Why race control opted for VSC, then safety car, in F1 Imola GP

The 2025 Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix featured two situations that initially looked similar but were handled differently by Formula 1’s race control.

On lap 29, Esteban Ocon suffered a technical issue on his Haas car and parked it on the grass between Turns 7 and 8.

Race control deployed the virtual safety car, which allows it to neutralise the race with drivers having to slow down, so that marshals could take the stricken car to a safe location. This process is shorter than a regular safety car and roughly maintains gaps between drivers.

In Ocon’s case, marshals were able to intervene swiftly for two reasons. First, the Frenchman stopped close enough to an opening in the guardrail, making things easy. But most importantly, this was the first car to retire at this particular spot. In those conditions, it took some 3m40s to complete the VSC procedure.

Fast-forward to lap 46, and Andrea Kimi Antonelli too was stricken by a mechanical problem on his Mercedes. Like Ocon, the Italian rookie stopped on the grass, but closer to Turn 8. That time, race control opted for a regular safety car, which raised a few eyebrows.

Were they trying to revive a race that had been dominated by Max Verstappen thus far?

The reason why they proceeded this way is simple: one of the closest ways out of the circuit, for the car, was where Ocon’s Haas was already stored, and there was no room for a second one.

Another option was located between Turns 8 and 9, but the track goes uphill in this particular section, so the use of a recovery vehicle was required to take the Mercedes there – which justified the safety car.

A safety car intervention takes longer than a VSC with several phases: the safety car coming on track, the field bunching up behind it, and once the track is clear, the possibility for backmarkers – in this case Oliver Bearman – to overtake their way back into the lead lap.

As a consequence, between the moment when the safety car was deployed and the moment when the end of the procedure was announced, about 14 minutes – and eight laps – went by.