16 years ago today, Mark Webber secured victory in the 2010 Monaco Grand Prix, although the race became notorious for an entirely different reason.
Michael Schumacher’s audacious last-lap move on Fernando Alonso sparked one of the season’s most contentious penalties and prompted an urgent FIA review of safety car regulations that had left the paddock divided.
Webber led from pole to flag, delivering Red Bull’s first Monaco victory through a chaotic afternoon punctuated by multiple safety car periods.
Early retirements included championship leader Jenson Button, whose McLaren overheated after a cooling cover was mistakenly left on before the start, whilst Nico Hülkenberg crashed heavily in the tunnel on lap one.
Further drama unfolded when Rubens Barrichello’s Williams struck a drain cover and Jarno Trulli’s Lotus launched over Karun Chandhok’s HRT at Rascasse near the end, bringing out another safety car that would stay deployed until the final lap.
Alonso had recovered brilliantly from a pit-lane start, his weekend wrecked by a third practice crash that left him unable to qualify. Through clever strategy and exploiting the safety car interruptions, the Spaniard hauled himself up to sixth on the road, directly ahead of Schumacher’s Mercedes.
The controversy that rewrote the rulebook
As the field approached the final corner under safety car, race control issued the “Safety Car in this lap” message. The car duly peeled into the pit lane, green flags appeared at the safety car line and track displays showed “Track clear.”
To Mercedes, this signalled a restart; Schumacher dived inside Alonso at the final corner and crossed the line in sixth. Yet the stewards saw it differently.
They ruled the race was ending under safety car conditions, invoking Article 40.13 of the 2010 Sporting Regulations, which stated that when a race finishes under the safety car, it enters the pits on the final lap and cars take the flag without overtaking.
Schumacher received a 20-second post-race penalty, the converted equivalent of a drive-through, demoting him from sixth to 12th and costing him eight championship points.
Mercedes initially lodged an appeal, insisting they had acted in good faith. Team principal Ross Brawn argued the combination of race control messages and green signals indicated a normal restart under Articles 40.7 and 40.11, which permitted overtaking after the safety car line.
The team noted that most top-10 teams had given similar “race to the line” instructions, though only Schumacher completed a pass. Schumacher himself maintained he had taken the opportunity presented by what he believed was a green track, yet he refused to portray himself as a victim.
Within days, Mercedes withdrew the appeal after the FIA agreed to review Article 40.13 and examine the proportionality of post-race penalties.
The review ultimately confirmed the stewards’ interpretation, clarifying that when a race officially ends under safety car, no overtaking is permitted anywhere, even between the safety car line and the finish.
Subsequent rewrites of the sporting regulations tightened the wording and introduced clearer race control procedures to avoid the ambiguity that had left teams and drivers reading conflicting signals on that final Monaco lap.
16 years on, the incident stands as a cautionary tale of regulatory grey areas and the chaos that ensues when teams, drivers and officials interpret the same rule in fundamentally different ways.
