The FIA has confirmed that a power systems issue was behind the prolonged delay before the start of Monaco’s Formula 1 race.
The start was initially delayed by nine minutes for safety reasons following a pre-race shower, with the FIA concerned that no wet running had taken place all weekend.
A couple of formation laps were then run behind the Safety Car but conditions deteriorated and proceedings were brought to a halt.
Over an hour after the race was originally scheduled to get underway, the green flag was finally shown.
In a statement released on Sunday, the FIA stated that “the delay to the resumption of the race following the heavy downpour of rain was due to a power issue with the start systems (start gantry, light panels etc.).”
There was a further suspension during the race, after Mick Schumacher suffered a sizeable crash at the Piscine corner.
The FIA says that the procedure of deploying the VSC, SC and red flag in succession was “firstly to neutralise the race so it was safe, and then to allow the safety car to be deployed in the correct location to avoid needing to allow cars to pass, which would have slowed the recovery procedure.
“The red flag was shown when it became clear that the repair to the tecpro barrier would take a significant amount of time.”
Following the second red flag procedure, Race Control opted to restart the race with a rolling start, rather than a standing start.
It says the reasoning for this was “primarily to concerns that the start systems would not be functioning properly”, but it also took into consideration “that there were inconsistent grip levels on the grid due to the drying track.”
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