Unclear regulations and especially the decision to remove the crane in Suzuka when the pilots were still firing have flagged the International Federation
Max Verstappen and Red Bull had everything ready to party at Suzuka. For weeks, the weekend of the return to Japan was marked in red, not just to cement the roots with Honda giving them so much glory lately, but because they knew math was in their favor. The decisiveness with which Verstappen won his second world title earned a scene with substance, where eleven other titles had been held in the past.
Friday’s rain predicted a busy weekend. Of those who leave images for history, who are remembered by the annals. Everything seemed perfect for Verstappen, who saw Ferrari’s cyclothymia connected to him even on Saturday. This time there was no Charles Leclerc on pole, it was him. It was supposed to be a glorious Sunday for him, but 24 hours after the milestone, it’s barely a footnote.
The FIA has been in charge of thrusting the new two-time world champion into the spotlight. This Monday, he is being talked about tangentially as the debate centers on how a confusing and badly revised regulation just a year ago let Verstappen know himself whether he was world champion or not for a few minutes emerging from a sitcom-type ‘Modern Family’ . “Am I a champion or not?” Where in the well-known metaverse would anyone have thought the winner of two-thirds of the calendar would have such a doubt?
All for an expression: “If the race stops and cannot be started again.” Therein lies the key. This last sentence had been in the sporting regulations since 1991, when they understood that something had to be done about the tests that had not been completed due to rain. It wasn’t anything new, far from it, but they were all ruled by this rule: if 75% of the race was not contested, half the points were split. Throughout the history of F1 where fewer points had been awarded than the established ones, the same premise was maintained: not all laps had been completed and it had not been possible to restart. These were Austria 1977, Monaco 1984 (Senna’s first podium), Australia 2001, Malaysia 2009 and Belgium 2021. It was the latter that forced the rule to rewrite the rule to avoid pantomimes, such as seeing the drivers three laps behind driving the safety car who were unable to move forward.
The problem is that, until now, what happened on Sunday never happened: a race stopped, restarted and completed… because of a time limit and not a lap limit. By reducing the maximum race time from four to three hours (to avoid what happened in Canada 2011), the total distance of the race was strictly completed when that time limit was reached, as the standard considers this. A law that failed to consider all this combination of factors and which confused even those responsible for Red Bull. “Our statisticians calculated that Max was one point short,” admitted Helmut Marko later.
Within the bad, this vaudeville was immediately dissolved. More problematic and controversial is the other big debate on Sunday. The current generation of drivers experienced the most difficult moment during the Japanese GP, precisely in 2014. That day, the extremely talented Jules Bianchi lost control of his Marussia and crashed directly into the tow truck that was removing Adrian Sutil’s crashed car. He died after being in a coma for months. He became the first fatality among the ‘gladiators’ since the missed Ayrton Senna in San Marino 1994.
The regulations were then changed. Realizing that the double yellow flags asking the drivers to slow down in such a situation was not enough, they ordered red flags and above all a clear protocol was drawn up: a crane should never go out on the track when the cars are not grouped behind the safety car and above all never come by with them.
That failed on Sunday. When Carlos Sainz hit the wall due to an aquaplaning that could have happened to anyone, someone ordered the crane’s pilot to get out. This went straight to the injured Ferrari as the cars passed behind safety… and within a few minutes Pierre Gasly wondered furiously what that machine was doing in the middle of the track. Why he drove 200 km/h after being warned twice to slow down is not news, although he was penalized later.
All drivers, without exception, are shouting at the FIA today. George Russell and Sebastian Vettel, as presidents of the GP Drivers’ Association, will red-face those responsible for establishing clear and precise rules to ensure the sport is safe and entertaining, in that order. It is unimaginable that it has happened less than ten years after the loss of Bianchi.
That Verstappen’s title doesn’t cover the FIA’s shame, or vice versa. There are still four main prizes left (of which one in the sprint) and there is still a lot to decide. The best news is that the pilots are the protagonists and not an international federation that is over-regulated and incapable, obviously, not every time a weekend is not idyllic to show its shortcomings.
Source: La Verdad
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