Max Verstappen says it made “no sense” to delay the start of the Belgian Grand Prix because of the weather – as he said Formula 1 may as well stop racing in the rain if it is this cautious.
A pre-race downpour led to the formation lap taking place behind the safety car, with the start duly suspended by race director Rui Marques because of poor visibility.
The FIA then waited one hour and 20 minutes for a further band of rain to pass before it started the race behind the safety car – which did four race laps before track action got underway.
Verstappen felt that the initial delay was unnecessary, as he expressed frustration about the FIA being too conservative in having over-reacted to crashes that took place in the wet British Grand Prix a few weeks ago.
“It's a bit disappointing, because we spoke after Silverstone to be a little bit more cautious with the decisions,” said Verstappen. “But this was then the other extreme for me.”
Asked at what point after the original 3pm start time the race could have got going, Verstappen said: “Straight away. It was not even raining.
“Of course, between Turn 1 [La Source] and 5 [Les Combes] was quite a bit of water, but if you do two or three laps behind the safety car, then it would have been a lot more clear, and the rest of the track was, anyway, ready to go.
“It's a bit of a shame. Of course. I knew that they would be a bit more cautious after Silverstone, but this also didn't make sense.
“Then it's better to say: ‘You know what? Let's wait until it's completely dry and then we just start on slicks.’ Because this is not really wet-weather racing for me.”
Verstappen felt that the visibility complaints from drivers during the formation lap were making too much drama of the situation.
Asked about drivers coming over the team radio to complain about visibility, he said: “Between 1 and 5! It would only be for a few laps, and the more you run, it will be much better. And if you can't see, you can always lift. At one point you will see.”
Verstappen’s feelings about the FIA over-reacting to Silverstone was backed by Lewis Hamilton, who also felt that things could have got going earlier.
“We obviously started the race a little too late, I would say,” Hamilton reckoned. “I kept shouting like 'it's ready to go, it's ready to go'. And they kept going round and round.
“I think they're probably overreacting from the last race, where we asked them not to restart the race too early because visibility was bad, and I think this weekend they went too much the other way.
"We didn't need a rolling start.”
But not all drivers were critical of the FIA’s stance, with Grand Prix Drivers Association director Carlos Sainz saying it is always better to be too cautious than have regrets from an incident.
“My respect to the race director, because he told us after Silverstone and the accidents in Silverstone, that he would play it safer here, and that's what he did,” said the Williams driver.
“That's why, better safe than have an accident and be regretful.”
His fellow GPDA director George Russell was in full agreement.
"The fact is when you're doing over 200 miles an hour out of Eau Rouge and you literally cannot see anything - you may as have a blindfold on - it isn't racing, it's just stupidity," he said.
"So, considering it was clearly going to be dry from 4 o'clock onwards, I think they made the right call."
And it wasn't just GPDA heads who approved of how things had been handled.
“I have to say that, on a track like this, with what happened historically, I think you cannot forget about it,” said Hamilton's Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc.
“For that reason, I would rather be safe than too early. And so yeah, again, I think it's a constant discussion.
“We will probably give the people that made this decision feedback that maybe it was a little bit on the late side, but I wouldn't have changed anything.”
Race winner Oscar Piastri also said that Spa was not the kind of venue where the FIA should take risks in going too early with wet-weather restarts.
“I think the past few years, particularly here, we've given the FIA feedback that we would much rather be on the safe side than risk anything,” he explained. “And I think that's what we did today.
“I think, if you were to be picky, maybe we could have done one less formation lap. But in the grand scheme of things, if that's one lap too early, is it worth it? No.”
The wet-weather call was especially frustrating for Verstappen as he had elected to run a higher-downforce setting because he anticipated such conditions.
He suggested that F1 risked a future of losing classic wet-weather drama if the FIA remained so cautious.
“They do what they want, right? I mean, they decide,” he said. “But I just find it is a bit of a shame for everyone. You will never see these classic kind of wet races anymore.
“I think they still can happen. And I think also the rain that fell afterwards [between 3pm and 4pm] was still manageable if we would have kept lapping anyway.
“Then, you know, you make all the decisions [pre-race] based on wet racing. So then it also just ruins your whole race a bit.”
