Problems, ideas and a near accident
There was great anticipation to understand what would happen in Melbourne in the first start of the season with these new single-seaters after all the discussions and controversies that accompanied us in the pre-season and the start of the Australian GP did not disappoint the expectations of those who imagined the chaos.
There have been cars that started very badly – Antonelli and Lawson above all, with the New Zealander miraculously dodged at the rear by Colapinto, who with his reflexes avoided a potentially very dangerous accident – and others that instead took off like a slingshotgaining many positions. The two are certainly to be included in this second category Ferrariwhich confirmed the advantage that had already been perceived from the tests in Bahrain. After the race, however, many drivers from different teams complained that they were taken from the grid with completely discharged batteriesor almost.
New procedure and old discretion
The renamed procedure was implemented for the first time pre-startwith i five second wait – signaled by the bright blue LEDs – which preceded the switching on of the first red light on the traffic light. The objective was to also allow those who started from the rear – and therefore had less time available on the grid than the others – to try to charge their batteries correctly.
Paradoxically though what created the greatest confusion was the ‘classic’ turning off of the red lightsintroduced exactly 30 years ago by F1 curiously in the first edition of the Australian GP held in Melbourne. In fact, the lights went out immediately after the fifth light was turned onwith a very short interval that probably caught some riders on the grid by surprise. A small-big paradox given that the introduction of the pre-start procedure had precisely the aim of extending the time.
At a regulatory level, however, everything that happened at the start of the Melbourne race was absolutely regular. In fact, in the sporting regulations, in the section in which the procedure that starts the Grand Prix is defined, it is specified that – while the red lights must come on exactly one second apart from each other – their shutdown is decided entirely at the discretion of the race director. “The time interval between turning on the fifth light and turning off all lights […] it is at the sole discretion of the permanent starter“.
This part of the regulation, among other things, has not been changed compared to the past: the discretion guaranteed for turning off the lights is the same as in previous seasons. It remains to be seen whether such an immediate turning off of the lights was intentional or whether instead it was not an ‘inattention’ linked to the introduction of the new pre-start procedure which perhaps confused the starter. Now naturally the curiosity is even greater to see what will happen next Sunday in the Chinese GP.
