I'm afraid that the root cause of all this misery is the worst innovation known to motor racing - the Full Course Yellow and Safety Car routine. In all forms of racing this disturbs the race's natural progress, and can lead to a quite skewed result, simply because a car found itself in the right or wrong place via a vis the safety car, i.e. no fault of car, team or driver. This is the 21st century. Circuits - and F1 on street circuits - can afford simple technology for flashing yellows, rather than silly flags on every corner, and limit the yellow zone to that preceding the incident or local track condition requiring a yellow. Automated Gatso technology can be used to monitor speeds approaching a yellow corner. Then there's the "Pits are closed" arrangement, which is pure rubbish. The pits must be available to every car at every moment of the race, and it is the driver's responsibility to exit the pit safely. No Safety Car - no problem.
