McLaren team principal Andreas Seidl went on to remind his rivals that they all voted for the current Safety Car norms and should go with the decision made by FIA at the Italian GP.
The Italian Grand Prix came to a rather unsatisfactory ending after a late safety car saw the race end under the yellows.
Max Verstappen comfortably won the race as it never resumed after the on-track retirement of Daniel Ricciardo. This happened much to the dismay of Tifosi who even booed at the FIA for the decision.
Many drivers and F1 fans were also disappointed by the race ending behind the safety car.
Although Lando Norris lost a position pitting under the final safety car, Seidl still praised race director Niels Wittich. He supported his decision to not restart the race:
“We should be clear that after what happened last year in Abu Dhabi. There were a lot of discussions between the FIA, Formula 1 and all of the teams involved in order to see how the rules could be modified to make sure races never end under a safety car,”
said Seidl.
“But despite the FIA and Formula 1 really pushing us all to find solutions, it was down to us, the teams, not agreeing to any change because we couldn’t agree on any better [system] that was still a fair solution in terms of the sporting outcome.
“That is why, I guess, we simply have to accept that, unfortunately, situations like this can happen.”
McLaren didn’t have a memorable outing this time at the Italian GP.
F1 and FIA came up with the safety car solution
Last year’s controversial safety car ending at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix saw many people condemning the decision. In that instance, the ‘let them race’ prerogative that teams pushed for took over the conventional regulations.
Nevertheless, to avoid similar controversial endings accompanied by satisfactory green flag endings, F1, FIA and teams discussed implementing some changes:
“Formula 1 and the FIA really tried hard to push us to find a solution as teams or make proposals of how we could change the regulations, in order to always end races under a green flag,”
added Seidl.
“But because of too many concerns, pretty much from all teams involved that we shouldn’t put the spectacle first. We only want solutions that favour the sporting side and don’t suddenly end up in jeopardy.
“That is why we couldn’t agree on anything better than what we have in place, and that is why I also don’t now change my opinion suddenly because it was not in our favour [at Monza].
“In the end, we voted that the regulations should stay as they have been. As far as I remember, every single team voted like that and therefore, let’s close the subject and move on.
“Even if it might sound easy to create something like always throwing out a red flag. It’s actually not that straightforward.
“Again, we discussed it at length. But we didn’t come up with any better solution and that is why we should now support the regulations that are in place and how they have been applied because we all, every single team, voted for it.”
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