"It was never going to restart"- Mercedes hits out at FIA over poor implementation of Safety Car at 2022 F1 Italian GP

Mercedes' technical director Mike Elliot revealed that the team demanded consistency in the implementation of rules and regulations during a race. While talking about Daniel Ricciardo's struck car, Elliot said that in those conditions the race would never restart.

He said:

"It took a while to remove the stricken car and then to let the front cars behind the Safety Car get off into the distance so the race could restart. It was never going to restart in that situation."

Mercedes referred to the incident that took place during the Italian Grand Prix while comparing it to the final moments of the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. Both events were very similar to each other, yet the decision taken by the FIA was very different.

Elliot has said that rules should be followed in a single way and must not change according to the situation. He called out the fact that it took a lot of time for the safety car to have the cars in the right order to restart the race.

He stated:

"In order to do that safely, you’ve either got to stop the race or you’ve got to get all the cars bunched up behind the Safety Car. And I think if you look at what happened, the Safety Car picked up George [Russell]. It didn’t pick up Max Verstappen, [who the race leader], which is probably what should have happened, and it took a while to get all the cars back together."

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Mercedes demands consistency in rules, as Elliot called out

Elliot stated that the rules should work in uniformity and should be the same all the time, so what is to happen is predictable. He also stated that the team (Mercedes) wants consistency regarding the same.

He mentioned:

"I think, from the team’s point of view, what we really want is consistency. We want to see the rules applied in the same way each time, so everybody knows what’s going to happen."

He also said that he understands how difficult it is for race directors to make a decision in situations like this, but it should be pre-decided what is to be done.

Many drivers and teams were agitated by the decision taken by the race directors when the safety car was called out during the final laps of the race. Many believe that there should be a new rule of red flagging the race if there is an incident in the final five laps to avoid a safety car finish, like the one that happened at Monza.

Mercedes, too, focussed on the same. This is because there was a similar situation during the Abu Dhabi GP in 2021 when a safety car was deployed during the final laps, but one lap of racing was given by the FIA which made the championship slip out of Lewis Hamilton's hands.

However, the same thing did not happen in Italy. This is also because after Abu Dhabi, the race director was changed and new regulations were brought in. Mercedes now expect uniformity from the FIA and the decisions they make during a race.