'Race management decisions at Spa created other danger'
F1 News
Former Formula One driver Martin Brundle has given his opinion on the race management's performance at the Belgian Grand Prix. Variable weather conditions caused delayed starts and a rolling start behind the Safety Car, among other things. In his column for Sky Sports, Brundle takes a somewhat critical look back at the race management decisions.
Brundle, along with many spectators, saw Friday's free practice session fall by the wayside. Only a limited number of laps were completed in this session, with no racing trim. The Briton also sees another safety risk despite the treacherous conditions. In particular, he sees dangers in the lack of driving time, leaving teams unprepared going into the rest of the weekend. "For the teams, it meant zero running on race tyres and full fuel, so they would be obliged to take an educated guess on both those aspects along with aero levels, suspension set-up, and ride heights for what was always expected to be a drier race afternoon. Talk about jeopardy".
Delayed sprint race and Safety Car start
Furthermore, Brundle also saw restraint from race control ahead of Saturday's sprint race. The Sprint start was delayed, and four laps were driven behind the safety car before there was a rolling start. "Again, race control were overly cautious in my view, and the uncomfortable safety paradox here is that many drivers pitted immediately into a wet pitlane populated by 250 team members in chaotic stops, releases, and near misses between cars," said Brundle, who again has reservations about the race committee's decision here.
Finally, the Sky Sports analyst also wonders why the Formula 1 circus brings full wet tyres every weekend when in many cases, the race organisers only release the track when conditions seem to be good enough for intermediates. "Many key people, and fans for that matter, were reasonably asking why we even carry full wet tyres around the world, which are mandatory behind Safety Car starts, when we only ever release the cars when the track is at intermediate tyre stage, and even fast heading towards slick dry tyres on occasion."