Ferrari's
Felipe Massa has added his voice to the call for revisions to the current Formula One safety car rules, after believing that he was denied the chance to keep in touch with
Lewis Hamilton at the Singapore Grand Prix.
Although Hamilton was also denied a possible shot at victory in
Formula One's inaugural night race, he at least finished a secure third, increasing his championship lead to seven points after Massa ran into problems at his first pit-stop which eventually left him down in 13th place.
While Massa admits that mistakes were made during the pit-stop, however, he also accused the safety car rules - which insist that the pits remain out of bounds to cars until the entire field is bunched up - of artificially determining the outcome of the race, which was won by
Fernando Alonso and
Renault, who had pitted before the full course caution.
"The whole night racing experience was a nice idea - interesting and very different - but this specific race did highlight the fact that the safety car rules still need to be looked at very carefully, because the idea of
F1 is that the race should be won by the best driver and car combination on the day," Massa insisted.
"I know we made mistakes, but the current system, as you can see from the result, means that the safety car can promote someone from the middle of the grid to the lead, not because of a clever strategy, but simply by luck. I think the system needs to be changed."
Massa had led comfortably from pole until
Nelson Piquet Jr crashed on lap 14, bringing out the safety car and allowing those who had pitted early - including Alonso and both
Red Bull drivers - to gain an advantage. Even
Nico Rosberg, who was forced to pit before pit-lane was open or face running out of fuel, was able to overcome the subsequent penalty and beat Hamilton to the line....
The Ferrari driver is not the only one unhappy with the current safety car rules, with a general clamour to return to regulations that would allow teams to pit their cars at any point during its deployment.
