director in Formula 1, Michael Masi has been sacked after controversial decisions taken throughout the 2021 season and particularly in the crucial championship finale in Abu Dhabi.

“He’s a personal friend,” Motorsport Australia CEO Eugene Arocca told Speedcafe.com, about his relationship with Masi, in an exclusive interview where he defended the Australian and his job inside the pinnacle of motorsport.

“I’ve known him as long as I’ve been involved in motorsport, which goes back 10 years, and we’ve become good buddies. So it’s personally disappointing and devastating for me to see what has occurred.”

After months of speculations and as it was confirmed the past Thursday, February 17^th, Masi has been removed from his role as F1’s Race Director. Arocca spoke on the decision announced by FIA’s President Mohammed Ben Sulayem.

“I’ve got to be very mindful that I’m not part of a process, I wasn’t privy to the information that was being considered by the FIA, but on a personal level if you see a mate, and particularly an Australian, have to go through what he’s gone through, I’ve got a certain amount of empathy and disappointment and frustration and anger.”

“[Masi] is very insightful, intelligent, and able to make decisions in the heat of a moment. That’s something that people may have lost in some of the debate.”

Just like some F1 drivers such as Sebastian Vettel, Daniel Ricciardo and Lando Norris have said the past few weeks trying to advocate for the Australian to keep his role in the Race Control Direction, Eugene Arocca said to Speedcafe.com how 'It’s easy sometimes to pretend to be in the shoes of the referee or in Michael’s shoes'

“It’s really easy to be a critic on the sidelines thinking what he went through when he was making those decisions. There would be other people that would be completely paralyzed in exactly the same circumstances.” He assured.

“He made the call. That is the first character trait of a strong leader.”

Arocca confided he and Masi have exchanged some texts subsequent to the decision of the FIA of appointing  Niels Wittich (DTM) and Eduardo Freitas (WEC), taking over from the Australian.

“I can’t speak on his behalf, but I would say that one of the more difficult elements of all this, let’s call it this incident, happened late last year, some three months ago now, and to a large degree it’s been a process that hasn’t leant itself to really being in a good frame of mind,”

“It’s been a tortuous two or three months of discussion, debate, criticism, public airing of view.”

“Gladly, based on the fact that he responded this morning, and he was obviously pretty flat, he’s a man who’s got fantastic resilience.”

Today, @FIA opens the way for a new step forward in @F1 refereeing

Watch the video: https://t.co/EnPF0x7272 pic.twitter.com/sFzA0KrJTe

— Mohammed Ben Sulayem (@Ben_Sulayem) February 17, 2022

In spite of the FIA announcing Masi “will be offered a new position within the FIA”, Arocca stated that, if given the chance, he’d love to have his friend alongside the high roles inside Motorsport Australia: “We would love to tap into his knowledge at any level."

“He’s just an elite talent that would be wasted to the sport if he’s not used in some capacity, and so we’ll keep an open mind. At the moment, we’re obviously concentrating on the year ahead, and when he’s decided what he wants to do, no doubt amongst many others, he’ll be contact by not only us but by others.”

“He’s just such, I’ll use the word ‘elite’. He’s officiated for three years in one of the most public, high pressure sporting events with an element of danger in the world, and he’s done it during a pandemic with significant levels of travel, stress, other duties, and in my view that stands well on his resume for any employer anywhere in the world.” He concluded.