Max Verstappen believes that Race Control is to blame for the late-race incidents that occurred following a standing restart.
Sunday’s Australian Grand Prix was interrupted by three flags, with two standing restarts called.
The final restart that saw the drivers line up on the grid took place on the penultimate lap of the race, but four drivers retired in the opening two corners, causing Race Control to issue a third red flag.
The race then ended following a final tour of the circuit behind the Safety Car, after deliberations were held over what the order would be.
Verstappen says that the situation could’ve been avoided if a rolling restart had been used.
“I think it’s quite clear, I just didn’t understand why we needed a red flag,” Verstappen said, referring to Kevin Magnussen’s accident that sparked the end-of-race chaos.
“I think if you would have had a Safety Car and then just had a normal rolling start we wouldn’t have had all these shunts and then you have a normal finish.
“So they created the problems themselves at the end of the day.”
The two-time World Champion wasn’t the only driver to criticise Race Control’s decision-making, with Lando Norris also chiming that he isn’t a fan of the standing restarts.
F1 has increasingly used the standing start method in recent years after rolling restarts were commonplace for years.
The final restart threatened to end Verstappen’s dominant drive during the day, as he cruised to a second win in three races.
Verstappen’s original start on Sunday afternoon saw him drop behind both Mercedes drivers – and admits there was a danger of losing out at the end as his tyres were lacking temperature.
“I think my start was a little bit better than what I had before, so I was happy about that because the tyres were really, really cold,” he said.
“And then, of course, after Turn 1, I saw there were massive gaps behind me, so I thought already there was something going on.
“Then I saw the replays and it was just a lot of chaos behind. So yeah, how it goes sometimes.”
