The new regulation speeds up the resumption of the race
Seek to avoid situations like the one in Abu Dhabi
The FIA has made a change to the safety car regulations with the aim of speeding up race restarts, all following the controversial finish of the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
As of 2022, the safety car will withdraw when all the drivers have received the radio order to split. In other words, the safety car will receive the call to retire at the end of the next lap once all the drivers have the message that allows them to recover their real position in the race. This modification seeks speed up the process of restarting the race and avoid further confusion.
Under last year’s regulations, the safety car was withdrawn when the last lapped car passed the lead, a procedure that required the safety car to spend more time on track, as this might take a few more laps.
Although this change does not directly affect the articles on which the controversy was generated in Abu Dhabi, the FIA wants to avoid new controversies and speed up the process of resuming the race.
Controversy at the last Grand Prix of last season arose when race director Michael Masi only allowed some cars to split up and regain their actual position, in order to resume racing as quickly as possible. The drivers who regained their position were those between Hamilton and Verstappen, with the race restarting on the same lap this happened.
As a result of this action, and the protests of the Mercedes team, the FIA announced that it would carry out an analysis of everything that happened, which will see the light before the first race of 2022. But, despite not having been published yet, some of the decisions are already public, such as Masi’s impeachment and now the change in the safety car regulation.
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