F1 safety car farce at Italian Grand Prix exposes need for rules changes

Max Verstappen claimed his 11th win but there was a bigger story at play after a farcical end to the Italian Grand Prix.

Lewis Hamilton said Monza brought back bad memories

Formula One has a lot of work to do.

At risk of becoming a global laughing stock for the second time in 10 months, the FIA urgently needs to address its in-race management rules after a farcical end to the Italian Grand Prix brought back memories of the title-deciding saga in Abu Dhabi last year.

Max Verstappen claimed his 11th win of the 2022 season in Italy but the race was ended under the safety car after Daniel Ricciardo’s engine failed causing him to stop on track.

While the yellow flags were waved immediately, the time between Ricciardo stopping and a safety car being deployed was substantial indicating indecision from the two men in charge.

When the safety car was finally deployed there were fewer than three laps remaining and cars were out of position meaning Charles Leclerc had no opportunity to battle it out with his Red Bull rival.

While the decision technically followed the rules, it exposed the inconsistencies of the sport and the need for an overhaul when an incident impacts the final stages of competition.

The Tifosi could be heard booing the end of the race as well as Verstappen when he took to the podium.

The lead-up to the safety car being deployed in Italy echoed the events of Abu Dhabi last year where then race director Michael Masi improvised the rules to allow a final lap of racing which controversially saw Verstappen snatch the world title from Lewis Hamilton.

Cars were not ordered correctly under the safety car

The irony of what happened in the final laps at Monza was not lost on Hamilton.

“It always brings memories back,” he said. “That is the rule that it should be, right?

“There’s only one time in the history of the sport where they haven’t done the rules like that today and that’s the one where it changed the result of the championship. But it is what it is.”

Hamilton’s sentiments were echoed by his team boss Toto Wolff.

“This time, they followed the rules,” he said. “There are rules and whether I’m Abu Dhabi traumatised or not, these rules have been followed to the dot today.

“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’m absolutely up for it,” he said. “But then we need to change the regulations.”

Fans and teams were stunned by how long it took to clear the McLaren and questioned why the race was not red flagged to allow the restart.

Both Red Bull and Ferrari said afterwards that they would have preferred to restart.

“Today we had all the conditions to have a restart of the race,” Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto said.

“I don’t know why they waited so long. The FIA has been caught sleeping, maybe they are not yet ready to deal with these situations.”

Race winner Max Verstappen driving the Red Bull

Verstappen’s Red Bull team principal, Christian Horner, was also critical. “We don’t want to win a race under a safety car,” he said. “That’s something that we’ve talked about for many, many years, that they should finish racing. There was enough time to get that race going.

‘We had the faster car, we would have liked to win the race on the track, not behind the safety car. We share the disappointment of all the fans, because it took away a grandstand finish.

“It goes against the principles of what we’ve discussed previously. The biggest losers were the fans. We need to look quickly to address that.”

In light of what happened in Abu Dhabi, the final laps of the Monza race go to show that a change to the existing rules is needed.

While the two race directors were “by the book” in Italy, F1 needs to address incidents in final laps and consider anything in the final five being an automatic red flag situation forcing a standing restart.

It will go a long way in eliminating different interpretations of the rules and prevent anticlimactic finishes.