MONZA, Italy – A controversial safety car at the end of the race won by Max Verstappen. Formula One has been here before.
Sunday’s Italian Grand Prix closing event was a little less dramatic and far less impactful than the last one that happened, at last year’s Abu Dhabi title-defining Grand Prix, but it will still be considerable discussion in the coming weeks.
Although the two cases may seem like an obvious comparison, there are two distinct differences. First, at Monza, the race ended under the safety car without a restart, while Abu Dhabi famously finished with a single lap sprint. Second, at Monza, the FIA followed its own (albeit clumsy) rules; not in Abu Dhabi.
That fact hasn’t been lost for Lewis Hamilton, who lost the title to Verstappen last year when then-race director Michael Masi misapplied the safety car restart procedure to force a race finish. at Yas Marina.
“It always brings back memories,” Hamilton said on Sunday of the late safety car. “That’s the rule it should be, isn’t it?
“So there’s only been once in the sport’s history where they didn’t make the rules.”
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff famously told Masi “No Michael, no, that’s not true!” like the farce in Abu Dhabi that took place last December – said it was the right thing to do in the undercarriage in Monza on Sunday, even if it didn’t get fans on social media after the crash. race.
“Very clear. There are rules and they are written down and in my opinion, whether I am an injured Abu Dhabi or not, these rules have been followed to this day.” Wolff said.
“There’s a car on the track, there are cops and a crane. That’s why they don’t let anyone pass. And then there’s not enough time to start the race again once the race is over. All the cars rushed out.”
The drivers all said they wanted to finish in race conditions. Even Verstappen, who lost the most from that scenario.
“Everybody wants to finish under the green flag,” Verstappen said. “We’re only one round short.
“I’ve got a new soft [tyre] so I’m not worried, even if it’s a one-half penalty shootout. “
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, who had a painful look at the rear of Verstappen’s Red Bull in front when he was told the race would end under the safety car, complained at the time on the radio : “Now! It’s clear!”
“I really want this race to start over,” Leclerc said afterward. “I don’t understand because the last time we went over the track it was clean, but it didn’t happen. Maybe there were things I didn’t know that made the restart impossible.”
It turned out that the rapid restart in the template set by the rules was immediately complicated by two separate events.
This was alluded to in the statement the FIA released shortly after the race, which read: “While every effort has been made to restore Car 3 quickly and resume the race, the situation has development and the cops can’t take the car into neutral and put it on a path of escape.”
The nature of Ricciardo’s stop also negated the other option available to the FIA managers, a red flag – this could have nullified the race and prompted a restart from the grid.
“As the safety of the recovery operation was our only priority and the incident was not severe enough to warrant a red flag, the race ended under the safety car following agreed procedures. between the FIA and all Competitors. The timing of the safe automotive stage in a race has nothing to do with this procedure.”
“I think we could have finished the race the other way around,” he told Sky Sports. “Finishing a race behind a safety car is never great.
“It’s not for us, it’s for F1 and the show and I think there’s plenty of time for the FIA to act differently today.”
While this will likely be a talking point in the future, focusing on the spectacle is a potentially risky rope for F1. The desire to end last year’s season-long fight between Verstappen and Hamilton in racing conditions played a role in the “human error” the FIA later said Masi made in Abu Dhabi.
But it’s fair for F1 to wonder if better solutions might exist. Fans upset with the result of seeing a race finish under a safety car, which has only happened in the previous nine times in F1, is understandable.
The fact that the race had been so dull until Riccio’s retirement could add to the frustration. With Verstappen on the way to victory, Ricciardo’s brief retirement into Round 47/53 seems to have given Ferrari an opportunity to claim a dramatic victory at its home race.
F1 has never been as popular as it is now and it seems to be welcoming a huge number of new fans to its audience with each passing race. It’s fair to wonder if an ending like the one we saw on Sunday is a smart business for a sport in that position.
A crowd as good as the one at Monza deserves much more than what happens in the final laps of the race, whether it follows the rules down to the letter or not.
Wolff said he will enter the race with the rules changed to force a finish when a safety car is deployed in the final lap.
“If one is not happy with the regulations, and you want an explosive performance and two laps and mayhem, I think I’m totally up for that,” he said. “But then we need to change the regulations. So I don’t think we should complain about anything that happened because these are the regulations.”
Not sure there is a simple solution to these situations. Sebastian Vettel won the 2012 world championship under a safety car, when a late Paul di Resta crash in the rain soon ended the thrilling Brazilian Grand Prix.
On that day, it was an anti-religious race, but when it comes to the rules, a race to the finish line under a safety car can always be considered a fair result. One of the most appealing parts of a safety car is the element of luck. Some days it will prioritize one driver, the next day it will prioritize another.
As Hamilton himself said of the safety cars on Sunday night: “It’s like gambling on roulette… black or red, you know?”
