​Following the anticlimactic safety car finish at the British Grand Prix, former Formula 1 driver David Coulthard has heavily criticized the championship’s current procedures. On the Up To Speed podcast, the 13-time grand prix winner argued that the safety car process is unnecessarily slow and supported a proposal to mandate automatic red flags for incidents within the final 10 laps of a race.
The safety car was deployed at Silverstone after Red Bull’s Max Verstappen became stuck in the gravel at Stowe corner on lap 48 of 52. While Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton pitted for fresh tyres, Mercedes’ George Russell stayed out, taking second place from the seven-time champion. Yet the anticipated restart never materialized. Despite an erroneous TV graphic suggesting a final-lap sprint, the race finished behind the safety car because there were not enough laps remaining to complete the full procedures. Leclerc took victory in front of a disappointed crowd, with Russell and Hamilton finishing second and third respectively.
“This is so dull and it feels like something we should be able to resolve,” Coulthard stated. “We have an almost 6-km race track. We have an incident in one corner of that track. A safety car is deployed quickly once they’ve determined the car can’t get out of the gravel. Then we spend a few laps waiting for the pack to catch the safety car, and once it’s with the safety car, we wait for the race director to tell the drivers they can overtake. It all just takes far too long.”
“We’re Formula 1. We change wheels in 2.2 seconds, or the world record previously was 1.8 seconds. We build some of the fastest racing cars in the world. As soon as the safety car is out there, they could start that process.” He added that with GPS data showing where the cars are on track, as long as drivers respect the speed through the double-yellow zones, the entire process could be completed more quickly.
“The safety car could have prevented Abu Dhabi 2021, and it could have prevented what we saw there this weekend.” When co-host Will Buxton floated the idea of automatically red-flagging a race if an incident occurs within the last 10 laps, Coulthard responded: “Yeah, I think that is a solution, and I think it would give them a chance to reset everything.” He also argued that it isn’t beyond Formula 1’s capabilities to implement on-track, rapid red flags, noting there are only 22 cars, assuming they’re all still running. “It isn’t that complicated. These are the best drivers in the world.”
“They drive at 200 miles an hour, with only inches or centimeters separating them, and yet somehow when there’s an incident in one corner, it feels like we’re dealing with kindergarten-level chaos.”