Coulthard demands faster FIA safety car calls after Norris loses Spanish GP win

David Coulthard has urged the FIA to accelerate its race-neutralisation decisions after Lando Norris was denied a likely win at the inaugural Spanish Grand Prix at the Madring circuit, a race ultimately claimed by Kimi Antonelli for his eighth victory of the 2026 season.

Norris led the race when Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll stopped on track with a brake failure. By the time the virtual safety car was deployed, Norris had already passed the pit entry line, leaving him unable to benefit from the cheap pit stop that allowed Mercedes’ Antonelli to leapfrog him and take the win.

“One thing I would question again is the time it takes between an incident and either a virtual, a safety or a red flag,” Coulthard said on the Up To Speed podcast. “I think that can be tidied up. There’s room for improvement.”

Coulthard pointed to the Italian Grand Prix at Monza as a further example, arguing that a red flag following a major accident at Parabolica took longer than it should have. “It took a little while before the red flag when it’s absolutely clear we’ve had a major accident,” he said. “So that should be as quick as a yellow flag comes out, the red flag should be out.”

Former F1 TV presenter Will Buxton, who co-hosted the podcast episode, acknowledged the inherent difficulty in making safety car procedures feel equitable. “How do you legislate to make a moment that is by its very nature inherently unfair?” Buxton said. “You can’t make that fair. Someone’s going to get screwed, and someone is going to come up smelling of roses. It’s just the luck of the draw.”

Norris himself had spoken out after the race, arguing that safety cars and virtual safety cars should not define a Formula 1 result. “VSCs and safety cars, and everything in Formula 1, shouldn’t define a race,” he said, according to Buxton. “It’s F1. The race should be won by the best performance and a good strategy.”

Coulthard stopped short of calling for a wholesale overhaul of the system, but his comments add to growing pressure on the FIA to tighten its response times when incidents occur on track.