I was talking to mate of mine a few days ago who’s a huge fan of F1, goes all over the world watching races through his job who sponsor one of the teams. He was telling me the consensus in the paddock and with all businesses involved etc was the uproar of the result was far preferable to the race ending under safety car. They are extremely aware of how those anticlimactic ends to races occur in America and don’t want to go that route. The controversy of the last race was an absolute godsend because regardless of what’s being said by press, fans etc it still kept it in the news and that’s literally all sponsors care about.
He didn’t go as far as saying Masi was instructed by others to do what he did, but it’s common knowledge that he would’ve been expected to do it if necessary.