Ricciardo calls for changes to F1's red flag procedure

Daniel Ricciardo has signalled that he would like to see the clock stopped during a Formula 1 free practice session if a red flag is deployed.

Only a handful of minutes into FP2 in Abu Dhabi, Carlos Sainz spun at Turn 3 and suffered a high-speed collision with the barrier to bring out the red flag.

Sainz was unharmed in the incident but the clearing of debris and repairs to the barrier saw a delay of 27 minutes while the clock ticked down, limiting on-track time for the drivers.

Another red flag was deployed moments after the session was resumed when Nico Hulkenberg spun and hit the wall at the exit of Turn 1.

Ricciardo has asserted that the matter will be discussed in the driver's briefing that is held every Friday during a race weekend.

“For a long time it’s been like that, but it would be nice to stop the clock,” Ricciardo told media including RacingNews365.com.

“I did FP1 but a lot of drivers didn’t [due to rookies], so they are staring down an FP2 with five laps or something.

“It would have been nice to maybe get a little bit of time back so maybe that’s something we can discuss in the Drivers’ briefing and look for a few more rule changes.”

Sainz crash 'strange', says Ricciardo

Ricciardo labelled Sainz's crash as “strange” but highlighted that it is the nature of the current generation of cars to become unbalanced when they ride over a bump.

“It looked like they were probably running the car too low,” Ricciardo reflected.

“It looked a bit like what happened with Lando [Norris] in the last race [in Las Vegas], so I say strange because Turns 2 and 3 we should be able to do it with our eyes closed.

“They’re fast corners, but they’re easy flat. I look back at my Monaco crash last year in the swimming pool [section].

“That’s the only thing with these cars that you have to run them so low at the rear to get the downforce out of them, you end up going into a place that becomes pretty sketchy.

“Obviously, it gets the most sketchy at high speed when the car is fully loaded and low, so you can get incidents like that which obviously aren't nice to see. You can’t do anything, you can’t react.

“You saw Carlos, he was turning and then all of a sudden he’s Mr. Passenger. Happy to hear he was all right.

“I don’t want to go too hard on red-flag situations but maybe there are a few talking points in the drivers’ briefing.”