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Former Ferrari engineer Ernest Knoors has described Red Bull’s reaction to a second red flag at Sunday’s Australian GP as “weird” after pleading with Michael Massey to end the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix “under racing conditions” two seasons ago.
Red Bull reigning world champion Max Verstappen said he “didn’t really understand” the red flag that Kevin Magnussen crashed on lap 54, calling it “a bit confusing”.
The team’s motorsport consultant, Helmut Marko, said it made the race “much more dangerous”, while team boss Christian Horner spoke of “the huge variable being a bit like a lottery”.
Instead, Red Bull believes the race could have continued under the safety car, even if it meant the race would have ended that way.
It was a stark contrast to Abu Dhabi 2021, when Red Bull sporting director Jonathan Whitley urged then-race director Marcy to commit to an environment that would allow “the racing of the car in our hands”.
In this race, Verstappen won his first world title as Masi did hold a car race.
Former BMW and Ferrari engineer Knoors pointed to the team’s “strange” change of tune.
“I thought it was a weird reaction,” he told motorsports.com.
“We all know what happened in 2021. At the end of the season, races weren’t canceled by a red flag, but by a safety car. Some drivers did take a big advantage out of that.
“Then someone said: ‘Yes, but we have to make sure that the race always ends in race conditions and not in a safety car situation.’
“Then we also had a race at Monza last year, which also ended under the safety car in the final stages.
“Right now race control actually does what you’d expect, they neutralize the race.
“Everyone has the opportunity to get new tyres, and even if your tires are damaged by all the rubbish on the track because of a Magnussen accident, you can get new tyres.
“You start over. Everyone has the same chance, but that’s not good enough either.
“In that sense, I think Race Control made the right decision. But the track is already peculiar because of the first two corners, which makes it difficult to get off the ground without interference and without incident. That will play tricks on you. If you have to do it twice, you also have more chance of an accident.”
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The restart resulted in a multi-car crash and neither the Alpines nor Nyck de Vries could complete the final lap of the Grand Prix.
Kronos believes drivers who caused the chaos, such as Carlos Sainz, Logan Sargent and Pierre Gasly, were to blame for the chaos at the restart, not race control.
“So maybe everyone is a little bit over-motivated,” he added. “Maybe the drivers can see for themselves if this is the right way to handle the restart.
“I think the only thing race control could do differently is say: we’re not going to do a standing start, we’re going to do a rolling start. And then you can also avoid having a really big bottleneck in turns one and two .
“Because the track in the first two corners is very dangerous, don’t start standing up, but do a rolling start behind the safety car. This way you can run an extra lap, and the possibility of an accident in the first corner is 100%. will decrease.”
But, he added: “I think it’s okay to neutralize with a red flag and it’s justified because there’s so much debris on the track.”
Verstappen won the race ahead of Lewis Hamilton, extending his lead in the drivers’ championship to 15 points over team-mate Sergio Perez.
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