‘Teams voted for regulations to stay the same’: Andreas Seidl reveals F1 teams couldn’t agree on a solution on races ending under safety cars following Abu Dhabi controversy
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Andreas Seidl
After the ending of the Italian Grand Prix, debates have surfaced again regarding what needs to be done about races ending under safety cars. In Abu Dhabi last year, the regulations weren’t followed so that there could be one final lap of racing. This was not the case in Monza, but it was controversial regardless.
There were questions about why the race had not been restarted by many drivers as well, as they believed there was ample time for a restart. Some suggested that the race should have been red-flagged. After Daniel Ricciardo stopped out on track, his car was stuck in gear, and could not be removed normally. As so, they had to utilize a crane (on the side of the track) to remove it from the track.
Moreover, the safety car had picked up the wrong car when it came out. Instead of the leader, Max Verstappen, it came out in front of George Russell, which basically made the restart impossible. There was also a safety car controversy in F3. Many, including team principals, expressed their disappointment with the ending, but Andreas Seidl feels it is time to close the subject as no one can agree on a solution.
Andreas Seidl feels that the safety car race ending debate needs to end
As reported by Motorsport.com, after what happened in Abu Dhabi last year, there had been discussions regarding races ending under safety cars, so that another situation like it does not happen, but as revealed by McLaren’s team principal, Andreas Seidl, no one could agree on a solution: “After what happened last year in Abu Dhabi, there were a lot of discussions between FIA, Formula 1 and all the teams involved in order to see how the rules could be modified in order to make sure that races never end under a safety car.”
He added: “But despite FIA and Formula 1 really pushing us all to find solutions, it was down to us as the teams, and pretty much to all teams not agreeing to any change because we couldn’t agree on any better solution, which is then also still a fair solution in terms of the sporting outcome.”
Seidl thinks that situations like Monza can and will happen: “That’s why, I guess, we simply have to accept that, unfortunately, situations like today can happen. We only want a solution that’s also fair on the sporting side and not suddenly ending up in jeopardy. And that’s why we couldn’t agree on anything better than what we have in place.”
According to Andreas Seidl, as no one could agree on a solution, every single team voted for the regulations to stay as they currently are. As such, he feels there is a need to close all the debate around this subject.
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Aniket Tripathi
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