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Michael Masi was back in the Formula One paddock on Thursday for the first time since his fateful handling of the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix turned him into the most vilified figure in world sport.
The former race director occasionally passed only a few yards away from the man who missed out that feverish night on the eighth world championship glory he desperately craved and nearly touched, Lewis Hamilton.
Asked if he intended to speak to Masi on his return from public oblivion, the sport's most garlanded driver replied that he had no intention of doing so.
'I'm just focusing on my future,' he said. 'I'm focused on getting back to winning. There is nothing to say.'
Many, particularly in Britain, will understand Hamilton's reluctance to enter dialogue let alone strike a truce. For Masi's withdrawal of the safety car ahead of the final lap of the decider was maverick, and allowed Max Verstappen to pounce brilliantly on an unsuspecting Hamilton and secure his first title.
Former race director Michael Masi was back in the Formula One paddock on Thursday
Masi's call led to Max Verstappen passing Lewis Hamilton on the last lap to snatch the title
'Victim' and 'villain' have not spoken since, and may never do so as long as they live.
Under an NDA signed on his departure from the role he loved, Masi cannot discuss the ins and outs of his calls in Abu Dhabi, made under high pressure and attributed in the FIA inquiry, rightly in my view, to 'human error', as opposed to bias.
One plea I make on his behalf is that trying to stage a raced final lap, rather than allow one of the greatest of F1 seasons to peter out under a safety car, was intense and made in real time, team principals screaming appallingly in his ear. Procedurally, however, it was wrong.
I am happy to report that Masi, though confined by his severance deal, was willing to tell Sportsmail his own story of trial and rehabilitation, which involved receiving professional help for the mental turmoil he suffered.
He is looking super-healthy. He walks decent distances twice a day and has lost more than a stone and a half. One of his big releases came on April 13 last year when he quit London for his native Sydney, and started to turn a corner in his life. An Emirates flight via Dubai back to Bondi, to home and a new beginning.
He had been dismissed as race director a couple of months earlier, having been called everything under the sun for his decisions in Abu Dhabi, a period in which he largely stayed in the house of a friend in London's Elephant and Castle district, cooking at home.
He did not take up security but now wonders if he was complacent not to have bothered amid the booing and hissing of the online trolls and the hollering of the street critics.
But he is now sitting here next to the coffee machine at the doors of Melbourne's Albert Park paddock not to look back, or wonder why. Aged 44, smiling and polite, he is dealing with his present equilibrium and fresh start, and the cheer with which his old friends in the FIA and the
