Mercedes takes steps to stop Monza F1 pitlane gaffe repeat

Hamilton stopped just after the pitlane was closed when the safety car was dispatched to allow the retrieval of Kevin Magnussen's stranded Haas, which was parked between the final corner and the pit entry.

The decision to close pitlane was issued by the FIA 11 seconds after the safety car went out, but Mercedes failed to spot it and Hamilton entered the pits some 10 seconds after that.

Hamilton subsequently received a 10-second stop/go penalty that cost him victory, while Alfa Romeo's Antonio Giovinazzi received the same penalty for an identical transgression.

Mercedes is creating new software that will ensure its engineers get notification that pitlane is closed, having previously relied on someone noticing it on the timing screens.

"In terms of the sequence there were two pieces of information to tell us that the pitlane entry had been closed," said Mercedes chief strategist James Vowles in a team video.

"The first was there were boards around the track that have a cross on it, a red cross indicating that's the state, and when the driver sees that, he knows he must stay out.

"The second piece of information is we have TV screens in front of us.

"One of those is called page three and it contains a number of messages that the FIA wants to send us.

"That could be a yellow flag or safety car deployed, and one of those was the pitlane entry was closed."

Vowles admitted that he, engineering chief Andrew Shovlin, sporting director Ron Meadows and others were focussing on the impending pit stop, and thus missed the message.

"This was a key point in the race where the entire field would have come into the pitlane," said Vowles.

"Lewis came on asking for a different set of tyres, we were reviewing whether or not we had time, whether it was the correct decision or not.

"These were all conversations that take just a few seconds, but they all add up. What you are not doing particularly is looking for a single line on the screen to indicate the pitlane entry was closed.

"Both Shov and myself have been through similar instances, 2016 was the last time this happened in Brazil, it happened twice there but it was clear that the pitlane entry would be closed then.

"There was a crash and almost a huge amount of debris, you wouldn't want to drive into the pitlane at that stage.

"This was different, it didn't really prompt us to necessarily look at the screen and look for a single line that was hidden amongst other information and we missed it.

"It didn't take us long to spot it."

Nevertheless the team saw the message in time to tell Valtteri Bottas to stay out.

Vowles says Mercedes' rivals were able to take time to spot the message and inform their drivers correctly as they were further back, and insists there was no blame apportioned to Hamilton for missing the marshal post signal that pitlane was closed.