When it seemed that Lewis Hamilton was going to get his eighth world title, the race took a turn when Nicholas Latifi suffered an accident at the exit of the hotel complex on lap 53 of the 58 scheduled, causing a safety car .
The exit of the Safety Car gave Max Verstappen the opportunity to enter the pits to change his tires and mount new soft ones, while Hamilton continued on track and was left with very worn hard ones.
With a battle in which the driver who finished ahead took the title, Red Bull was interested in the race restarting and that the cars that had a lost lap and were sandwiched between Verstappen and Hamilton could be split.
So when Masi issued a notice saying “Lapped cars will not be allowed to overtake”, it seemed that Red Bull’s title hopes were gone as it was unlikely that it would be able to overtake the five lapped cars in front of it and later Hamilton in a single lap.
However, the situation changed drastically on the penultimate lap, when Masi deemed the track safe enough to let some lapped cars overtake Hamilton and the safety car.
But it was the way this was handled, and the immediate restart, that really upset Mercedes.
safety car rules
Mercedes’ protest focuses on two aspects of the rules: article 48.12 and article 48.8 of the F1 Sporting Regulations.
Article 48.12 refers to the situation where lapped drivers recover a lost lap.
Initially, Masi was within his rights to declare that “cars with a lap lost will not be allowed to overtake”, meaning Verstappen would be trapped behind five drivers before he could reach Hamilton.
However, on the penultimate lap, on the descent of Turn 9, Masi sent out a message saying that five cars – Lando Norris, Fernando Alonso, Esteban Ocon, Charles Leclerc and Sebastian Vettel – could make up the lost lap.
The decision to allow only some cars to have that possibility is very unusual, as article 48.12 suggests that the message “Lapped cars can now overtake” should be sent to all competitors who are in the same situation.
The regulations are also explicit as to when the race can restart: “Unless the race director considers that the presence of the Safety Car is still necessary, once the last lapped car has passed the leader, the Safety Car will be back in the pits at the end of the next lap.”
“If the race director considers that the track conditions are not suitable for overtaking, the message ‘No overtaking allowed’ will be sent to all competitors via the official messaging system.”
According to Mercedes, this clause suggests that since the message for the lapped people to overtake came out on lap 57, then the restart could only have taken place at the end of the “next lap”, that is, lap 58, which was the last of the race.
Article 48.8 refers to the prohibition of overtaking behind the safety car.
In the moments before the restart, as Hamilton and Verstappen prepared to start the race again, it appeared from the onboard camera that the Red Bull had briefly overtaken the Mercedes.
The rule says that “no driver may overtake another car on the track, including his own safety car, until he passes the line (see article 5.3 – what is the safety car line) for the first time after the safety Car has returned to the pits”.
Both matters will be discussed in the FIA stewards room on Sunday night in Abu Dhabi.
