Coulthard critical of FIA: 'After the race we want to know who won'
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- GPblog.com
David Coulthard feels that the race committee's decision-making during the Australian Grand Prix was by no means a thing of beauty. The former Formula 1 driver believes the results should be clear immediately after the race and should not be unnecessarily complicated as was the case in Melbourne.
After the race at Albert Park, the FIA received a storm of criticism. Race control ordered no fewer than three red flag wavers and caused huge chaos by opting for a standing restart with two laps to go. After this, the stewards had a laundry list of incidents and investigations to clear.
One of those incidents featured a starring role for Carlos Sainz, who tapped Fernando Alonso's Aston Martin in the chaos of the late restart. The Ferrari driver received a five-second time penalty, but as the race was eventually run out behind the safety car, he dropped from P4 to outside the top 10.
Coulthard critical of FIA
"It's all kind of confusing," Coulthard said to Dutch broadcaster Ziggo Sport. "We just want to be entertained by good motor racing. And at the end of the race, we want to know who's the winner and who lost, but we are in this modern world where everything has to be analyzed."
The 52-year-old Scot can sympathise with the stewards, for whom it is not easy to make the right decisions. However, he also feels that things are made "overly complicated". "I think we need to be able to close the chapter at the end of a Grand Prix and know what the result is. And I think that Australia was another example of it being overly complicated. It was not a great television show," he continued.
"We had some great action and of course everyone loves a good crash when it's not you that's crashing, but I think we can do better as a sport and I think the stewards can do better. I think the teams can do better. I think we can all do better," Coulthard added.