Formula One’s safety-car rules were yesterday to be discussed by teams and the governing body after the final anti-climactic laps of Sunday’s Italian Grand Prix revived memories of last year’s controversial Abu Dhabi title-decider.
World champion Max Verstappen won then and now, but the irony at Monza was that his Red Bull team were the ones sounding off about how the race ended, while previously aggrieved Mercedes defended officials.
This time, unlike the race in Abu Dhabi in December last year, the FIA followed the rules and the fans still piled in with booing and jeers from Ferrari’s home crowd.
Photo: AP
Mercedes’ seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton felt a flashback.
Hamilton, who is no longer a championship contender this year, missed out on a record eighth title in Abu Dhabi when now-departed race director Michael Masi tweaked the safety car rules to ensure a racing finish.
“It always brings memories back. That is the rule that it should be, right?” Hamilton said on Sunday after the safety car remained on track over the final laps as marshals tried to remove Daniel Ricciardo’s stricken McLaren.
It is “only one time in the history of the sport that they haven’t done the rule,” he said.
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff, furious after Abu Dhabi, said the FIA got it right.
“There are rules and they are written down and from my perspective, whether I’m Abu Dhabi traumatized or not, these rules have been followed to the dot today,” said the Austrian, who had George Russell third and Hamilton fifth.
“If one is not happy with the regulations, and you want to have a big bang show and two laps of racing and mayhem, I think I’m absolutely up for it. But then we need to change the regulations,” he said.
That would be up for immediate debate, with FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem to hold a pre-arranged meeting with race officials and team managers yesterday.
“I’m sure this will be now near the top of the agenda,” Red Bull team boss Christian Horner said.
Whether anything would be decided remains to be seen.
Races could be stopped and restarted if the safety car is deployed after a certain stage of the race, but that is riskier for the race leader.
It might also raise the risk of more controversy in a sport stained by a 2008 scandal when Renault’s Fernando Alonso won in Singapore after teammate Nelson Piquet Jr crashed on purpose to trigger a safety car for the team’s advantage.
McLaren team boss Andreas Seidl on Sunday told reporters that teams had tried and failed after Abu Dhabi to find a way to prevent safety car finishes.
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