German motorsport engineer and manager Andreas Seidl, currently the team principal of the McLaren Formula One Team, has disputed the criticism expressed by Ferrari boss Mattia Binotto towards the FIA for the way in which they handled the late safety car period in the 2022 Italian Grand Prix at the Monza circuit, as the race was no longer resumed and finished behind the safety car.
Red Bull’s Max Verstappen secured a a relatively easy win in the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, with a huge gap ahead of Scuderia Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc in the final stages of the race. The only unexpected moment that may have given the Maranello team a small chance of challenging the Dutchman took place with five laps until the end of the race, when Daniel Ricciardo sustained an engine issue and was forced to stop his McLaren car. Most of the drivers took advantage of this incident to quickly pit for new tyres, but in the end it did not even matter, because race control took too long to remove Daniel Ricciardo’s damaged car and the Italian Grand Prix ended without any more track action, marking only the 13th time in Formula 1 history a Grand Prix finished under such conditions.
Red Bull boss Christian Horner expressed his dismay despite the fact that Max Verstappen’s victory was secured as a result of the safety car finish, explaining the ending went against the “principals” agreed during discussions between the governing body and Formula 1’s teams in the last few years.
Ferrari boss Mattia Binotto went a step further and was even more adamant in his critique, pointing out that Formula 1 deserved better than the governance and the management currently offered by the FIA.
Asked about the comments made by Mattia Binotto at the end of the Italian Grand Prix, Andreas Seidl replied: “The FIA clarified with their statement, their position that from my point of view, I couldn’t have identified anything in that regard. In the end, it was unfortunate that it simply took a lot longer than expected to get our car off the track and that caused the problem which, in the end, for us, was very unfortunate.”
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As Lando Norris was also among those who returned to the box to change the tyres when the safety car came out, with the goal of having fresh compounds and be able to attack in the final laps, the McLaren driver lost a position to Red Bull’s Sergio Perez, given the fact that the Monza race did not resume:
“On Lando’s side, we decided to pit for another set of tyres in order to then have another go at Checo [Sergio Perez] and maybe Lewis [Hamilton] after the restart because these two guys stayed out. But unfortunately, with not getting the restart we could not get into this position anymore and actually lost out on a position to Checo.” – the McLaren boss concluded.
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