The Hungarian Grand Prix was magnificent. It was thrilling, it was unpredictable, it gave us another, new winning driver in Esteban Ocon.
Then there was a 3 week, Summer break.
Then came Belgium.
Spa is a magnificent circuit. Eau-Rouge is one of the most iconic corners on the calendar. The huge track spawls for several miles and is easily the longest track on the calendar. This, and its location in the Ardennes forest leads to it having different micro-climates across the track. Rain is not a stranger, but it can be pouring on one side of the track and bone dry on the other. This leads it to be one of the most challenging and intriguing races of the season.
This year, though, it was none of those things. Of course the place still existed in its magnificence. But the rain was unrelenting through race day.
During a fateful attempt to start the race, Sergio Perez crashed on his way to the grid and was out, well, seemingly.
The formation lap started, but when the cars made it back to the grid, it was clear that visibility was close to nil, aquaplaning was happening all around the circuit and the rain was falling, if anything, more heavily. The start was aborted and the cars were led around one more time and into the pit lane.
So began several hours of repeated updates from the FIA saying that another update would be in ‘X’ minutes. But this is where crazy stuff started to happen.
I just want to say I haven’t read this years rule book end to end, so I may be utterly wrong about this. But my understanding was that the formation lap was considered part of the race. Even if it wasn’t, the lap that then happened where the safety car led the cars back to the pits was. In every other race with an aborted start, that lap has been dropped from the race distance, as it was in this case. So the race had started. However, Red Bull then made an argument to Michael Masi, race director, that since the race had not started, they could fix Perez’ car and re-enter him in the race. Ultimately, Masi agreed. Strange.
The other thing I really want to make clear is that if the race had not ‘counted’ in any way, I would have been heartbroken for George Russell. He produced one of the greatest laps of not only his career but, arguably, of F1 history to put his Williams into P2 on the grid. So if the race had been entirely aborted, that magnificent achievement would have been for nothing.
So, hours later and with light fading, Masi made the decision to have two laps behind the safety car before red flagging the race and ultimately aborting it. This then meant that the race could be classified with Max winning, George second and Lewis third.
I’m not hugely grumpy about that in itself, but I am grumpy about how the rules were literally made up as they went along. Of course it was unprecedented circumstances and so that was the nature of the beast. But to have a “race” begin and end behind a safety car means it is no race at all. As such, I believe it should have been called for what it was. It will go down in history as not only the first time an F1 race has occurred with no racing, but also the first time there have been a bunch of very confused teams actually asking if the race had started!!!
This sort of confusion is not good for the sport. I think Masi made a big mistake in allowing it to play out that way and I think he was also somewhat panicking by trying his best to balance the demands of the teams, trying to put on some sort of show for the fans and, most importantly, keeping the drivers safe. I’m not saying he should quit or anything like that. These were incredibly tough decisions and I respect him for making them. I just simply don’t think they were the right decisions for the sport.
