Can a Grand Prix Finish Under a Safety Car? F1 Teams Make Final Judgement After Debatable Abu Dhabi GP Decisions

The safety car controversy at the season finale last year has seen a lot of questions being thrown at F1. The motorsports governing body FIA recently mentioned that they would be revising the rules for the handling of safety cars. They fired F1 race director Michael Masi and introduced a new system to assess the new F1 race directors.

From now on, there would be 2 race directors aided by VAR in the sport for the 2022 season. But there is still a possibility that the Abu Dhabi incident could be repeated in the future.

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Aston Martin F1 Director raises concerns over the new safety car rules

As reported by Auto Motor und Sport, despite the assist from VAR, there is no guarantee that the Abu Dhabi scenario cannot see a repeat on the track again. As the decisions have to be made in a matter of seconds, mistakes from the race director can happen. The main issue regarding the safety car procedure is the time it takes for lapped cars to join the pack.

Aston Martin sporting director Andy Stevenson mentioned that the fee can change the rules, but they cannot jeopardize the safety aspect.

“You could do that at any time during the safety car phase without jeopardizing safety. There were plans for those who were lapped to drive a lap through the pit lane and then line up again at the back. But that fails because the timekeeping is not able to give everyone who is lapped a lap,” said Stevenson. [Translated by Google]

The fact is that there is no permanent solution to the lapped car situation in F1. Since the whole scenario is a matter of safety and interpretation, there is no one proper answer.

But hopefully, with 2 race directors and VAR guiding them, there won’t be many more scenarios like Abu Dhabi. F1 needs to truly learn its lesson from the debacle of the season finale.

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