But in 99 per cent of the cases the teams bring the cars in anywhere themselves so it removes the need for intervention. 'We would still black and orange flag a car with serious structural damage, like Hamilton in Singapore for example when his wing was scraping the floor.

' It's difficult, of course,' Tombazis continued. Then I think that created a bit of an over-reaction where we started deeming cars unsafe even when they were on the limit, let’s say, so we went in the wrong direction, and took some corrective action after the US.' 'We had a situation in Baku where a car entered the track that really shouldn't have done so. ' We saw retrospectively that some cars had not been shown a flag,' Tombazis said. Tombazis has acknowledged that the FIA was a little too enthusiastic in applying the flag. Only four days after the race, the ruling was withdrawn. Bigger controversy still came when Fernando Alonso received a time penalty for a loose mirror after the race in Austin, which forced him down several spots. Magnussen made contact with Max Verstappen and the back of Lance. And although encouraged by his team’s performance, he was left frustrated by an early black and orange flag that took him out of contention.

The Haas team was obviously not happy about this, as it forced the Dane to make pit stops that the team felt were unnecessary. It was a sixth consecutive point-less outing for Kevin Magnussen after the Dane finished 12th at this weekend’s Singapore Grand Prix. In total, the flag was used six times last season, including three times for Kevin Magnussen. The system attracted criticism last year.

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