Christian Horner believes that the stewards should have considered red-flagging the Australian Grand Prix on Sunday rather than sending recovery vehicles onto the track to clear away cars.

This was an opinion backed up by Sky Sports F1 commentator David Croft, who was furious after Fernando Alonso’s crash led to trucks on a live racetrack.

“It’s never great seeing recovery circuits, recovery cars on the circuit when the cars are circulating, or there’s cars still looking to close up, and I suppose they’ll look at that,” Horner said.

He added: “They did inform all of us that was what they were doing. It was down to us to inform the drivers, but it’s always particularly [worrying] on a circuit that’s quite damp, and we’ve seen a lot of cars swapping ends with experienced drivers as well today. Sometimes you think, ‘Okay, should we just stop it here and take a restart?”

This stance was not aligned with that of Max Verstappen, though. “Yeah, I think it was all fine,” the four-time world champion said after the Grand Prix. “I mean, if you crash into that, behind the safety car, then you’re really stupid.”