FIA slammed for making Belgium Grand Prix Sprint start even ‘more dangerous’

Forcing the drivers to start the Sprint race on intermediates well aware they’d all swap to intermediates at the first opportunity, Mark Webber believes the FIA made the Saturday evening race at Spa “more dangerous”.

And not just for the drivers, but for everyone in the pit lane.

周六的Sprint race for the Belgian Grand Prix weekend got off to a delayed start as two rain showers spent through the region and drenched the circuit.

‘The FIA actually made it more dangerous for them having to do this’

Race Control initially put out a notice saying start delayed, a second saying the Sprint would begin in 12 minutes, and then a third saying delayed.

Even before the shortened race got underway with five formation laps behind the Safety Car, Carlos Sainz and other drivers were asking for clarification on the rule as to when they could come in to swap their mandated full wet tyres for intermediates.

Sainz and others, including Webber’s charge Oscar Piastri who started P2 on the grid, pitted the first opportunity they had with pole-sitter Max Verstappen in a lap later.

The field was almost evenly split, resulting in a busy and chaotic pit lane with some drivers having to wait for others to come down the pit lane while there were also a couple of close calls.

Webber reckons the rule to start on full wets if lining up behind a Safety Car creates more danger for the drivers and their pit crews.

“Absolutely,” he told Channel 4 after the race. “It’s tricky. I don’t agree with them cruising around on full wets and then having to do the inters.

“I think the FIA actually made it more dangerous for them having to do this.

“There was no standing water, they could have started on the inters behind the Safety Car. But anyway, they went through this, they forced the teams out to do this scenario, which is very complicated for them.

“Oscar was very lucky, a good gap for him there, but other people weren’t as lucky so it is compromising, puts pressure on the team.

“Max took the high ground, no no risk really, did his out-lap, come back in. But the Ferraris certainly lost out.”

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Red Bull ‘always’ have the answer

Piastri’s early pit stop meant he got the jump on Verstappen, who was almost two seconds behind him when he left the pits after his tyre change.

The Dutchman was quickly onto the McLaren’s rear wing and on lap 6 took the lead.

Webber says it was an easy call for Red Bull to avoid the risk of being one of the first into the pits as they had speed in abundance.

Asked why he thought Verstappen pitted with the second batch of drivers, Webber replied: “When you got that level of speed up your sleeve, you know you can sort of take it a bit easy on the risks. They’ve always got an answer.”

Piastri went on to finish the Sprint race in second place, earning his first F1 podium, while Verstappen took the win.

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