Virtual safety car, lap fifteen of fifty-six. Procedure: a delta to hold, a screen in the cockpit, and nobody trackside moving an arm. At post 14, we have no screen. We have a yellow flag, made of cloth, and an arm.
The driver who started from pole pits one lap later than the others. Seven seconds in the box. Seven seconds, at the post, is the time to put the thermos down, pick the flag back up and check that post 13 is still there. In a race, it is worth a win.
Another observation. The car that started on hard tyres does not pit during the neutralisation. It leads until lap 45 and finishes fourth. “The pace was good, we waited for a safety car that never came. But it was the best thing to do, I have no regrets,” said Charles Leclerc after the race.
A neutralisation is not something you request. You signal it, and you wait for the reply: “copy”. “Copy” is the word for saying you have heard, not that you have listened. Four overtakes in fifty-six laps, and the race was decided during the one moment nobody overtakes anybody. I wave the flag. I don’t judge. Nothing further to report.
At Mercedes, George Russell went through the pits twice, on mediums under the neutralisation then on hards on lap 28, to counter Leclerc’s strategy. He finished fifth, 0.7 seconds behind the Monegasque. “I drove a perfect race but I was unlucky,” said Lando Norris.
With the 25 points for the win, Antonelli extends his lead over Russell to 81 points. Norris, meanwhile, is back to within five points of Lewis Hamilton, third in the championship, who retired in the opening laps with a brake problem.
It’s true, we checked: RTBF Sport.
