Red Bull crew principal Christian Horner expects a change to the principles on awarding full factors in races that haven’t gone the space after Max Verstappen was topped world champion in complicated circumstances following Sunday’s Japanese Grand Prix.
Verstappen took the chequered flag at a rain-soaked Suzuka, with Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez promoted to second after Ferarri’s Charles Leclerc was handed a five-second penalty for leaving the monitor and gaining a bonus on the ultimate lap.
However, as a result of the race had ended when the time restrict expired and never when the complete variety of laps had been accomplished, confusion reigned as to what number of factors can be awarded.
The majority of the pit lane, together with Verstappen and Red Bull, believed half-points can be given because the race had not handed 75 per cent distance – however the rules state that, because the grand prix had been resumed following a delay of over two hours attributable to rain, full factors can be given.
That left Verstappen with a second world championship – even when Horner didn’t realize it on the time – and the crew principal now believes the principles, launched following farcical scenes eventually 12 months’s Belgian Grand Prix, will as soon as once more be checked out.
“I’m certain it will be,” he stated when requested if groups would communicate to the FIA, F1’s governing physique, to revise the regulation.
“We were confused and we thought it would not have been the full awards (of points). So initially, our calculations were such that he was not world champion.
“I think it’s a mistake that wasn’t included after the issues in Spa last year, that the regulations obviously haven’t been mopped up.
“We were under the strong impression that only with 75 per cent of the race, full points will be scored. So we felt we were going to be one point short.
“But in the end, Checo’s move on Charles nailed Max the championship. So you can see his surprise, the team’s surprise. But what a wonderful surprise.”
The drivers have been unable to finish a full racing lap after the race started in wet circumstances, Carlos Sainz’s crash bringing out the protection automobile on lap one earlier than the purple flag then halted proceedings.
An aborted restart adopted because the depth of the downpour elevated, with racing lastly restarting properly over two hours later.
Verstappen, who mastered the circumstances after the restart to win comfortably, believes F1 wants improved wet-weather tyres from Pirelli to permit for extra racing on moist tracks.
“I don’t want to take a dig at anyone, but I think we need better rain tyres,” he stated after being topped champion.
“If you saw what we could do in the 1990s or the early 2000s with the amount of water on the track, I’m very happy to have a few test days and try all different kinds of tyres.
“But we need better rain tyres, because I think the extremes are just slow and they can’t really carry a lot of water away.
“That’s why nobody really wants to run that extreme and when it rained like it did when the red flag came out, if you would have have put extreme tyres on, I think it would still be really difficult to drive, but then if you compare that to 20 years ago, that would’ve been perfectly fine.
“So there must be a solution. Like I said, this is not criticism, because I’m very happy to help out.
“We should look into it. Maybe we could all just organise more test days in the wet and work together to try and find better tyres to at least have an opportunity to really drive in the wet and not always only drive two laps on an extreme, switch to intermediates and call it a wet race – because a wet race is also normally driven in heavy rain.”
Source: www.impartial.co.uk
