Daniel Ricciardo asks FIA to be a bit more open-minded with regards to red flag re-start rule after he and Oscar Piastri were forced to start a lap down.
For once, both AlphaTauri’s Ricciardo and McLaren’s Piastri had all their hopes gone after the Lap 1 incident in F1 Brazil GP. Both cars suffered due to the collision between Kevin Magnussen, Alexander Albon and Nico Hulkenberg going into Turn 1.
While Piastri was hit on the back by Magnussen, the tyre from the Dane’s car flew over and hit the rear wing of Ricciardo to damage his rear wing. As a result, they were slow to get back into the garage as the field took a lap around behind the safety car.
The race was red-flagged which gave time to the mechanics to repair the cars. But since the cars were not in the fastlane of the pitlane, the FIA rule states that drivers are allowed to re-join, but they are not allowed to go around for a lap to unlap them, if lapped.
Since both Ricciardo and Piastri were in their respective garages under the red flag period, they did join the pack, but a lap down. This is the rule which the former reckons is a bit lame and that FIA needs to be a bit open-minded about this.
His argument states that if there are 15 cars in a lap down situation, the FIA cannot then start like that, they will have to do something else, so why not in this case with few cars. “We hoped there was a red flag and we can get back in the race,” said Ricciardo. “So, we got to the pits. We heard there were reds.
“The team did a great job fixing the car, so we’re ready to go. Then they tell me that Oscar and I are starting a lap down. All the excitement you have to race again just gets completely zapped out of you. There was not a green flag racing lap completed. I don’t know how we start the race then a lap down.
“That’s really frustrating. Obviously, it’s something kind of a bit lame in the rules. I think my argument is if 15 cars had our issue, are they going to start 15 cars in the pit lane a lap down and put five cars on the grid? No. They’re not going to do that. So, for me, I think they can use common sense and be a bit open-minded. I just wish we could race, I wish they would let us be in the race. That one hurts a bit,” summed up Ricciardo.
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