Lewis Hamilton has defended the FIA’s decision not to deploy the Safety Car for Adrian Sutil’s accident, despite Jules Bianchi then going off and hitting a recovery vehicle attending to Sutil’s Sauber.
“That’s what they do all the time,” said the race winner about clearing a car under double-waved yellows instead of a Safety Car. “That’s normal protocol just to get cars off the track for safety.
“If the car was sitting there and someone would have gone off, they’d have hit the car. There’s the yellow flag, and with the yellow flags you’re supposed to have a big lift, especially when it’s double yellow.”
The Briton said he was shocked to hear of Bianchi’s accident and that he was seriously injured and added: “I hope he will be okay.”
The Mercedes driver also defended the decision to start the race when they did, with some drivers criticising the decision because of the wet conditions.
“They weren’t really that bad,” he explained. “It was wet, obviously, but I’ve had much, much worse races in terms of aquaplaning and stuff.
“When we went back out it was good, we were behind the Safety Car for a little bit too long. I kept saying on the radio ‘we’re good to go, we’re good to go’ because the track was great.
“But towards the end it started to rain a little bit more but it wasn’t causing me any problems particularly. But perhaps for others, it’s so easy to lose temperature in these tyres, if you slow down a bit, then it’s very, very difficult.”
