Former Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson was confused by how long it took to get the race going in Monaco under wet conditions.
AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly had said that there was no rain forecast on his radar ahead of the grand prix, but that was proven very much not to be the case as it started chucking it down around five minutes before the start.
Subsequently, standing water quickly began to develop and there was a river of water flowing through the final corner, making it difficult to see how the race could get underway.
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The standing water, however, was particularly plentiful after the 16-minute delay that was caused by the rain, and there were question marks as to whether it would have been prudent to get the cars out on track earlier to clear the water.
The extreme Wets can clear up to 85 litres of water per tyre per second in F1, but a further red flag was brought out when polesitter Charles Leclerc spoke of “crazy” rain around the circuit.
It then took nearly an hour for the cars to get back out on track under a rolling start, and Clarkson was not impressed at how long it took for green flag action to get underway.
“If safety is this important in F1, it’s probably best to not race at all,” he tweeted.
Sergio Perez went on to win the race after Red Bull outplayed Ferrari on strategy, with the Scuderia losing their one-two when they neglected to pit for Intermediates.
Perez and team-mate Max Verstappen closed back up to the Ferraris after their stop as Leclerc tried to make the Wets last until it was time to transition to slicks, but the grip had gone away, so he was forced to use the Inters first.
Sainz, meanwhile, managed to transition straight from the extreme wet tyre onto slicks.
READ: 2022 Monaco GP: Charles Leclerc comments on risk of rain
The legacy of it was that Leclerc was forced to double-stack behind the Spaniard when they came back in for Slicks, and he ended up behind both Perez and Verstappen as well as Sainz, while the 27-year-old lost the lead to Perez.
The 32-year-old held the Spaniard off under intense pressure as Sainz and Verstappen rounded off the podium places.