Many at the race were stunned with the decision to continue the race behind the safety car, with a large amount of carbon fibre all over the track.
After Ralf Schumacher crashed into the rear of Rubens Barrichello's F2001 going into in turn one, putting themselves and six others out of the race, many expected a red flag and restart. The stewards had other ideas, chosing to send out a safety car and asking the remaining cars to avoid the huge amount of carbon fibre strewn all over the first corner.

"The decision not to stop the race was absurd," fumed Gary. "What good is that to the millions of people watching across the world. It's the stupidest thing I've ever seen in my life. We've all got spare cars and we could have had 18 or so cars running around when the reality is that by the end of the race there could have been nobody left!"

Giancarlo Fisichella, completely innocently, was one of the eight drivers involved in the crash, and would have restarted the race in the team's T-car if the race had been red-flagged, but, instead, was forced to retire and watch the race from the sidelines.