Haas Team Principal Ayao Komatsu finds a race finish behind the safety car—as seen at Silverstone—rather uninspiring: Should there be a red flag instead?
Should Formula 1 do away with race finishes behind the safety car and instead use a red flag to ensure fans get an exciting finale? That, at least, is the view of Haas team principal Ayao Komatsu, who finds a neutralized race finish—like the one at Silverstone two weeks ago—unsatisfactory.
In the UK, the safety car was deployed after Max Verstappen went off the track shortly before the end. Ferrari had brought Lewis Hamilton into the pits for fresh tires, but Mercedes left George Russell, who was behind him, on the track, allowing him to pass Hamilton and finish in second place.
Because the race wasn’t restarted, Russell ultimately crossed the finish line ahead of Hamilton. However, the neutralization deprived fans of an entertaining final phase, which Komatsu finds unfortunate.
In his opinion, a race interruption would have been the more sensible option. “At least we could have had a race over three or four laps. That’s far better than crossing the finish line behind the safety car,” says the Japanese driver ahead of the Formula 1 race in Belgium.
Another problem at Silverstone: Because some drivers still had to be lapped, the race couldn’t be restarted in time. “In my opinion, that takes far too long,” Komatsu criticizes this procedure, which was also at the center of the controversial 2021 finale in Abu Dhabi, when race director Michael Masi immediately restarted the race.
He would have preferred it if they had skipped the lap-back procedure. “If you use the safety car at that point to let the cars complete their laps, you’re guaranteed to lose another lap or two,” he says. “So I don’t know.”
“I’m not claiming I’m right. But personally, I think that if we had shown the red flag immediately after the incident in that situation at Silverstone, the spectators might at least have had two laps—I don’t remember exactly—or a few laps of real racing,” said the Haas team principal.
Essentially, that would mean that once a certain number of laps remain, you’d automatically have to bring out a red flag instead of the safety car. The question then would be: Where do you draw the line?
“Normally, you don’t restart the race when there are only four laps left. Even five laps are, let’s say, pretty borderline,” says Komatsu, who believes that in the final stages, one would have to weigh the pros and cons: “What’s the downside if we show the red flag instead of bringing out the safety car?”
The disadvantage would likely be that a restart would create winners and losers who wouldn’t normally have existed. On the other hand, however, all drivers are allowed to change tires under a red flag, which in turn levels the playing field.
Komatsu emphasizes that this approach would have prevented one of the most controversial situations of recent years: Abu Dhabi 2021. “Because if you wave the red flag, everyone would change tires.” In other words, Lewis Hamilton wouldn’t have been defenseless against Max Verstappen on old tires, but would have had the same tires.
“So that’s probably a fair way to go. And it gives the viewers a race,” says Komatsu.
