The Italian GP ended behind the safety car, robbing the F1 world of a grandstand finish between Max Verstappen and the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc. Is it time to alter the rules so that a race can finish as a race?
Firstly lets look at the rules, the use of a safety car and Virtual Safety Car (VSC) is for the safety of marshalls, drivers and to a degree the fans, for that reason it does not care about the sporting aspect or entertainment of the race. As such the FIA regulations that govern the use of the Safety Car are based solely on safety.
There were a number of factors that meant that the race ended under the Safety Car including:
- The inability of the marshalls to engage neutral on the stricken McLaren car, thus requiring a crane to enter the track.
- The Safety Car not picking up the leader when it was deployed
- How spread out the field was at the time of the SC deployment.
Unfortunately the Marshalls not being able to engage neutral is just one of those things, usually it works fine, the marshalls would roll the car back into the gap in the armco and away we go.
The Safety Car deployment is not governed by where the leader is on the track, as mentioned before it is a safety mechanism that is required to naturalize the race. The FIA are clear on this, within the Sporting Regulations regarding Safety Car use it states “55.6 The safety car will join the track with its orange lights illuminated and will do so regardless
of where the leader is” unfortunately for the race when the SC was called Max was over half a lap away from it, which was further extended as Redbull called him into the pits before he caught up to the Safety Car.
As the race was drawing to a close,the field was pretty well spread out around the lap, which would delay the restart of the race, as again within the Sporting Regulations, when the lapped cars are allowed to un-lap the Safety Car does not return to the pits until the end of the following lap. (This being the issue at the end of the Abu Dhabi GP 2021).
The rules regarding the use of the Safety Car were followed to the letter meaning that we were witness to pretty underwhelming end to the Italian GP.
RED FLAG?
Another option that was mentioned was throwing the red flag and have a 3/4 lap sprint finish. On the face of it, this would have been the best option from a Sporting and Entertainment angle, but the type of incident, with a car pulled off to the side of the road, no damage to the car externally or to the barriers and no damage to barriers or debris on the track it didn’t warrant a red flag.
WHAT CAN F1 DO TO FIX THIS?
There has been a number of opinions as to how to “fix” this issue, other racing series have mechanisms in place to negate the effects of a Safety Car on a race including:
- Formula E: time is added to the end of the race.
- BTCC: they will add up to 3 laps to a race if a Safety Car was deployed.
Could Formula 1 add a mechanisms to the rules to allow something similar to those noted above?, Is it possible to stop the lap counter for the length of the Safety Car? Could a provision be added that if a Safety Car is required within the last 5 to 10 percent of the race then a red flag can be thrown, thus giving the fans the opportunity to see the race finish under green flag conditions. These seem like simple fixes, but as we all know it’s never that simple in Formula 1.
It is also interesting to note that after the farcical end to the Abu Dhabi GP, FIA president Mohammed bin Sulayem spoke with the teams and asked what changes to the Safety Car procedures could be implemented that would make things fairer, in typical Formula 1 fashion the teams could not agree with each other.
What can Formula 1 do to limit the chances of a race ending under the Safety Car while still protecting the sporting integrity of the race itself?