The race at Monza was won by Max Verstappen, who dominated but took the flag behind the safety car. It was deployed five laps from the end after Daniel Ricciardo’s McLaren stopped on track. There were not enough laps left to remove and complete the closure of the cars and then for the safety car to complete its two mandatory laps, all required by regulations, to restart racing. The sporting summit of the Formula 1 World Championship had already been called for Monza on Monday by the FIA, but now Sunday’s events will come to the fore. The FIA was not at fault as it followed its own rules. That in itself was a sore point for many after the controversial ending to last year’s Abu Dhabi GP that cost Lewis Hamilton a potential eighth title, when then FIA race director Michael Massey improvised the rules to ensure the final round of races will take place after a late safety car. But Verstappen’s Red Bull team principal Christian Horner insisted the sport must avoid ending races behind the safety car and that it must be dealt with urgently by the FIA. “There are lessons to be learned, it goes against the principles of everything we’ve discussed,” he said. “It’s not good to finish races with safety cars, if they knew they couldn’t do it they should have flagged it and restarted. They all sit down on Monday, all the team managers. The president is also involved in this and I’m sure that will be at the top of the agenda.” Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto also criticized the FIA’s decision, but Toto Wolff, Hamilton’s manager at Mercedes, aptly noted that this time the FIA had at least followed its own rules. “I’m really pleased to see that there’s a match director and colleagues who are enforcing the rules against media pressure and fan pressure and everyone just breaking the rules,” he said. “So at least Abu Dhabi, in that sense, has given the FIA more confidence in implementing the regulations.” However, he also agreed that F1 needed to find a more satisfactory way of ensuring that races were completed in racing conditions, since how it was done was strictly defined in the rules, which will no doubt be considered at the summit. The best of our sports journalism from the last seven days and a heads-up of the weekend’s action Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertising and content sponsored by external parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. “I think we all have to sit down and say if there’s anything we can do better, but what happened on Sunday is in the rule book and that’s why it was implemented,” he said. “Would I like to do a last lap with a bunch of cars on top of each other in the chicane? Yes, good TV.”
