Charlie Whiting has denied that the FIA has time to consider whether safety car deployments favour certain competitors over others.

Comments made after China, in particular by Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel, cast doubt on the decision to deploy the safety car, which because of the timing favoured Red Bull.

F1 race director Whiting is quoted by Italy's Autosprint as saying: "If we decide to use the safety car, it's for safety reasons.

"So at that moment I'm not looking to see who's going to be advantaged and who's not.

"All we do is wait for a certain gap in traffic on the track. The debris was spread over a large area, so I wanted to wait for all the cars to be behind the safety car before sending the marshals out."

Whiting said that he is surprised about the controversy regarding the timing of the safety car deployment for the Toro Rosso crash in China.

"We've had the VSC since 2015 and the SC for twenty years, so it should be understood by now that every time there will be winners and losers," he insisted.

The season continues with the Azerbaijan Grand Prix next weekend.