It was since the 2020 Bahrain Grand Prix that a Formula 1 race did not end under the Safety Car intervention. Today in Monza this series ended and led to understandable boos from the Italian fans in the stands.
On lap 48 of the Italian Grand Prix, Daniel Ricciardo was forced tp stop his McLaren car between the first and second corners of Lesmo in a very dangerous point with a very short escape route. Race Direction initially showed a simple yellow flag, which lasted a very long time before it was changed into a normal Safety Car. The problem, as also pointed out by Helmut Marko after the checkered flag, is that the safety car did not come out in front of the leader Max Verstappen, who needed two laps to find the Safety Car, further reducing the time available to clear the track, which was already short to begin with. The Monza race could therefore not resume even for at least one last Sprint lap.
After the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, it was made clear that the lapped drivers must receive permission to unlap themselves and that the race can only restart in the following lap. Since Max Verstappen reached the Safety Car so late, with two lapped drivers between himself and Charles Leclerc, it was not possible to restart the race. So much time had been wasted that under the checkered flag Max Verstappen still had the lapped cars between him and the Ferrari driver.
At the same time, Andreas Seidl confirmed that there was a problem with Daniel Ricciardo’s gear (it was stuck). That was the reason why it took so long to remove the car from the race track.
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Still, a serious mistake in the timing of the Safety Car on the track by the Race Direction made a restart impossible. Max Verstappen thus won the Italian Grand Prix without any particular worries. Before the Safety Car intervention he had a 17 second advantage over Charles Leclerc with just five laps to go, and in the event of a restart he would have had a new soft tire against the Monegasque’s used one (3 laps). With the top speed expressed by Ferrari thanks to the low downforce configuration, however, Charles Leclerc would have had an opportunity to try to beat the rival whose package today, once again, proved to be overall superior.
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