He was slowly closing in on Verstappen, who was running a one-stop strategy on the medium tires, when Daniel Ricciardo stopped his McLaren between the two Lesmo corners with his car stuck in gear. The car could not be moved behind the barriers and a crane was needed to lift it off the side of the road. While the leaders scrambled for fresh tires in anticipation of a restart, the race remained under safety car conditions until the end, causing frustration for both second-placed Leclerc and Verstappen’s team principal Christian Horner. “There was plenty of time for this fight to start,” Horner told Sky. “I think they got the wrong car, they got George Russell.” The FIA has now responded to explain why the race ended under caution, stating that the severity of the incident was not great enough to warrant a red flag. The Safety Car Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB18, Valtteri Bottas, Alfa Romeo C42, Yuki Tsunoda, AlphaTauri AT03, Charles Leclerc, Ferrari F1-75 Photo: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images An FIA spokesman said: “While every effort was made to recover car #3 quickly and continue the race, the situation developed and the stewards were unable to put the car into neutral and push it onto the escape route. “As the safety of the recovery operation is our only priority and the incident was not significant enough to warrant a red flag, the race was finished under safety car following the procedures agreed between the FIA and all competitors. “The timing of the safety car period in a race has nothing to do with this process.” Leclerc admitted that the safety car stoppage had not unduly changed the outcome of his race. “I wish we could have ended up racing, but unfortunately we were second in that place because of what happened before,” he said. Asked by Motorsport.com to explain what had happened, Ricciardo said he had no warning that the car was about to go out, explaining there was nothing I could do. “It just closed,” he said. “I felt no warning signs, I was on Lesmo 1 and then nothing. And since it was closed at the time, I was in a rush. “So I tried to pull in, from the line of scrimmage obviously into a safe area as soon as possible, but I couldn’t see anywhere I could pull in, so I just had to stop on the grass and that was it . “I tried to get out of the car as quickly as possible and do what I could, but obviously I heard at the end that the race was over like that under the safety car. So shame on the race, but there was nothing I could do.” Read also: The previous Formula 3 feature race was red-flagged for an accident involving Kush Maini and Brad Benavides on the exit of the second Lesmo, with the former’s MP Motorsport car spinning across the arcs of rival Carlin. This ultimately decided the championship in favor of ART driver Victor Martins, who only lost one place with a five-second penalty for violating track limits to finish fourth.
