F1 teams could not agree on rule to prevent safety car finish

McLaren has announced that the Formula 1 teams and the FIA have tried to prevent Grands Prix ending behind the safety car. However, the teams could not agree on a solution, so the sport will have to 'just accept' unpleasant situations like the one at Monza.

There is much to talk about the Monday after the Italian Grand Prix. The race was finished behind the safety car after Daniel Ricciardo's McLaren stalled next to the track. Many fans, but also the teams and drivers, were not happy with the decision of the FIA. According to them, race control could have acted quicker to end the race in an exciting way.

Since the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, the safety car period has been a sensitive topic. In last year's season finale, a safety car also appeared in the closing stages of the race, but the race control ensured that one lap could be driven. This gave Max Verstappen the chance to overtake Lewis Hamilton for the title victory.

F1 teams found no fair solution

Andreas Seidl tells The Race that after Abu Dhabi, the teams discussed how the rules could be changed, but no solution was found. "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 to make sure that races never end under a safety car", the McLaren team boss begins.

"But despite the FIA and Formula 1 really pushing us all to find solutions, it was down to the teams, and pretty much all teams we couldn’t agree on any better solution which is then also still a fair solution in terms of the sporting outcome." According to Seidl, the sport must therefore accept that situations like this can unfortunately happen. There will always be a party that is not happy with a restart in the final phase of the race. Waving a red flag is not an option either, as race control only does that in the event of a serious crash, for example.