The British Grand Prix ending behind a Safety Car frustrated numerous fans, with Charles Leclerc crawling over the line to win an anti-climactic race.
Supporters in the grandstands initially thought they were going to get one final lap of racing, only for the Safety Car to stay out, seeing the Ferrari come home to pick up the win.
The FIA released a statement after the race explaining why the Safety Car had to stay out.
It read: “The Safety Car period regulation, Article B5. 13.5, states that one lap must be completed following the unlapping procedure.
“This process was followed by Race Operations. The ‘Safety Car In This Lap’ message was displayed erroneously due to a software error.”
The mistake frustrated numerous fans and pundits watching the race, including former British driver Martin Brundle.
“Whatever the regulations say, it’s not right to wait, especially on a long circuit, for the lapped cars to get through,” he told Sky Sports.
Brundle continued: “The whole reason that came in was to stop lapped runners getting in the way of a big grandstand finish, and it sometimes brings players back in, and they are part of the race again, so there’s a show element to that as well.
Fans thought one more lap of racing was going to unfold after a message was incorrectly displayed
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“The regulations say ‘if the race director considers it safe for them to do so’ and it was safe because it was a dry day and wasn’t pouring with rain and there was no debris, ‘the message lapped cars may now overtake will be sent to all competitors’.
“It then goes on to say in the many pages of regulations ‘having overtaken the F1 cars on the lead lap, the Safety Car will extinguish its lights’.
“It doesn’t say they have to be back of the queue.
“There’s nothing to say you have to wait until they have arrived to the back, it just says ‘you have to proceed at a reasonable speed’.”
Martin Brundle criticised the way the race ended
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The disruption ultimately led to Leclerc securing his first-ever win in Britain, with George Russell and Lewis Hamilton completing the podium.
The win boosted Leclerc up to fourth in the drivers’ championship, with Russell and Hamilton also making ground on leader Kimi Antonelli, who did not register any points.
Speaking after the win, Leclerc said: “It feels incredible. Unfortunately, the end was maybe not the one I would have dreamt of.
“To win after the last few weekends that have been particularly difficult. All the work we put in to try to get the feeling back in the car, felt like I found something yesterday after the Sprint.
Leclerc won the British Grand Prix behind the Safety Car
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“But I had to confirm it today. Today the feeling was back where it needs to be. I’m so incredibly happy.”
Commenting on the difficulties of this season so far, Leclerc said: “After Monaco, the feeling wasn’t there. I crashed in Q3, then in the race we had an issue and that ended our race.
“In Barcelona, I felt good but crashed again on Saturday. Then on the Sunday, we had an issue with the car.
“Austria wasn’t so great, but here we managed to put everything together, and I hope I can keep that momentum going forward.”
