Following an incident at la Rascasse Monaco's tight second to last corner, the safety car was introduced for the 4th time in sundays race. With just 4 laps remaining and plenty of debris on the track it seemed that the race would finish under the safety car. However race stewards decided the track was clear enough for the safety car to come in on the last lap, allowing the race to finish under racing conditions for the final corner, and the home straight.
F1 rules state that once the safety car pits in normal racing can take place once a car has passed the safety car line, that in Monaco's case, crosses the track a few meters down from the entry to the pits.
Exiting la Rascasse Alonso managed to get his back end out of shape sliding his car in the entry to Anthony Noghes corner. This slide allowed Schumacher, who had been trailing Alonso behind the safety car, to nip up the inside of the Ferrari and maintain the position out of the final corner and onto the home straight.
Initially it seemed that maybe the Mercedes driver had not waited until passing the safety car line, before overtaking Alonso. However video evidence showed this was not to be the case.
After the race Ferrari boss Stefano Domenicali believed that Schumacher's move was against F1 rules. Alonso was instructed that the race was "over" and therefore the pass should not be allowed.
Former Ferrari man Ross Brawn had a different view.
"The regulations which are new this year which say you can race between safety car line 1 and the start finish line"
"We were advised before the end of the race that the safety car would be coming in, there was no instruction that the race would finish under the safety car"
Both teams will be presenting their respective cases to the race stewards, but the debate will continue into next week.
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