FIA explained that a hardware failure caused the back-up system to be triggered, which delayed the end of the virtual safety car at Paul Ricard. Still, the FIA assured that everything happened as expected and on a level playing field
The FIA (International Automobile Federation) pointed to a hardware problem as the reason for the problem that caused a virtual safety-car delay at the end of the French GP.
The VSC was triggered on lap 46 after Guanyu Zhou was stranded on the track. The virtual safety car was then triggered to clear the track. When the Alfa Romeo was removed, the race management advised all teams that the VSC period would end within ten to 15s, a standard procedure required by Formula One sporting regulations.
A system failure, however, prevented the track from being cleared according to the forecast, resulting in a delay until the race management's back-up system was triggered. The race only resumed when the teams received a second message alerting them to the end of the VSC period.
"A second VSC period end message was sent because of a hardware problem, which led to an automatic switch to the back-up systems, which functioned exactly as they should in that scenario," the FIA said in a statement. "The same information is provided to all teams simultaneously. The countdown time to the green light on the panels around the track is always random," it justified.
Sergio Pérez felt aggrieved by the problem. The Mexican had prepared to restart at what should have been the restart, but was unprepared for the actual restart, and so was overtaken by George Russell, who took third place on the podium at Paul Ricard.
"It's a shame that the virtual safety-car interfered with the result, to be honest. It shouldn't be the case, but today it was like that," Pérez said. "[The message] was totally wrong, there was something going on, because they said it was going to end at turn 9 and it only ended at the exit of turn 12," he added.
Red Bull itself, however, did not swallow the Mexican's complaint, who claimed that "it looked like he had drunk tequila" at the race in France.
Formula 1 returns next weekend, July 29-31, with the Hungarian Grand Prix, which closes the first part of the championship. GRANDE PRÊMIO follows LIVE and IN REAL TIME all the activities of the weekend at the Hungaroring.