After the 2022 Monaco Grand Prix, Race Control has been heavily criticized and branded for being “worse than it was before” due to the delayed start in the Monte Carlo event.
The FIA stewards initially decided to first delay the Monaco race explaining that it was the result of the threat of rain looming. In just a few minutes, that threat became real and it was confirmed that the Monaco Grand Prix would be further delayed. The race eventually starting an hour after the scheduled start.
The initial delay has been criticised by many and some say it robbed fans of the opportunity of a grat race start in Monte Carlo, with maybe the only chance to see some overtaking at this track where passing is well-known to be extremely difficult.
Spanish motorsport journalist Antonio Lobato expressed his dissatisfaction with the way in which Race Control managed the race start and felt there was a big problem with communication.
“There has been a mixture of stories because there is a part that we can’t judge, which is that they have said that they have had a power supply problem in the grid, that they couldn’t put the whole traffic light system,” Lobato said, according to soymotor.com.
“We accept that because we can’t say otherwise either. But there were some very strange things, especially a lot of confusion when it came to sending messages. I base myself only on page 3 of what Formula 1 sends us, which is the page where we have all the messages from Race Direction, which I would like to think is the same that the teams receive, although the teams must have other types of information via radio. What appeared on that page was very little and very poorly explained and, in fact, the start of the race is a bit surreal. The message of ‘The formation lap is about to start behind the Safety Car’ and then they do two laps, it’s no longer a formation lap per se, and yet the race time doesn’t start. Then there came a moment when those of us who were broadcasting, Toni, Pedro and myself, had a doubt. We said, ‘Let’s see, has the race started or hasn’t it started? Because the stopwatch didn’t move, it didn’t move a second and they had done two laps and that’s when the red flag came out and they went inside.
The stewards have been changed for the 2022 Formula 1 season after Michael Masi was removed from his position due to the controversial outcome of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix last season. The new incumbents have proved much stricter but Lobato believes this has actually not improved the situation in 2022:
“Michael Masi was ‘brushed off.’ What he did was very big but I don’t want to see a situation like that, like Abu Dhabi, in a Grand Prix because this has been a bit chaotic and I think they’ve lost the plot a lot. I don’t want to think that there is an unprecedented tension like in Abu Dhabi because then I don’t know what these men are going to do, but I think we are worse off than before.” – he concluded.
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