Sebastian Vettel isn’t a fan of Formula 1 using the “lottery” of standing starts after a red flag.
The new regulation, which was introduced a few years ago, hadn’t been used until the Italian Grand Prix following Charles Leclerc’s crash at Parabolica.
But like a London bus service, that first was followed by two more on Sunday at Mugello and certainly provided some key moments, notably allowing Lewis Hamilton to make the race-winning pass on teammate Valtteri Bottas.
“I don’t remember doing so many starts in one day, normally you only have one,” Vettel told Sky Sports post-race.
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“I have to say I am not a big fan of that rule [standing restarts after red flags] because if you are on the correct side of the track then it is a huge advantage compared to being on the dirty side of the track.
“We saw that in Monza already halfway through the race, there is a lot of marbles off-line and I just don’t think it is fair.
“Maybe we should focus on building the cars to overtake and not just throwing them into a lottery.”
Ironically though, it was a poor final standing start to George Russell which allowed Vettel through and score the final point in 10th following a disappointing 1000th F1 race for Ferrari.
“Obviously we were fighting hard and trying everything to get the points. It was tight at the end with Kimi [Raikkonen] but we did everything we could,” the German continued.
“We were not quick enough and it is difficult to answer why. There is more than one reason but today I think it was expected for us to have a better race pace so we need to have a look at that.”
While Vettel rarely threatened the top 10 all weekend, teammate Charles Leclerc qualified fifth and ran as high as third before slipping back to ninth by the chequered flag.
And the four-time world champion put that difference down to his continued struggles with Ferrari’s 2020 car.
“No, I am still playing around with the car,” he said. “There is still stuff I can learn, but obviously it will be difficult to make a huge difference in terms of results.”