Potential solution found to Lando Norris’ ‘worst rule ever invented’

Bernie Collins has suggested tyre changes under red flag conditions in the dry should not count as the driver’s mandatory pit stop for the day.

Formula 1’s red flag rules were in question at the Brazilian Grand Prix when Lando Norris lost positions when Esteban Ocon, Max Verstappen and Pierre Gasly were all given a free pit stop when the race was red-flagged.

Lando Norris lost out through F1’s red flag regulations in Brazil

Franco Colapinto crashed behind the Safety Car in the rain with the Race Director opting to pause the race, calling the drivers back into the pit lane.

The decision came four laps after Norris had pitted, which dropped him from first to fourth.

The three ahead of him were all gifted a free pit stop as they changed their worn tyres for fresh intermediates and did so without losing the roughly 20 seconds that it takes in total.

Verstappen went on to win the Grand Prix while two mistakes from Norris dropped him to sixth, all but ending his title challenge as he trails Verstappen by 62 points.

It’s not the first time Norris has come undone because of the rule, calling it the “worst rule ever invented by someone” after the 2021 Saudi Arabian GP while this year he said: “It’s not talent or, you know, it’s just luck. So, just a bit unlucky.”

Collins, a former Aston Martin strategist, believes she has a solution or at least a partial one as it would not work in the wet.

“Think of it in this wet condition, we’ve had a Safety Car and everyone’s been driving quite slowly. Everyone comes into the pit lane under the red flag, even slower than that, they all line up with the pit lane,,” she explained in the Sky F1 podcast.

“To get those intermediates back to a temperature that they’re going to be okay on the out-lap is mainly the reason why a lot of people change the tyres. So that’s why they’re changing it at that point in time.

“So you can’t tell everyone leave the pit on very, very cold intermediates, or if in the situation they’re not allowed to change, you wait longer for them to get back up to the 60 degree that the inters are set at. So I do appreciate the rules there.”

But, she continued: “I think in dry conditions, one of the solutions would be not allow that to be your mandatory pit stop. So change tyres if you want, but that’s not your mandatory pit stop.

“Obviously, in wet conditions, they don’t have a mandatory pit stop so a bit more of an uncertainty there. But I don’t think with the best rule in the world we’re going to get away from being able to change tyres under red flags.

“I think the bigger problem for me is that in this race, I think three or four people changed to full wets.”

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Bernie Collins voices frustration with tactics and tyres

The rule, though, isn’t the only issue with Collins saying it’s not right that drivers, and she singled out Max Verstappen, call on the FIA and the Race Director to red flag a race when they can benefit from the timing.

“This is my gripe and my current frustration with what happened on Sunday, and it’s happened many times in the past,” she said, “but we get to a point where drivers are complaining about track condition.

“Some drivers have stopped to fit a new intermediate because the current intermediate is too worn for the condition. Some drivers have stopped for a full wet. That’s their freedom of choice to choose which tyres they want.

“But the drivers that haven’t stopped, and in particular Max Verstappen and Esteban Ocon, are then complaining very heavily about track condition, whether Max in particular calls out directly the FIA and the Race Director that there should be a red flag at a point where he had gains an advantage from it.

“Now it’s not for me to say if the track condition alone was enough for a red flag. I think the Race Director stood his ground significantly in not creating a red flag until the Colapinto accident.

“But the Colapinto accident happened on intermediate tyres in much, much worse conditions, because drivers, teams are resistant to take the pit stop to a full wet and then it becomes this, ‘can we hang it out on the wrong tyre hoping for a red flag’

“So something needs to happen, either to expand the window of the wet weather tyre that they can be fitted earlier and last longer when the conditions start to dry, but we have this period of five or 10 minutes of really, really heavy rain, and everyone just trying to eke it out through that period whatever way possible. And that creates the red flag.

“So I’m glad, based on the conditions alone, it didn’t go to a red flag, but it is a pity that someone had an accident and because they were on the wrong tyres, potentially the wrong – I shouldn’t say wrong, potentially wrong tyres for that condition that time. So that’s a frustration to me.”

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