Racing Bulls explain ‘ruthless’ Singapore F1 protest decision

SINGAPORE – Racing Bulls has explained why it decided against protesting the Sprint qualifying result in Singapore, despite the FIA admitting an error.

Racing Bulls was one of the teams hindered by an FIA error during Sprint qualifying for the Singapore Grand Prix.

Racing Bulls took a ‘ruthless’ decision

Sprint qualifying in Singapore was mired by an FIA error which granted some drivers the advantage of completing their final laps with an extra 0.5mJ of electrical energy.

This was because overtake mode, which is readily available in qualifying, had not been activated following a red flag interruption.

However, for a period of 27 seconds surrounding the chequered flag, the system was engaged, giving some drivers an advantage believed to be worth around 0.5 seconds.

Despite making their thoughts known, Aston Martin, Racing Bulls, and Williams all decided not to protest.

Racing Bulls’ Arvid Lindblad was one of the drivers to drop out in the affected session.

Asked by Sky Sports why Racing Bulls elected not to protest, team principal Alan Permane said: “Honestly, if I really want to be ruthless about it; Liam [Lawson] was in P8. What are you going to do?

“You protest the result and I think the only thing they could do is nullify the whole of qualifying and go back to the P1 results, and we certainly didn’t want that.”

Had the result been taken from the initial practice session, Lawson would have been tenth, with Lindblad in 12th.

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‘Not a time to kick the FIA’

This latest problem comes just a week after the chaotic scenes of the Malaysia formation lap, which saw cars losing power and stopping on the track.

The problem on that occasion was due to a software issue that had not been spotted in advance.

However, this was resolved within an hour, with the FIA instructing teams to install a software patch.

“I don’t think it’s the right time to be kicking the FIA, to be honest with you,” added Permane.

“They’ve had a few issues – certainly, Malaysia was difficult on that first lap. But then they reacted so well and ever so quickly, and we got underway and had a good race.

“Then, some more things have gone wrong here. But I think it’s a time to support them, help them, and see what we can do all together to make things better as a Formula 1 group.”

Asked what the learnings are from this latest situation, he said: “I don’t know. It was finger trouble. I guess somebody pressed the wrong button and I guess the solution is don’t press the button.

“Honestly, I think it’s as simple as that.

“Or they have some sort of lockout in qualifying where it can’t be enabled or something like that.

“I’m sure there will be lessons learnt and I’m very sure we will talk about it after this weekend when the dust dies down after a triple-header and we’ve got a bit of time.”

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