sp3ctre said:
PerryGunn said:
had the regulations been followed, the race would have finished under the safety car.
Correct me if I'm wrong but the other option of following the rules was to allow them to race without the cars unlapping? That would have introduced other factors?
That's correct but if you take the race from the the point at which the decision had been made to let cars unlap themselves - to allow this or not was within Masi's remit so there was no breach of regs at this point.
There are two points to consider
1. The regulations say 'any lapped cars', RedBull argued that 'any' doesn't mean 'all' but, because of point 2, we can ignore that as it becomes inconsequential
2. the regulations state '
once the last lapped car has passed the leader the safety car will return to the pits at the end of the following lap'
Point 2 is the critical one as Masi bought in the safety car on the same lap, if he'd followed the regulations the safety car should have remained out for one more lap i.e. until the end of the race