Lewis Hamilton aims dig after Italian Grand Prix controversially ends under Safety Car

12/09/2022 13:20

Sir Lewis Hamilton has aimed a little dig at Formula 1’s race directors after the ending of last weekend’s Italian Grand Prix.

The race at Monza ended under the Safety Car after Daniel Ricciardo’s McLaren broke down on track with just a handful of laps remaining.

Marshals and a recovery vehicle had to enter the circuit to remove the stricken car, but with the recovery taking as long as it did and with the grid still scattered in a random order, there simply wasn’t enough laps left for the race to restart.

Many were left unsatisfied with this conclusion however, with some drivers and teams hoping that the race would be red flagged which would have set up a grandstand finish between Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc.

Fans were also left unhappy as evidenced by their jeers afterward, most of which were directed at eventual winner Verstappen, although this was always likely to happen given the Tifosi’s general adversity to any non-Ferrari driver.

 The whole debacle invoked memories of last season’s controversial title decider in Abu Dhabi, where a Safety Car was deployed after Nicholas Latifi’s crash late in the grand prix.

On that occasion, it looked as if the race would also finish under the Safety Car as with just over a lap to go the lapped cars in the field had yet to unlap themselves, in concurrence with the restart procedure.

However, then race-director Michael Masi incorrectly applied the rules to just let the cars directly between Verstappen and Hamilton unlap themselves, giving the Red Bull driver a clear shot at passing the Mercedes man for the lead and the title on the very last lap of the season, which he subsequently.

‘It always brings memories back,’ Hamilton said after the Italian Grand Prix, where he recovered from 19th on the grid to finish fifth.

‘That is the rules how it should be, right?

‘There’s only one time in the history of the sport where they haven’t done the rules like that today and that’s the one where it changed the result of the championship. But it is what it is.’

A review of the Abu Dhabi debacle saw Masi lose his job and a tightening of rules around Safety Car restarts, while it has since been acknowledged that Hamilton was robbed of the 2021 championship, though the results will not be changed.

While frustrating for spectators and some drivers, the rules were correctly applied at Monza, which has prompted some to suggest that tweaks should be made for the sake of entertainment, regardless of safety or fairness.

That is not the view of Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff however, who added: ‘I think this time they followed the rules.

‘Maybe they could have done it a lap sooner, and they accepted the race ends under the Safety Car. This is how it should be.’

MORE : Max Verstappen and Christian Horner respond to angry Ferrari fans at Italian Grand Prix

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