During the Miami GP, there was a peculiar moment involving the safety car, with Max Verstappen finding himself behind it instead of Lando Norris. There was criticism surrounding the use of the safety car, but the FIA has now clarified the situation.
It was indeed an unusual sight, with Max Verstappen positioned as the ‘first car’ behind the safety car, while race leader Lando Norris continued driving ahead of the safety car, heading towards the pit lane to make a pit stop. Essentially, this allowed Norris to benefit from what could be considered a ‘free pit stop’ and enabled him to maintain his position as race leader.
The FIA has since explained that the decision to deploy the safety car was made very last minute, and Lando Norris was simply not caught in time to be stopped.
According to the FIA, “It was a very late call to send the safety car on track, they missed Lando Norris by about 20 meters. Then the race management decided to have the safety car do a slow lap so that all the cars could come together and the marshals could remove the car from the track, which would not have been possible if they had let all the cars pass the safety car immediately. Therefore, they chose to wait until all the cars were grouped together before allowing them to pass.”
As a result, when the race was restarted, Lando Norris was able to maintain his lead, pulling away from Max Verstappen and ultimately securing the victory.