Christian Horner does not “understand” the FIA’s decision after a “dangerous” accident during qualifying for the Sao Paulo GP

Race control waited more than 30 seconds before red flagging the session, on both occasions Charles Leclerc AND Liam Lawson improving lap times.

Max Verstappen he was in the middle sector and improving when the red flag appeared, and with just over a minute left on the clock, the session did not resume.

This left both Verstappen and Perez outside the top ten, with the Dutchman having to start the Sao Paulo GP from 17th position due to a penalty for moving five places up on the grid. Horner during the conversation he was confused by Race Control’s decision Heavenly sports after the session.

Christian Horner questions race control red flag delay after Lance Stroll’s crash in Sao Paulo GP qualifying

After the session, Verstappen called the decision to delay the red flag “stupid”.while Horner questioned why it took so long, given that other incidents required an immediate red flag.

“I don’t understand why it took so long to raise the red flag. It’s obviously a big accident in turn three, one of the most dangerous corners on the track. It took 40 seconds to red flag and for the second day in a row we received very late notifications, whether it was a VSC yesterday or a red flag today. All the other red flags showed up immediately,” Horner said.

“All you have to do is focus on safety, it’s not about the cars being able to finish laps. Whenever you have an accident like this, a red flag should immediately go off.

“With a driver in the wall in one of the most dangerous corners on the track, cars coming through the track, you can’t just say, ‘Oh, we’ll wait for the others to complete their laps’ – that’s not the way to work that way. Lance Stroll didn’t try to restart that car, he was screwed up, he was in the middle of the track, that’s a red flag.

Why Max Verstappen was unlucky in his race control decision

Many factors go into race control’s decision to display a red flag, and it has long been policy to display them immediately during qualifying to prevent drivers from improving their lap times.

In this case, the officials waved a double yellow card towards Stroll’s damaged car, prompting Race Control to assess the situation. The Aston Martin driver initially tried to recover his car, not realizing the extent of the damage, which caused a short delay before the red flag was raised.

Red Bull were also caught sending their cars towards the end of the session, with Perez venting his frustration to the engineer, feeling it had cost them a pit stop.

Elsewhere, Verstappen’s first attempt was thwarted by being overtaken by Esteban Ocon, who eventually improved to get into Q3.

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