Race restart, Albert Park, 2023

F1 Commission rejects call to limit standing restarts after Australian GP chaos

2023 Belgian Grand Prix

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The Formula 1 Commission has rejected proposals to limit the use of standing restarts in races following the chaotic conclusion to the Australian Grand Prix in April.

A standing restart was given with two laps to go at the race, but three drivers lost control of their cars in the low grip conditions, causing a series of collisions.

The field was subsequently re-ordered into the positions drivers had occupied before the collision. That prompted a protest from Haas, which was rejected by the stewards.

Several drivers criticised the decision to use a standing restart so close to the end of the race, including race winner Max Verstappen and Fernando Alonso, who was hit by Carlos Sainz Jnr at turn one.

The F1 Commission discussed whether to limit the number of standing restarts which may be used in races or prevent them being used in the final laps. However both proposals failed to win the support of sufficient teams to be taken forward.

“Current practice is to always restart the race from a standing grid start, provided track conditions are suitable,” said the FIA in a statement. “However the concept of a fixed point in races after which any resumption would be done with a rolling start, and whether there should be a limit on the total number of standing restarts there can be in a race were considered.

“The ideas presented did not receive sufficient support from commission members to be taken further at this stage, however the group reaffirmed that the final decision on this topic always remains at the discretion of the race director based on the specific conditions of each restart.”

However the commission did agree a minor revision to the arrangements for standing starts to races in order to enable them to begin more quickly. “At the discretion of the race director, the Safety Car may either stay in the pit lane, or extinguish its orange lights and pull to the side of the track, letting all cars that are eligible to take the standing start overtake it,” noted the FIA in its statement.

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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3 comments on “F1 Commission rejects call to limit standing restarts after Australian GP chaos”

  1. How surprising.

    1. Yellow Baron
      28th July 2023, 17:55

      If they want to commit to standing restarts they should commit to the result of the restart as well. Not revert back to the restart order because “they didn’t pass the first sector”.
      As if it wasn’t obvious what the running order was or as if they didn’t pass through mini sectors. This is where indycar race control seems to have more common sense

      If they don’t want scenarios like Alonso getting crashed out at the end, or the two alpines then don’t do standing restarts. Simple. Make your mind up fools

  2. Jockey Ewing
    28th July 2023, 17:14

    Not a bad idea. If they tick this checkbox, they could do something with slow calls for VSC, and then slowly converting it into an SC, just to cover a way too long proportion of the race distance behind the SC. It happened multiple times. Maybe they could call these more quickily, a bit more unconditionally, especially the VSC. And then if there is any sign for a repair or rescue job, which takes more than 4-5 laps behind the SC, they could red flag it, and restart it with a rolling restart. Standing starts add a lot of randomness to the result. I think it is a bad kind of randomness, often helping the lucky, and battering the unlucky in an endurance-like format (for example by the effect of relative on track positions vs the SC or VSC calls’ timing, and the effect of the standing restart for a very few remaining laps).

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