Sainz controversially benefitted from being allowed to take his unique third place on the grid for the Monaco restart after its early purple flag, with Zhou’s position central to how issues performed out.
The Ferrari driver’s race had initially seemed to be over just some seconds after the beginning when the Spaniard picked up a puncture as he clashed with Oscar Piastri on the first nook.
A small lower in his entrance left tyre, seemingly from Piastri’s ground, was sufficient for his tyre to lose air strain and depart him a passenger as he skidded huge at On line casino Sq..
As he initially got here to a halt, the remainder of the pack got here streaming previous and left him going through as much as a possible non-points rating as he moved to search out reverse and trudge slowly again to the pits.
However his afternoon turned on its head when, simply as he reached the hairpin – with the leaders already on their method out of the chicane – the purple flag got here out due to the crash involving Sergio Perez and the 2 Haas vehicles.
In extraordinary circumstances, the purple flag wouldn’t have been of large profit to Sainz past that means he wouldn’t find yourself utterly adrift of the pack for the next restart.
He virtually definitely would have been shocked to have been instructed that he wouldn’t be taking it from the sixteenth place he was on the street.
Charles Leclerc, Ferrari SF-24, Oscar Piastri, McLaren MCL38, Carlos Sainz, Ferrari SF-24, Lando Norris, McLaren MCL38, the remainder of the sector at first
Picture by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Pictures
That’s as a result of F1’s sporting laws are clear in how they take the order for any restart from a purple flag.
They state that: “it is going to be taken on the final level at which it was doable to find out the place of all vehicles.”
From the surface, it was pretty apparent from the tv pictures the place the vehicles have been operating when the purple flag got here out, however that isn’t ok for figuring out the grid.
As a substitute, as was highlighted amid an analogous purple flag state of affairs on the 2023 Australian Grand Prix when Haas was upset that Nico Hulkenberg had been moved again at a purple flag restart regardless of being fourth on the street on the time, the FIA has precedent for taking the quickest and extra dependable route it may possibly.
Utilizing GPS information, which is fairly correct today, is just not ok for being completely certain in regards to the positioning of vehicles relative to one another.
As was said by the stewards within the 2023 Australian GP verdict: “They [Haas] acknowledged that the GPS information that confirmed the relative positions of the vehicles was unreliable for the aim of building the order of vehicles. “
So simply as in Melbourne, the FIA had to return to some extent the place it had full timing information for all of the vehicles.
Picture by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Pictures
It’s understood that race management had initially appeared like with the ability to use the primary sector timing line that’s located on the entrance to Mirabeau for this.
Nonetheless, this didn’t show doable as a result of not all of the vehicles that have been nonetheless operating had crossed the road by the point the purple flag got here out and the truth that Sauber’s Zhou, after a poor getaway from the grid, had misplaced a number of time being delayed behind the Perez crash was essential.
First, he had tried to keep away from being caught up within the chaos, however then he additionally waited to discover a clear path via the wreckage with the medical automotive stationary on observe.
When the purple flag got here out, he was solely on the entrance to Massenet.
So, with the FIA unable to make use of the S1 timing line as its marker for deciding the grid, it had to make use of essentially the most dependable earlier reference level – which is security automotive line two (SC2).
In Monaco, that is on the exit of the primary flip and is a white line that signifies the purpose on the observe the place the pit lane exit line ends.
Sauber’s Guanyu Zhou and Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz
With all vehicles having crossed this line on the level the purple flag got here out, this turned the reference order for the restart.
This meant that Sainz would take the third place that he was operating in when he crossed SC2, with a few drivers being shuffled round primarily based on how that they had completed out of the primary nook.
For instance, Lance Stroll had obtained himself forward of Daniel Ricciardo for twelfth, with Zhou taking the seventeenth and last spot due to Perez and the 2 Haas being non-starters.
Whereas Lando Norris specifically felt that it was “unfair” that Sainz had obtained his third place again after what had occurred to him, his workforce boss Andrea Stella accepted that how the FIA utilized issues for the restart was appropriate – and Zhou had been a key participant in what occurred.
“I believe what the FIA did was the very best factor to do,” he stated. “Additionally, it’s in settlement with the precedent, whereby you utilize the security automotive line 2 when a sector time is just not accessible.
“I do not suppose utilizing the mini sectors is an effective method of doing that. And clearly, the entire level that saved Carlos was that Zhou had not crossed the sector time on the time the race was suspended. Fortunate Carlos…”
