Minardi: Race director made mistakes

Following the finish of the Australian Grand Prix, FIA race director Niels Wittich came under fire for controversial decisions to stop the race with red flags on three occasions. Giancarlo Minardi, the former owner of the eponymous team, believes Wittich was exaggerating, following the wishes of Liberty Media’s championship leadership to make Formula 1 an exciting show.

Giancarlo Minardi: “They want to make a show of Formula 1, but they hit rock bottom in Melbourne. After Alex Albon’s crash, they quickly went from yellow flags and a safety car to the first of three red ones. The climax was reached with two laps to go after Kevin Magnussen’s crash, when race director Wittich again ran red flags and restarted the race, resulting in the third stoppage of the race due to a collision between the Alpine drivers.

On the restart, Carlos Sainz sent Fernando Alonso into a U-turn and moved up to third. He was fined five seconds for this maneuver, although the restart was canceled and the directorate resumed the race and returned the pilots to positions, with the exception of Gasly and Ocon. The race restarted after a two-hour, one-lap stint behind the safety car.

This is too much. From stage to stage, incomprehensible rules and their completely different interpretations remain in force. It’s time to say “Enough!” and bring clarity. The race director made mistakes, which in my opinion could be decisive in the fight for the title. Alpine riders suffered the most from his decisions and the team was able to appeal.

Ferrari could also appeal Carlos Sainz’s fine, but Vasser did nothing instead. The Spaniard made a mistake, but the penalty made no sense, as the new restart did not take into account the riders’ new positions.

Every decision is justified by the word “safety”, but on Sunday the race directors put the riders in greater danger. In those episodes you could safely get by with a real or virtual safety car without putting on all this spectacle. It got to the point that even some experts didn’t understand what was happening and put out their own interpretations.

Race management became the protagonist of the Grand Prix and stole this status from the racers. Formula 1 needs clear and subjective solutions.

If we talk about the race itself, we saw some nice overtaking maneuvers. The form of Max Verstappen and Red Bull is impressive, although they didn’t have to give the best of themselves.

Mercedes has taken a step forward, although George Russell’s reliability problems are a wake-up call, also because they supply their power plants to many teams. Mercedes plans to bring many new products to Baku and Imola – the team is not giving up.

We saw a small step forward from Ferrari. Carlos Sainz drove a good race, although he was not only inferior to Red Bull, but also to Aston Martin. There is a difference of three tenths between his best lap and Alonso’s best lap. Mistakes have been made in qualifying this weekend – on this track starting position matters, and Leclerc’s early exit showed which.

Fernando Alonso’s third consecutive podium put him third in the drivers’ standings, but more importantly Aston Martin are now the second strongest team in the championship behind Red Bull.”