The new F1 judges after the departure of Michael Masi are still trying to adapt to the new role, and although their philosophy is already being noted (such as simplifying the track limits controversy), there are still details to be polished.
This Sunday, at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, we saw that decisions are not always made quickly, and it is that an incident that seemed more or less clear to the camera and repetition, took several laps to resolve.
Nicholas Latifi’s accident changed the course of the race, forcing a Virtual Safety Car period to be instituted first before the real safety car was brought out. That was used by most of the drivers to make a ‘free’ stop and try to gain positions.
Thus, Charles Leclerc became the leader and Max Verstappen second. The other great beneficiary was going to be Carlos Sainz , but the Madrid native rejoined the track almost in parallel with Checo Pérez (who had not entered because he had made his pitstop before the accident).
Pérez accelerated to get ahead of him coming out of Turn 2, and Sainz had to lift to claim fourth place behind the Mexican. However, Ferrari saw that the Safety Car line, which marks who is ahead, had been crossed first by its driver, and sent a message to the members of the FIA (they can no longer speak directly with the race director) asking them to return to Sainz the position.
The replay clearly showed that Sainz was indeed ahead of Sergio Pérez, and that third place belonged to him. However, laps passed behind the safety car and there was no message for the Red Bull driver.
It wasn’t until the restart that Perez finally had to step aside to let Carlos pass, but it was too late and everyone had already missed out on a top four battle when the race restarted.
Thus, neither Sainz was able to attack a Max Verstappen who was second, nor was Pérez himself able to attack Sainz to regain third place. In fact, by letting the Spanish through, the two Spanish-speaking drivers lost time.
“In the end we created a mess that was unnecessary for me, because we did six laps behind the safety car and there were millions of opportunities for Checo to let me pass and we had a good battle at the restart,” Carlos Sainz lamented.
In addition, #55 exposed a hypothetical case that would have further complicated things for not acting on time: “ If George Russell had beaten me, for example, what would we have done? Would Checo have to let Russell and me pass, which It would also have been grossly unfair to him, or then Checo would no longer give me the position back because Russell would be between him and me, which would be grossly unfair to me?”
The delay of the FIA sounds even more serious considering that this season there is a ‘VAR’ system with a viewing room that attends race direction remotely from Geneva.
“These kinds of things are what as a sport we need to keep improving on because I think we need to simplify things and make it quicker and easier for everyone to understand, and even for drivers to race with a much clearer mindset.”
Photo by: Carl Bingham/Motorsport Images
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Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
Foto de: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
Photo by: Sam Bloxham/Motorsport Images
Photo by: Mark Sutton/Motorsport Images
Photo by: Sam Bloxham/Motorsport Images
Photo by: Sam Bloxham/Motorsport Images
Photo by: Sam Bloxham/Motorsport Images
Photo by: Sam Bloxham/Motorsport Images
Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images
Photo by: Mark Sutton/Motorsport Images
Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images
Photo by: Mark Sutton/Motorsport Images
Photo by: Glenn Dunbar/Motorsport Images
Photo by: Carl Bingham/Motorsport Images
Photo by: Carl Bingham/Motorsport Images
Photo by: Glenn Dunbar/Motorsport Images
Photo by: Glenn Dunbar/Motorsport Images
Photo by: Carl Bingham/Motorsport Images
Photo by: Carl Bingham/Motorsport Images
Photo by: Carl Bingham/Motorsport Images
Photo by: Glenn Dunbar/Motorsport Images
Photo by: Glenn Dunbar/Motorsport Images
Photo by: Glenn Dunbar/Motorsport Images
Photo by: Glenn Dunbar/Motorsport Images
Photo by: Carl Bingham/Motorsport Images
Photo by: Carl Bingham/Motorsport Images
Photo by: Carl Bingham/Motorsport Images
Photo by: Carl Bingham/Motorsport Images
Sainz makes it a great priority to be more agile in decisions in the following races: “It is our number one priority right now to talk to the FIA, because basically Checo lost the opportunity to fight me at the restart, and I lost the opportunity to fight with Max for not telling him to give me the position during the safety car.”
“We had a lot of laps to do it. The FIA wouldn’t let us, and I think for the sake of racing and F1, these kinds of things need to be done faster and done more efficiently.
Ferrari director Mattia Binotto also protested this: “They took too long to decide and pass it on to the stewards.”
“Finally, it seems like they made the decision when the safety car was leaving and it was too late to change before the restart. I don’t want to blame anyone, but it seems that on those kinds of decisions we need to speed up because it was obvious.
“I think it could have been done differently and I think it would have been important to do it differently. It would have been much fairer and more equitable to change the position before the restart, because that was the correct position and also going into the restart battle.” .
At the restart, Max Verstappen attacked Charles Leclerc to no avail, but certainly with a quicker decision we would have seen a more intense and beautiful battle between four candidates with the two fastest cars on the grid.
