The collision between Kevin Magnussen and Logan Sargent on lap 28 of the Miami Grand Prix resulted in the deployment of the safety car on track. Many were surprised by the fact that Bernd Mailander did not appear on the track ahead of then leader Lando Norris, who had not yet stopped in the pits, but ahead of Max Verstappen, who was driving second.
The FIA explained that the decision to release Mailander was made at the last minute, causing the safety car to enter the track after Norris had passed the pit lane exit and was 20 meters ahead. Lando’s lead over Verstappen at that moment was 11.4 seconds. However, by the time Verstappen brought in the safety car, Lando’s lead had grown to 20 seconds.
The important point: Norris drove as fast as possible without going past the so-called safety car delta, and therefore not breaking the rules. Max Verstappen is forced to run a safety car pace lower than Norris’s pace, and this causes him to lose a further 8.8 seconds to Lando in the second sector, and when the McLaren driver enters the pit lane for a pit stop, his lead over Max is already 32 seconds.
This difference is enough for Norris to leave the pits as the leader. And only then does Mailander let Verstappen and the rest of the peloton move forward and overtake Norris.
The deciding factor for Lando was actually the twenty meter lead over the safety car when it entered the track. If Lando had suffered some delays and ended up behind Mailander, he would have returned to the track after his mandatory pit stop at the end of the pack.
Source: F1 News

I am Christopher Clyde, an experienced journalist and content writer with a passion for sports. I have been writing about Formula 1 news for the past five years and am currently employed as an author at athletistic.com, one of the top sports websites in the US.