The unanswered questions from the Qatar GP's mirror drama

FIA explanation was at odds with how the incident was initially handled

Formula 1's Qatar Grand Prix, and potentially the fight for the constructors' championship, was turned on its head when Alex Albon's right mirror flew off his car and landed on the track.

Race control's initial handling of the stranded mirror opened the door for the 10-second stop-and-go penalty that Lando Norris picked up and dropped him from challenging for the win to battling for a single point.

Furthermore, when Valtteri Bottas ran over the mirror and scattered debris across the start-finish straight, it triggered punctures and forced a safety car that ultimately shaped the final result.

The incident, and the way it spiralled out of control, prompted the FIA on Monday to issue a short explanation about why it had acted in the way it had in not bringing out either the virtual safety car or the full safety car to allow marshals to retrieve the mirror.

"Normal practice is for the safety car not to be deployed if there is a small amount of debris, and off the racing line," it said.

"A VSC would not have been a solution, as the cars remain spread out and there is not sufficient time for a marshal to clear the debris."

But the downplaying of the debris being left on the track seems to be at odds with how the incident was initially handled – and especially the fact that it was decided that the loose mirror necessitated a double yellow flag rather than a single yellow.

According to the FIA's International Sporting Code, there are notable scale differences between the type of incident that demands a single yellow and that which requires a double one.

The rules state that for a single yellow, drivers must: "Reduce your speed, do not overtake, and be prepared to change direction.

"There is a hazard beside or partly on the track. It must be evident that a driver has reduced speed; this means a driver is expected to have braked earlier and/or noticeably reduced speed in that sector."

For a double-waved yellow, the demands are much more onerous: "Reduce your speed significantly, do not overtake, and be prepared to change direction or stop. There is a hazard wholly or partly blocking the track and/or marshals working on or beside the track."

The initial handling of how serious the incident was, with double-wave yellows, seems to be at odds with both the nature of it being a small mirror on the track and the fact that it was subsequently deemed safe enough to actually drop the yellow flags totally.

So, as some in the paddock have suggested, either the initial double yellow was an over-reaction – which had big consequences for Norris in terms of the size of his penalty – or the fact the presence of the mirror was downplayed enough for racing to continue later suggests the subsequent response was not strong enough.

It is likely that drivers will push F1 race director Rui Marques for some answers about this yellow flag element this weekend, and especially seek some clarification about what debris is needed to justify a double yellow and what the standard practice should be if parts are left on the track.

The kerb influence

The other critical aspect of the drama was whether or not there will be a definitive answer to the actual initial cause of the mirror becoming detached from Albon's car.

Mirrors do sometimes fall off because of damage or old parts, but there have been some questions asked about the cause of the Williams problem – and whether it was a parts failure or consequence of the troublesome Losail kerbs.

While the efforts made to round off the peaks of the pyramid kerbs at the track did their job in preventing a repeat of the microscopic sidewall separation issues that marred the 2023 race, drivers were still running across them a lot.

It could be the high-frequency vibration that cars and tyres undergo under high load when running across the kerbs ultimately fatigued the mirror – which will again prompt questions about their design around the Losail circuit.

And Pirelli is still finding some definitive answers about whether the tyre failures that Lewis Hamilton and Carlos Sainz suffered were the result of debris from the mirror or caused by something else like the kerbs.

Sainz, in particular, said it was not definite that his was caused by the broken mirror, as his tyre only let go almost one lap after he ran through it for the first time.

"I think it was a bit of a perfect storm," he said. "I think everyone was running very low on the front left tyre in terms of tread. I think no one had much tread left. This exposes obviously the tyre and the carcass to puncture.

"Then the sharp kerbs, the gravel on the track, the debris, could have been any of them, the cause of the puncture. We will never know."

Sainz probably speaks for many drivers in suggesting that there are a number of outstanding issues that need reflecting on in terms of how race control managed it in Qatar.

Asked if perhaps trying to cover F1 and F2 stretched race control too thin in Qatar, Sainz said: "I don't think it's a matter of covering these series or not.

"But I hope obviously race control does a bit of an analysis of what could have been better executed this race because it was clearly a situation that we want to avoid in the future."

In this article
Jonathan Noble
Formula 1
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