How F1 caused its own mess in Baku

The Azerbaijan Grand Prix was one of those Formula 1 races in which a lot of things happened, not a great deal of them to do with the actual racing.

The big talking point was the two collisions under the safety car between Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton. As it unfolded, I did think Hamilton didn't do the right thing by going so slowly coming off Turn 15, because he was continually complaining about the speed the safety car was traveling at and about tyre temperatures. So, to more or less stop seemed strange.

That surprised Vettel. After all, if you even breathe on the throttle in one of these cars the five metres between you vanishes in a millisecond. So, it was a big surprise for Vettel and led to him getting front-wing damage. Then the red mist came down, which is where things started to go really wrong.

Pulling alongside and shaking your fist, that's probably OK. But swerving into Hamilton was a step too far and Vettel could easily have got a bigger penalty for what happened. But you have to be careful about saying he should have done just because he still beat Hamilton - he only beat him because of the headrest problem that forced Hamilton to make an extra pitstop. Under normal circumstances Hamilton would have won, with Vettel probably fifth, and no more would have been said.

The FIA analysed the data and discovered that Hamilton did not brake-test Vettel, but you can see how it happened with Vettel trying to stay close. So, I think it was correct that Hamilton didn't get any kind of penalty in this case. However, this is one of several incidents in the race related to the safety car that concerned me.

We had the safety concerns related to debris on the track. At one stage, Kimi Raikkonen's car was shedding bits as a result of the damage sustained in the first-lap collision with Valtteri Bottas at Turn 2. That's a safety issue, and I'd like to see the FIA taking more responsibility when it comes to dealing with this.

At times we saw debris flying through the air towards drivers. When Raikkonen finally lost his bargeboard, it flew into the path of the chasing pack. Now this is not the heaviest piece of equipment, but it's still enough to be like an arrowhead in the visor for an unfortunate driver.

It seemed the FIA was struggling to keep track of which cars had damage, and with cautions inevitably breeding cautions by bunching the field back up, things gradually got worse to the point where the race was red flagged.

We heard Hamilton complain about the lack of a virtual safety car, and I have to agree with him. You can easily declare a VSC to allow yourself some time to assess the situation, be it for debris on track or for damaged cars, and because it maintains the gaps between cars it is less disruptive to the race than a normal safety car. And you can easily upgrade from a VSC to full safety car, so it seems wrong that this wasn't used.

Then, if there's anything you don't like the look of, call the car in and take a look at it. Safety is paramount and the FIA needs to ensure it takes this in hand in all cases.

Ensuring the track is clear of debris is important. The speeds are high and the walls aren't far away in Baku, and while the accidents we saw were generally straightforward bump-and-grind jobs, you can easily have a much bigger one. And if you have a cut sidewall or tread, it is likely to fail where the speeds are high.

The red flag allowed the debris to be cleared, but overall the management of the race wasn't as good as it should have been. When Daniil Kvyat's car was stuck on the side of the track, we didn't see a good reaction and we had a full safety car rather than VSC.

Then you had Hamilton complaining about the low speed of the safety car and the temperatures of the tyres and brakes being too low, so a lot of things were going wrong.

For a period of the race, things got messier and messier until they had to bring out the red flag. The FIA needs to have a close look at how that happened and how better to manage it in the future.

Under the red flag, there are also some strange rules. I agree every team should be allowed to change tyres because a factor of there being any red flag, unless it's for rain, is that there will be debris around. So this is a safety issue.

But I don't think you should be able to otherwise touch the car. If you have damage, tough luck. Remember, Vettel had front-wing damage for reasons not related to the red flag, yet he could have repairs made.

Teams could then also put the cars in the garage if they wanted to conduct repairs, but drop to the back. At the same time, the FIA should be able to inspect the cars and, if there's anything that looks questionable, force them into the garage for repairs. Otherwise, teams have to make a judgement call on what is or isn't a dangerous car.

Listening to the radio exchanges between Hamilton and his engineer Pete Bonnington when they were trying to deal with the loose headrest was somewhat amusing. Once it was clear he could not clip it back into place, Hamilton was told that the headrest was fine in a message that was clearly aimed at Charlie Whiting. Then, of course, Hamilton himself questioned the safety.

It's good that the FIA did make Mercedes bring him in, and pretty quickly, because the head protection is there for a reason. And if there had been a crash for Hamilton, his safety would have been compromised. You just can't have bits hanging off cars. After all, they are designed that way for a reason and if something is no longer as designed, by definition it's a risk.

I've been on the F1 pitwall making judgement calls like that plenty of times, and it shouldn't really be down to someone like me deciding whether or not to take a gamble. OK, race control can have a chat with the team and see if it's justified to call them in for repairs - and teams will have plenty of information, as most have photographers trackside sending back close-up images on top of the data that is also being sent back. This should be more in the hands of the FIA.

It's like good referees in rugby. They will have a quick chat with the captain and tell them not to let something happen again. Then, if it does, they will react. And it's up to the FIA to tell teams either you deal with that or we are going to. That will ensure the teams react responsibly.

As for the safety car restarts, the whole Hamilton/Vettel thing and a few of the other incidents could probably have been avoided by pulling the safety car in, then having a lap where the leader runs round at increased, but not full, pace. That will ensure the cars are up to temperature, and effectively makes the car in first place a faster safety car. It's another procedural improvement that could be made.

Talking of tyres, what we also saw is how far away from really understanding F1 tyres Pirelli appears to be. What we are currently seeing is stupid - going to races with tyres that are just far too hard. This was obvious right from the start of testing for 2017.

At the pre-season Barcelona test, drivers were able to run around on ultra-soft tyres and do better times than on the super-softs. This suggested that even the ultra-soft wasn't soft enough, because Barcelona is high on degradation. If the spread of tyre compounds is sensible, Barcelona should be a soft-medium-hard circuit. The ultra-softs shouldn't last.

I can understand that Pirelli had to be conservative because of a lack of testing, but why did we not have the ultra-softs in Baku? There was no point taking the mediums, and as far as I'm concerned the only use you can have for the hards is as a boat buoy or something.

The tyres have got too complicated in terms of operating windows, and to make the racing better we need a more sensible spread of options.

Back in the old days Goodyear used to have four race specs of tyres - A, B, C and D - plus a qualifying compound. It worked well, and you had your choice of tyres in the race. Then when Bridgestone came along its tyres were generally better than Goodyear, and once it was up against Michelin we had tyres that started to become vulnerable in races.

You could qualify well on a tyre, then you started to get blistering. But you could stop the blistering and it would clean up, so throughout you always needed tyre management. The idea that through all that period you could just drive flat-out is nonsense.

But Pirelli's tyres were a whole new level. You couldn't afford to overheat them or there was no grip whatsoever.

Another strange thing is that with the Bridgestones, come Saturday afternoon the racing line was covered in rubber, which gave that extra bit of grip and actually protected the tyres. The Pirellis have never left anything like the same rubber, so that's another area of performance that's being lost.

The cars this year should be four or five seconds a lap faster from aerodynamics and tyre size. They are not. Pirelli is responsible for not achieving that. I can't think of any driver who wouldn't relish having a softer compound available at every track.

It was interesting to see Mercedes having to do two or three laps to warm up the tyres, then when push came to shove in qualifying when the session restarted with 3m33s left, the drivers were able to make the rubber work with one lap. I think they'll learn a lot with that. After all, you are always going to get the better performance with the minimal distance on the tyre.

I remember when I was at Jaguar, we sent Eddie Irvine out during qualifying at Spa with a set of tyres that, because of a problem, were only up to half-temperature. So that was maybe 40C rather than 80C or something. Going into Les Combes he said the tyres felt different. We told him the temperatures weren't up there and he said, 'Jeez, they feel fantastic'. Sometimes, you get into a rut, then something happens and you learn a different way to make things work. Perhaps Mercedes and a few other teams did just that in Q3.

The tyre pressures for this weekend were 22psi front and 21psi rear. That's very high for a big-volume tyre, especially on the rear. Pirelli could easy have gone to 20psi at the front and 18psi at the rear and the grip level would have improved significantly, although I'm not sure what other problems that might have caused.

Besides, under the safety car, pressures will have dropped anyway and a lot of cars would have run below the minimum. Pirelli just needs to get on top of things to produce the right compounds and to allow teams to run the right sorts of pressures.

One other thing that's important to mention is Justin Timberlake. It's true, it didn't have an impact in Azerbaijan, but news that the United States Grand Prix organisers have modified their timetable to suit his concert is worrying.

What's the lead performer - F1 or Justin Timberlake? You'd have to say it should be F1 and it's worrying that Liberty Media is allowing this kind of solution rather than sticking by its guns and looking after and improving the main show.