Christian Horner has highlighted a bizarre issue that potentially nearly cost Max Verstappen his win during the Qatar Grand Prix.
Verstappen won the race in a lights-to-flag victory from Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, following a few Safety Car interventions towards the end of the race.
The Red Bull was starting in second on the grid after the FIA Stewards handed Verstappen a one-place grid penalty for “driving unnecessarily slowly” during qualifying, but made swift work of polesitter George Russell into the first corner.
When the Safety Car came out for debris on the track, Verstappen pitted and could rejoin with his lead intact. According to Horner when speaking to Sky Sports, during the restart phase something bizarre happened that almost cost him the lead to second-placed Lando Norris.
Max Verstappen almost lost Qatar GP lead with Safety Car issue
Usually in the event of a Safety Car the lights stay on to denote that it will stay on track, then they will extinguish when it is set to pit and switch to green flag conditions.
Verstappen could be heard over his team radio highlighting how the Safety Car lights were not switching off when the race was due to restart, prompting some confusion according to Horner.
“There was an issue with the Safety Car lights and they didn’t go out and the regulation is that you have to stay within a certain car length of the Safety Car,” said Horner.
“So he couldn’t prep for the start, and he was asking ‘What’s going on’ over the radio and Race Control couldn’t tell us the Safety Car lights were not working properly. So he was just following the rules, then the Safety Car came in and he had to go which gave Lando a run on him. But he kept it all under control.”
Additional lights on the Safety Car malfunctioned during Qatar GP
The confusion with the Safety Car also extended to Lando Norris, who was telling his engineer that the lights were not out when they attempted to restart. According to Sky Sports F1 reporter Ted Kravitz, there was an issue with the second set that was catching out drivers.
“On its go-faster fenders it has some additional lights and then it has some lights on its licence plate. When the Safety Car passed me coming back into the pit lane, from where I was as driver I wouldn’t see the usual Safety Car lights that are on top of the roof. Now, whenever the Safety Car came into the pits they were off,” said Kravitz.
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“So something has gone wrong somewhere, where when Bernard Maylander switches off the normal lights on the roof it hasn’t switched off the lights on the rear wing.”
It is likely the FIA will assess if there is an issue and come up with a solution at the next race weekend, with it appearing to catch some drivers out during the Qatar Grand Prix.
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