Red Bull team boss Christian Horner has hit out at the ending of the Italian Grand Prix from Monza after it ended behind the Safety Car.
McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo stopped on the track with a mechanical issue late on in the race, but the procedure to clear the track and reset the order took some time.
Ricciardo’s car couldn’t be quickly pushed out of the way as it was stuck in gear, while the Safety Car also initially picked up George Russell rather than race leader Max Verstappen.
The cars continued to circle the Monza track behind the Safety Car until the end of the race, with Charles Leclerc being denied a chance to take a second win in Italy in four years.
Speaking to Sky F1, Horner admits that he shares the frustration of the crestfallen Ferrari fans: “We don’t want to win a race under a Safety Car,” he said.
“And 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. I think they picked up the wrong car, they picked up George Russell.
“We had the faster car, and we would have liked to have won the race on the track, not behind the Safety Car. So we share the disappointment of all the fans because it took away a grandstand finish.”
Horner’s comments may come as a surprise, given that his driver Verstappen was on course for a cruise to the victory without a potential Safety Car restart.
The Briton suggests that F1 needs to revisit its rulebook to ensure a conclusion behind the Safety Car doesn’t occur again.
“I’d just like to see the race play out,” he said. “And, you know, I think we would have won it if there hadn’t been a Safety Car, we had enough pace in hand on the one stop that we’d adopted.
“We’d saved a new set of tyres, we had a new set versus Charles’s scrubbed set. But it was also for a grandstand finish that we didn’t get to see.
“And I think it goes against the principles of what we’ve discussed previously. So the biggest losers today, unfortunately, were the fans. But we need to look quickly to address it.
“We need to go through the details of it. But for me, there was more than enough time to get that race going again. And again with a car that wasn’t in a barrier. It was parked on the side of the track.”
When it favours and benefits Redbull the rules are applied accordingly
Definitely.
The front on little Horner is quite Trump’ish.
Personally I don’t care who wins but it seems that since we lost Charley Whiting race officials seem to be unable to make rapid response calls and are so scared of getting it wrong that they over react and throw a red needlessly or twiddle thumbs for a couple of laps.
All race fans are left feeling cheated regardless of affiliations .
A lot of the problems are generated by the Monza chicanes these need a rethink look at the F2 race and there is almost more likely to have a safety car on the first lap than not.
Do we even need the first chicane any more with these high downforce safer cars just do something on the entry to Curva Grande like they were talking about a couple of years ago but got quietly forgotten about ?
They wouldn’t actually need to do something, Rettifilo was introduced to slow down the cars and the previous road is still there, it’s the bit where drivers who overshoot turn one weave around (or sometimes smash through) the big polystyrene barriers. If the desire was to cut out the chicane they could simply revert to using that piece of road. There are two reasons why they won’t. Firstly, the problem you describe of high probablity of contact on lap one would merely be shifted to la Roggia, secondly Rettifilo is a prime overtaking spot, the best on the circuit, and presents a challenge to the drivers which they must learn to overcome and get it right. F2 drivers have more crashes because they are at an earlier stage of learning, though anyone can make a mess of it at times. Rettifilo was a double chicane for about twenty-five years, commencing from the mid-seventies.
I agree with most you say having watched the circuit in my youth on black and white tv back when there were almost no chicanes and where it was a big slipstream battle . Seem to remember not long ago Hamilton and Max races ended at the first chicane and Roggia is barely any better so its an F1 problem as well. and WEC sports cars I have seen test without the first chicane. I still think a new chicane much like the Variante Ascari in layout on entry to Curva Grande would be much better but guess when its a national monument and a couple of trees might have to die its about as likely as papering over the Frescos in the Sistine Chapel.
Horner is entirely correct. Races should never finish behind a safety car, even if a major crash happens on the penultimate lap, throw out the chequered flag and send the safety car on track to control speeds on the slowdown lap. And there’s too much fuss over sorting out the lapped cars. Why wait until the end of the safety car period? As soon as the safety car picks up the line, on the next time round tell all the lapped cars to pass through the pitlane and rejoin at the back of the line. If it puts any of them another lap down, too bad, they were lapped anyhow, they’re only fighting each other and that battle goes on. Occasions where a heavy crash occurs and there’s a need for barrier repairs, perhaps medical intervention too, lengthy delays are inevitable, but for a car which has simply broken down, with all the money sloshing around it must be feasible to have a crane system at parts of the track without a wide run-off which can grab a car and lift it behind the barrier within a minute. Currently, cars which are parked deep into the run-off areas still often linger for several minutes before being removed. It’s all way too slow in the majority of instances in which no damage or injury is involved.