FIA approves safety car alterations

Following the issues that were brought up in Valencia, the FIA has spent the weekend evaluating new ideas to try and improve the situation from this weekend's event at Silverstone.

As well as the tweaks in the speed that cars will now lap when the safety car period starts, which AUTOSPORT revealed earlier this weekend, it has also changed the way they will deploy the lead vehicle.

In a statement issued on Sunday, the FIA said that the safety car would no longer join the track immediately during a caution period. Instead it will come out when the race director feels it will not unfairly penalise drivers.

"An assessment will...be made to determine when the safety car should join the track in order to try and ensure that no drivers will be unnecessarily disadvantaged," he said. "In all cases we will attempt to pick up the leader.

"However, if this proves unfeasible for any reason, cars between the safety car and the leader will be waved through immediately."

The FIA has also confirmed that it will tweak the way the pitlane exit lights are switched between red and green to ensure there is no repeat of what happened to Michael Schumacher, when he got stuck in the pits in Valencia despite there being a gap on track behind the safety car that he could have slotted into.