A late standing restart at the recent Australian Grand Prix led to chaos as drivers struggled on cold tyres, and that triggered a spate of collisions at the first corner that brought out a fresh red flag.
Following lengthy discussions in Friday night’s F1 drivers’ briefing in Azerbaijan, it is understood that Fernando Alonso suggested a tweak to procedures that could be brought in to play to help drivers better prepare for the restarts.
The idea is that rather than drivers being left with just a few corners to warm up their tyres ahead of a restart, that F1’s safety car departs earlier that has been normal up to now to give the race leader more control of the pace.
The idea was agreed among teams on Saturday morning and F1 race director Niels Wittich confirmed ahead of the Saturday sprint how the new procedures will work.
Rather than the safety car leading the field around for most of the lap before switching its lights off, it will now depart 30 seconds ahead of the pack.
Source: Autosport