The change is intended to give drivers a better chance of getting heat into their tyres in an attempt to avoid the sort of chaos that was seen after restarts at the last race in Australia.
Following the multiple restart incidents in Melbourne, drivers complained that they had struggled to get their tyres up to temperature for restarts while following the safety car for the initial part of the pre-restart procedure.
The topic was discussed at length at Friday evening's drivers' briefing, given the obvious concerns about a repeat in Baku, a track well-known for red flag stoppages.
The problem is that the FIA cannot change its own sporting regulations in the course of a race weekend.
However, based on a suggestion originally put forward by Fernando Alonso, a way has been found to address the tyre temperature issue within the current regulations.
For a resumption, the rules say: "The sprint session or the race will be resumed behind the safety car when the green lights are illuminated, and the safety car leaves the pit lane. Drivers must follow the safety car no more than ten car lengths apart."
Alonso suggested that the safety car leaves 30 seconds early and that the race leader then leads the field out onto the track and sets the pace, in effect creating a gap that gives everyone more freedom to warm up their tyres rather than having the pace dictated.
Source: Autosport