McLaren boss Andrea Stella has defended the FIA’s decision to delay the Formula 1 Belgian Grand Prix, a move criticised by both Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen.
Concerns over visibility as rain fell at Spa-Francorchamps caused the decision to delay the race start by over an hour, proceedings getting away under the Safety Car at 16:20 local time.
Verstappen was unhappy that the wait caused detriment to the set-up that was specifically created for the rainy conditions, saying there will “never any classic wet races”.
Hamilton believed the situation was an overreaction to the way the wet weather at the British Grand Prix was handled, adding that his car was also set up for the rain.
But Stella, speaking to media including Motorsport Week post-race as McLaren took a 1-2, believes the decisions taken upstairs in race control were the correct ones.
“I think today the race was managed in a very wise way by the FIA,” he said, “because we knew that there was a lot of rain coming, and I think in a circuit like this, if you make the calls late, it may be too late, and the outcome could be a difficult outcome.
“So I think being on the forefoot is the right approach, and delaying the race allowed us to race in wet conditions, and then we went into dry, but in fairness, we are in Spa, we didn’t even know how long the dry race would have been, and we knew that there could have been wet conditions again at the end.
“So I think from our position as a team, we always praise the work of the FIA when this is deserved, and I think this is one of the cases in which this should be praised, because I understand that it would be quite entertaining to see cars going in wet conditions, but we all should be wary that the average speed in Spa is so high that the cars just displace such a large amount of water that it’s just impossible to see.
“We have seen already in Silverstone that a car drove into the gearbox of another car, because it was impossible to see it, and it was lower and there was less water.
“So we don’t want to see the same in Spa, so well done by the FIA.”
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