Max Verstappen hits out at FIA after winning chaotic F1 Australian GP

Max Verstappen has led a swathe of driver criticism of the decision-making at the Australian Grand Prix after the race was stopped three times because of incidents on track. The world champion dismissed it as a mess and accused governing body the FIA of being responsible for the problem.

Verstappen won in Melbourne with a dominant display but only after three red-flag stoppages, chaos and confusion and the race ultimately finishing behind the safety car. The second red flag with four laps to go led to a standing restart from which there were multiple incidents causing another stoppage and a further 30-minute delay.

“I am very happy to have won, but the race towards the end was a bit of a mess,” he said. “I just didn’t understand why we needed a red flag. It left a lot of drivers confused. If we would have had a safety car and then a normal rolling start we wouldn’t have had all these shunts and then you have a normal finish. So they created the problems themselves.

“We’ll talk about it, I think it left a lot of drivers confused about why we needed a red flag. We’ll talk in Baku.”

Questions were also raised as to whether the stoppages, which close the field up and are followed by dramatic standing starts, were being employed merely to improve the spectacle, which was proving costly with six drivers involved in incidents after the second restart.

“Nothing against them, but the people who make decisions don’t know what’s going on inside the car,” said McLaren’s Lando Norris. “The whole point of red-flagging it feels like it was just to put on a show. Someone does something stupid at turn one, locks up and your race is over because [the FIA] just want to make the show more exciting.”

The Mercedes driver George Russell who