In addition to the classic safety car, the virtual one also had to “go to the track” towards the end of the race after Kuan-yu Chou stopped his car.
As soon as the track was clear, race management informed the teams that the virtual safety car period was ending. According to the rules of the sport, the race is then to be restarted with a green flag “anytime 10 to 15 seconds later”.
However, this did not happen on the first attempt and the race remained in virtual safety car conditions for longer. A second “End of VSC” message was then sent and the race eventually continued. However, the delay caused confusion among some riders. George Russell took advantage of this, getting ahead of Pérez. The Red Bull driver was not happy about it.
“It seems that George had different information and could have prepared better for it. It’s a shame the virtual safety car affected the result to be honest. It shouldn’t happen, but today it did,” Pérez said.
The FIA issued a statement: “The second VSC termination message was sent due to a hardware problem, which resulted in an automatic switch to backup systems, which worked exactly as they were supposed to in this scenario. The same information is delivered to all teams at the same time.”
“The countdown time from VSC exit until the green light is displayed on the trackside panels is always random.”
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