The ugly drama of last year’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix was back in the spotlight on Sunday as Max Verstappen won at Monza behind the safety car.
It was an anti-climatic end to the race that saw the Dutchman pull within touching distance of back-to-back F1 world titles.
But the nature of the Italian Grand Prix finish saw the crowd — largely Ferrari supporters — erupt into a chorus of boos as Verstappen took to the podium, having finished ahead of Charles Leclerc and George Russell.
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‘BRINGS BACK MEMORIES:’ Ricciardo woe reignites ugly F1 debate as crowd erupts at Max feat
A safety car was brought out with six laps to go after Daniel Ricciardo parked his ailing McLaren on the side of the track.
Verstappen and second-place Leclerc both pitted for fresh tyres as a final shootout loomed, but in a reversal of what happened in Abu Dhabi in 2021, racing never restarted.
Last year, Hamilton was leading the season finale, and the championship, ahead of Verstappen when a late safety car was called.
Remarkably, the FIA allowed for a situation that saw racing resume with one lap remaining after all drivers between Hamilton and Verstappen were cleared, but had not yet rejoined the train.
Hamilton was a sitting duck on old tyres and ultimately lost the championship on the final lap of the entire season.
Naturally, the seven-time world champion — who finished fifth in Monza — said Sunday’s situation “brought back memories”.
“It always brings memories back. That is the rule that it should be, right?” Hamilton said, saying that Monza was the correct procedure and Abu Dhabi was not.
“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.”
In Monza, racing didn’t resume as there was not enough time for all cars to complete a lap and re-join the field behind the leaders.
In Abu Dhabi, then race director Michael Masi threw out the rule book and gave a green light for Hamilton and Verstappen with little consideration to the rest of the field.
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff weighed in on Sunday, saying: “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.”
Nonetheless, the FIA still came under fire for how it handled the safety car period at Monza.
Crucial to extending the period was that the car came out in front of the third-placed Russell, and not Verstappen.
Russell and the 11 cars between him and Verstappen were not initially released, while the Mercedes driver wouldn’t go past the safety car after his team told him to because no green light was showing.
Eventually they were released, but Verstappen only got to the front of the queue at the end of lap 51 of 53. By this point, there was not going to be enough time for the other cars to rejoin the train behind the safety car — so racing did not resume.
Ferrari boss Mattia Binotto slammed the FIA for being “caught sleeping” at the end of the race, saying that Leclerc was robbed of a chance to compete for the win at the death.
“Today we had all the conditions to have a restart of the race, I don’t know why they waited so long,” Binotto told Sky Italy after the race.
“The FIA has been caught sleeping, maybe they are not yet ready to deal with these situations.”
Asked if the rules need to be changed, he said: “No, I don’t think it’s a matter of changing the rules. The rules have been discussed, largely, especially after Abu Dhabi last year.
“They were discussed with the FIA, F1 and the teams, and we came to a conclusion that the current format is probably the right one to keep. So I don’t think it’s a matter of regulations today.
“I am certainly disappointed for how long it took them to decide, and I think we are not understanding why it took so long to release the cars between the safety car and the leader.”
Despite Verstappen benefiting from the situation, Red Bull boss Christian Horner said he believed there was ample time to restart the race.
“We don’t want to win a race under a safety car,” Horner told Sky F1. “And that’s something that we’ve talked about for many, many years that they should finish racing. There was enough time to get that race going. I think they picked up the wrong car, they picked up George Russell.
“We had the faster car, and we would have liked to have won the race on the track, not behind the safety car. So we share the disappointment of all the fans because it took away a grandstand finish.”
Nonetheless, the FIA defended its decision, saying that issues in recovering Ricciardo’s car were to blame for the delay instead.
“While every effort was made to recover Car #3 quickly and resume racing, the situation developed and marshals were unable to put the car into neutral and push it into the escape road,” the FIA said in a statement.
“As the safety of the recovery operation is our only priority, and the incident was not significant enough to require a red flag, the race ended under safety car following the procedures agreed between the FIA and all Competitors.
“The timing of the safety car period within a race has no bearing on this procedure.”
