The racing field found itself in heightened tension under the safety car, as the bunching up in the penultimate corner resulted in a Lap 27 restart. This led to a turn of events in which Stroll collided with Ricciardo. The ramifications were severe, leaving Ricciardo with a substantially damaged RB car and forcing him to withdraw from the race. Further repercussions included McLaren‘s Oscar Piastri sustaining back-end damage as Ricciardo’s car was shoved into his.
The stewards held Stroll solely responsible for the incident, slapping him with a 10-second penalty and two penalty points. Stroll objected to the decision, labeling it as “a joke”. Support for Stroll came from his team boss Krack, who expressed his doubts over the swift decision made immediately following the occurrence.
Krack aired his dissatisfaction, questioning the hasty judgement. He told F1 Initiative, “A very, very quick verdict today without really understanding… I thought it was very, very fast and very harsh, very quick decision.”
Krack went on to describe the incident as a chain reaction. Mentioning how multiple racers, including Fernando Alonso, were caught off guard. “I would have liked that this would have been looked at in a little bit more detailed way. We tried to discuss it, but the verdict was very quickly that Lance was to blame. And he got a 10-second penalty, additional to the front wing damage.”
Ricciardo was left noticeably disgruntled by Stroll’s lack of accountability. He acknowledged that Stroll was more preoccupied with the apex of Turn 14 rather than keeping an eye on what was unfolding in front of him.
Countering Ricciardo’s claims, Krack argued, “These situations are created in the front. Now, you can always say, you need to be more careful.” He added that maintaining too much cautiousness could result in the loss of more than one car length at the restart, putting competitors at risk of being questioned if they were asleep.
Reminding racing fans of a similar incident during the 2020 Tuscan GP at Mugello, Krack credited unpredictable movements at safety car restarts for incidents including multiple cars. He predicted, “This is always the erratic movement that happens on a safety car restart. And we have some of these every year and it will continue to be.”