Antonio Giovinazzi believes the time has come for Formula 1 to make changes to their restart procedures after a huge crash at Mugello.
The Tuscan Grand Prix started with chaos after a multi-car crash at Turn 2, eliminating the likes of Max Verstappen and winner of the Italian Grand Prix Pierre Gasly.
Then at the restart Nicholas Latifi, Kevin Magnussen, Carlos Sainz and Giovinazzi were all involved in a huge crash down the main straight thanks to the concertina effect of race-leader Valtteri Bottas backing up the pack.
Fortunately a sore hand for Sainz was as far as injuries went as a result of the incident, and Romain Grosjean, who narrowly avoided the incident, called it “the worst thing I’ve ever seen.”
And Giovinazzi has also weighed in on the situation, calling for the procedures at race restarts to be changed.
“People behind were pushing already,” he is quoted by Racefans.net.
“The last thing that I saw was Magnussen completely stopped in front of me.
“I tried to avoid him but he was just there and I was already flat out. So it was just a really dangerous manoeuvre.
“I’m really frustrated especially because after lap one I was up to 14th and after that everything could happen. Just really dangerous things. We need to check what we can change of this.”
Not much you can do there. The constantiner effect is always pretty bad when you are mid pack. You can only react to the cars directly in front of you and it seemed like the pack went on two separate occasions. Glad everyone walked away from that one. ?? pic.twitter.com/4nnEvzqbSP
— Nicholas Latifi (@NicholasLatifi) September 13, 2020
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Williams’ Latifi had expected something like this could happen with the leader bolting as late as possible after the Safety Car returned to the pits.
“On this track with the finishing line being so late it was quite clear, I think, that the leader was always going to try and go as late as possible, just to avoid the slipstream effect,” he said.
“In the midfield to the back of the pack the concertina effect always makes it a bit more difficult to judge.”
Latifi also spoke of how he had a near-miss with Magnussen before the actual crash happened.
“From already the little straight going into the last corner it seemed like at least the cars around me everyone was pushing flat out at the restart. So obviously I went,” he recalled.
“But I almost hit the back of Kevin already at the apex of the last corner, I had a really close miss there. And then we bunched up again and then it seemed like everyone went again.
“So when you’re that far back and just reacting to the cars around, in my experience when that happens as happened in Formula 2 in Baku most noticeably, if the leader doesn’t keep a consistent pace – I’m not sure if that’s the case, obviously, I can’t see – it just amplifies the effect.
“So I really couldn’t do anything to avoid that. It was a shame.”
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