After the violent accident that occurred at the start of the Monaco Grand Prix, race director Niels Wittich waited a long time before communicating the positions of the drivers on the service monitors when the race restarted.
Initially it was thought the grid would be drawn up respecting the order in which the single-seaters had passed at the end of the first sector, the last detection before the display of the red flag. This would have forced Carlos Sainz to restart the race from last position, having parked his car outside the Casino.
After having punctured the front right tyre, Sainz stopped his car on the outside of the escape route, then slowly returned to the pits after the race was interrupted. Carlos himself initially seemed resigned to having to restart the race from the rear, then the restart order appeared on the monitors with the number 55 car in third position. The reason became clear after the race.
Guanyu Zhou, Kick Sauber C44
Photo by: Erik Junius
When the violent accident occurred on the climb leading to Massenet, the single-seaters of Perez, Magnussen and Hulkenberg occupied the entire road, effectively blocking the track. Behind them there was only Zhou Guanyu, who after seeing the carambola immediately braked and stopped the car.
The Chinese driver was the only one in the race not to have crossed the first sector line, located on the Mirabeau descent, given that when the red flag appeared he was stuck behind the damaged single-seaters.
In this case the regulation is clear. Since not all the pilots passed the line that determines the conclusion of the first sector, the race direction did not have a verified classification available before the red flag, so they resorted to the starting order, which in Sainz’s case, repositioned him in third position.
After managing to slowly reach the garage and replacing the damaged set of tyres, Carlos was able to resume the race from the position he had achieved in qualifying and then concluded his race in third place.
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