The FIA World Motor Sports Council will meet in Bahrain this Friday with reports from the investigation into the 2021 Abu Dhabi GP, where Max Verstappen was crowned world champion after a controversial race finish in which he beat Lewis Hamilton.
The Yas Marina events have had a huge impact on Formula 1, with Michael Masi removed from his post and new FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem promising greater transparency and new systems to help Masi’s replacements from of 2022.
Speaking about his expectations of the FIA reports and whether he would like to see the full report when it becomes available, Verstappen replied clearly and forcefully: “I don’t think we need a full report.”
“Of course, every year it’s always good to discuss and analyze everything that happened the previous year. Right? You always analyze everything you’ve done.”
“So, yeah, you look at it and if there are things that can be done or written in a simpler way, or in a way that’s better understood, then you make changes. But yeah, let’s see.”
Verstappen spoke alongside Charles Leclerc, Mick Schumacher, Lando Norris and Guanyu Zhou, who also received the same question as the Dutch driver, albeit with different answers.
Norris said he “wouldn’t mind seeing it or not”, adding: “As long as there’s a positive outcome going forward, I’ll be happy about it.”
Leclerc considered that it is “very important to have that transparency and that we can see it. Will I read it? Well, I don’t think so, it will probably be too long.”
“But yeah, it’s important to at least be able to read the most important lines and know what your takeaway is, to grow from that and maybe handle those situations better in the future.”
Mick Schumacher said “that’s in the past”, but acknowledged that “it would be nice to know what conclusions were drawn from all the results and analysis”.
“But above all, we have to look to the future to try not to repeat something like this,” he concluded.
