The Qatar Grand Prix marked just the second occasion that the FIA’s new race director for Formula 1 events – Rui Marques, was in charge.
The Portuguese native faced multiple incidents during the Qatar Grand Prix, which tested his and his team’s decision-making.
Lewis Hamilton made two errors and was handed penalties for them during the race, while Lando Norris was dealt a serious penalty for failing to slow down under double-waved yellow flags.
Those came after Saturday’s rare incident, which saw Max Verstappen ‘seething’ at George Russell after being handed a one-place grid drop for impeding the Mercedes driver on a slow lap.
Three of the best drivers in the sport, all cautioned for separate incidents – none of which involved crashes, which was understandably, a lot for Marques to address.
Jolyon Palmer insists new FIA director Rui Marques made ‘wrong decision’ in Qatar Grand Prix
Midway through the race, a stray mirror from Alex Albon’s Williams car managed to find its way onto the track, albeit off the racing line on the main straight.
It was still a part of the track used for overtaking though, and in the line of fire for any cars driving past it – as Valtteri Bottas ended up doing.
It created a far bigger mess to clean up, and Jolyon Palmer explained on the F1 YouTube channel that the new race director made a mistake in not calling a safety car earlier.
“I do think this was the wrong decision in this case because off the racing line was a very used bit of track at very high speed there, on the inside into turn one,” he said.
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“That was also the only real overtaking place on the track with DRS as well. So it seemed inevitable at some point, that someone was going to hit it.
“As soon as they did, shards of carbon fibre flew everywhere and a safety car had to be deployed for what was actually a much bigger cleanup job than it would’ve been just to remove the mirror. In hindsight, that was a mistake from Rui Marques – the new race director.”
How Rui Marques’ poor decision cost Carlos Sainz and Lewis Hamilton
The debris is likely to have caused punctures for both Lewis Hamilton and Carlos Sainz – damaging their races.
Hamilton finished outside the points after his disastrous day, but it had bigger consequences for Sainz, who is in the midst of a huge constructors’ championship battle for Ferrari.
The minimum of four points that the Spaniard missed out on may cost them in their fight with McLaren after the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, but the 21-point gap is quite big to start with anyway.
READ MORE: Carlos Sainz explains why Ferrari chose to replace him with Lewis Hamilton
They need a miracle courtesy of Sainz and teammate Charles Leclerc, who will need to avoid finding themselves in front of the new race director if they want to pick up enough points to win.
They have nothing to lose and can be as aggressive as they like though, in their pursuit of a first title in 16 years – a streak which matches their papaya rivals.
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