Safety car rules confusing - Kubica
Robert Kubica says he would have interpreted the safety car rules in the same way as Michael Schumacher at the end of the Monaco Grand Prix, and was also looking for overtaking chances
Schumacher passed Fernando Alonso for sixth just after the restart line as the safety car pulled in on the final lap. But he was later demoted to 12th because while overtaking could resume from the line near the pit entry in normal restart circumstances, the regulations state that cars must hold position in that situation on the final lap of the race.
Renault driver Kubica said that as far as he was concerned, if the safety car pulled in, racing was allowed to take place from the restart line.
"I was looking to overtake," he said. "The team was not telling me, it's my job to read the regulations.
"If the safety car is coming in, for me the race is restarting. For me, the track was not clear, but the message was quite simple."
The Pole added that he had done his best to familiarise himself with the regulations, and felt that the rules should be adjusted to make things clearer.
"I read the regulations before the start of the season," Kubica said. "I re-read the regulations after China just to make sure, because Lewis [Hamilton] overtook one of the Red Bulls at the last corner, that I understood it well and from my understanding I knew what I had to do in Monaco on the last lap, because the safety car came in with the lights off.
"But I think there can be two or three different interpretations so it's quite confusing rules.
"I don't want to go too much into the details. I think everybody agreed that the rule is quite complicated and it's quite complicated to make everything right. I think it would be very simple to go back to the old rule where you can restart overtaking at the start/finish line."
The FIA said after Monaco that it would propose an adjustment to the sporting regulations to address the issue, having accepted that there was a "lack of clarity in the rules."
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