The Canadian Grand Prix has been one of the most sought after races for fans all through the F1 season as the overtaking manoeuvres here provide a lot of entertainment.
However, the Canadian GP was a snooze fest with all the action ending after lap one of the race, wherein Hartley and Stroll were involved in a crash.
After that the race was more like a procession with not much action taking place on the race track and no team even being able to affect the race with smart pit-stop strategies.
Action however returned to Montreal on the 68th lap when celebrity guest Winnie Harlow waved the chequered flag a couple of laps early.
Social media was ablaze with hate for the celebrity as a lot of fans blamed her for the massive goof up.
However, the FIA have released a statement saying that it was infact an error on part of the ‘starter’, the person who is in charge of starting and finishing a race.
“The chequered flag was shown a lap early because there was a mis-communication between the start platform and the guy they call the starter here, the guy who starts and finishes the race,” said Whiting.
“He thought it was the last lap, he asked race control to confirm it, they confirmed it. They thought he was making a statement when he was in fact asking a question, and he just showed it a lap early.
“He told the flag-waver to wave it a lap early, so it wasn’t anything to do with the fact it was a celebrity flag-waver.” he added.
Now, according to the rules the result from the previous lap had to be taken so as to avoid any confusion.
Whiting also admitted that the F1 authorities needed to do a better job whilst briefing people as a mis-reading of the lap counter could have been the biggest reason for the chequered flag error.
“The reason for doing that is to make sure that if there was some confusion over it then if you go back to the end of the previous lap then you will get a true race classification.
“It’s like when a race is stopped, it can’t be restarted, you take it back to the end of the lap prior to which the stop was given.
“I think people who don’t work in Formula 1 sometimes are confused by the graphic that they see on the screen where it says 69 out of 70. We all know that means we’re on lap 69 but to someone who’s a slightly more casual observer, might think ‘that must mean it’s the last lap’. I think that’s where the doubt originates.
“We obviously need to do a better job briefing these people.” Whiting said.
Winnnie Harlow too took to Instagram so confirm that it wasn’t actually her mistake that the chequered flag was waived a couple of laps early.
Hopefully the FIA do a better job at this the next time.
