The matter was discussed at a driver briefing in Miami on Friday as part of the lingering fallout from a chaotic eventual restart in Melbourne, which saw several accidents.

Many drivers felt that the marbles on the grid in the final few laps would create a difference between the sides of the grid, creating an additional possibility of an accident at the first corner.

One of the problems was that in Melbourne the grid wasn’t being cleared while the cars were in the pits waiting for the race to resume, a procedure brought up by former F1 race director Charlie Whiting in one of the earliest discussions of the restart.

The FIA ​​is understood to have now committed to ensuring that the grid will be cleared during future red-flag delays.

Still, the drivers were reluctant to restart the grid late in the race.

“I think we’ve all reached a good understanding,” GPDA director George Russell said when asked by Autosport.

“I thought it would be a challenge to start over at the end of the game because there were a lot of marbles that fell off the line.

“It gives pretty unfair opportunities to post players on the dirty line, and more chaotic and unfair opportunities.

“So let’s see where we move. But I don’t think all 20 drivers are going to like a red flag after 50 or 75 percent of the race.”

marshal waving red flag

Photography: Simon Galloway/ motorsport pictures

The controversy in Melbourne has led to changes to the Red Flag recovery procedure to quickly respond to driver concerns about warming up tires before restarting.

In Azerbaijan, the FIA ​​confirmed that the safety car will now start earlier, giving drivers more freedom to warm up their tires on the way to the grid, although the new format will not be required that weekend.

In Baku, the safety car would have given a 30-second lead, but this has been changed to 60 seconds in Miami to ensure the safety car does not get chased.

It is believed that the times will change depending on the nature of the track.

In another interesting change, there’s a new program to deal with red flags caused by severe weather.

In the United States, the law requires that large open-air public events be stopped if there is a thunderstorm in the area and there is a risk of being struck by lightning.

For the three US races, teams are allowed to drive their cars into the garage rather than in the pit lane for the safety of the team only when a red flag is raised in this situation.