Martin Brundle challenges FIA after British GP safety car finish: "Denied a proper end"
· Yahoo Sports
Former Formula 1 driver and Sky Sports analyst Martin Brundle has questioned the FIA's handling of the 2026 British Grand Prix's concluding laps, arguing that race control is not obligated to wait for lapped cars to catch the pack before restarting the race.
The race at the iconic Silverstone circuit ended under safety car conditions, denying the crowd a green-flag finish.
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The safety car was deployed on lap 48 after Max Verstappen spun out and into the gravel at Stowe in front of the Landostand. While race leader Charles Leclerc and his Ferrari team-mate Lewis Hamilton, who was running in second at the time, both pitted under the safety car, Mercedes' George Russell stayed out and took second position.
As the chequered flag drew closer, the lapped cars were instructed to unlap themselves, and it looked as though there might have been a final lap of racing when the 'Safety Car In This Lap' message appeared on lap 51. Despite the message, the safety car stayed out.
"I am hoping there is a separate reason for not pitting the safety car and not just a change of mind, or a mistake, not to bring it in. We were all denied a proper end to the grand prix," Brundle explained during the Sky Sports F1 broadcast.
"The whole point of letting the backmarkers through is so they don't interrupt the leaders and get involved in the race.
"When they are half a Silverstone lap away, they are not going to get in the way with one lap to go. You don't have to wait for them all to plod around to the back. Maybe something else happened."
FIA Safety Car
FIA Safety CarHe added: "Whatever the regulations say, it's not right to wait, especially on a long circuit, for the lapped cars to get through. The whole reason that came in was to stop lapped runners getting in the way of a big grandstand finish and it sometimes brings players back in and they are part of the race again, so there's a show element to that as well.
"The regulations say 'if the race director considers it safe for them to do so' and it was safe because it was a dry day and wasn't pouring with rain and there was no debris, 'the message lapped cars may now overtake will be sent to all competitors'.
"It then goes on to say in the many pages of regulations 'having overtaken the F1 cars on the lead lap, the safety car will extinguish its lights'.
"It doesn't say they have to be back of the queue. There's nothing to say you have to wait until they have arrived to the back, it just says 'you have to proceed at a reasonable speed'."
The FIA has since released an explanation for why the race ended under safety car conditions. "The safety car period regulation, Article B5. 13.5, states that one lap must be completed following the unlapping procedure," the statement read.
"This process was followed by Race Operations. The 'Safety Car In This Lap' message was displayed erroneously due to a software error."
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