Simply ask the drivers not to weave around during the safety car period until its lights go out?
Radios rarely fair these days, and I'm sure it would be possible to get round that with pitboards, or just ask other drivers with working radios to pass or let through other drivers. Could all be sorted out in drivers' briefings.
I think it cuts complexity. It's just reading race positions off a chart and applying penalities for those that repair damage or take on extra fuel, or have a pitstop problem. No opinions need to be entered into, and consistency doesn't come into it.
Buy having all the cars monitored via GPS, with speed limiters already on the cars, radios, dash lights and pitboards don't give them the ability to do all of this RIGHT now? What about a race director simply hitting a SC button, and ALL the cars on the track have their pit lane limiter activated. As it's a safety system, simply have triple redunancy so that it's almost impossible for the system to fail?
That's a fair point though.
How about getting rid of the safety car altogether and just have automated speed limiters then? Perhaps only in the sector required, so that the racing continues elsewhere?
that would work... or maybe just not race on pointless steet circuits that make overtaking impossible and getting rid of stranded cars a time consuming matter
The saftey car is used too frequently - there's no reason why Piquet's car could not have been cleared under double waved yellows - "caution, workers on track, slow - be prepared to stop."
Depends where they had to move his car to, though. Where Piquet's car ended up was well out of way, as you say, but I think they may have had to move it across the track or round the previous corner to recover it.
Are you mental? They had a bloody tractor there to clear it, on a blind and narrow section of the track, and they had to move the car across the track to clear it. The safety car is not an issue anyway, the stupid rules about pitting while the safety car is out is the main problem, and I thought they were going to solve it in time for this GP. They just need to put in place a speed limit under safety car conditions, so that cars don't race up to the safety car or pitlane at full speed.
The FIA are involved, who are world-renowned for obfuscation of a very simple concept.
That might work, but that isn't what you originally suggested.
I don't think that would really work at all. What is the exact definition of 'weaving'? Is one move across the track weaving? What about two? Three? How does one judge whether a car braked for a bend or to warm his brakes? How much throttle is appropriate when exiting a corner? Drivers would do anything they possibly could to generate some heat, even if it severely stretched the rules against 'no weaving'.
I think this is quite a good idea. For the entire sector though, or just the danger zone? Would the cars automatically brake (dangerous), or would they slowly coast down to the speed limit?
I don't agree with this. I'd much rather have them deploy the SC in a questionable situation than risk the lives of track workers. Remember Alonso's huge crash in Brazil? There were multiple double waved yellows before he got to the crash scene, yet he still arrived at a hell of a speed. If there had been marshals on the track trying to recover Webber's car, they would have been killed. All drivers are prone to errors of judgement, and it only takes a single error to potentially end someone's life. Motorsport will always have this risk to some degree, but I don't think it's appropriate to risk it unnecessarily just to avoid deploying the SC.
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I'd guess that the F1 cars don't have enough big fuel tanks to go through a full gp without pit stop, maybe the fuel tank size is even limited by the rules? Still, forcing a pit stop for tire change but disallowing refueling would also fix the 3rd part of the qualis because everyone would have full tanks for the start of the race. The 3rd part of the quali could be made a proper quali with light cars and the quickest time would really be the quickest time.
The thing is though that disallowing refueling would not remove the safety car gain and it would still be a bit unfair and random because those who pitted before the sc would get an adventage. Pitting after sc will make you lose a lot more positions than pitting before sc and that is hard to eliminate, if not impossible.
There's this one idea though: to stop the race whenever there would be sc and restart the race after all is ok. The teams would be allowed to work on the cars, refuel and change tires etc. while waiting for the restart. The 2nd/3rd/4th restart would really spice stuff up
Well, sort of. The rules require it to be behind the driver but in front of the engine (basically in the center of the car), so it has a massive effect on the wheelbase. The wheelbase has a huge effect on the handling and the aero package, so the size of the tank is finalized very early in the design process.
As for the rest, I'm all for eliminating mid-race refueling but multiple red flags in a single race seems a bit silly to me.
No other series in the world has problems with Full course yellows. The problem is having one pitcrew for two cars. F1 needs to stop trying to be so unique in their rules and start looking at other series for what works.
Well you can barely fit 1 crew per team in some of the pitlanes used in F1. I think they should just get rid of refuelling, and only have 1 manditory tyre change. At least then we could keep the same safety car rules and not have issues with cars running out of fuel.
Don't even need a mandatory pitstop, then the drivers know they'll have to pass on the track rather than wait til the stops. With a tyre that can last a GP they'll save on tyre use, rather than wasting all the energy needed to make them and transport them. Good for the action and better for the environment. And cheaper.
The problem with such a hard tyre Tristan is it dramatically reduces mechanical grip.
Of course sometimes they are actually too soft and the marbled inhibbit overtaking, but an outright harder tyre with the current F1 will be bad. We'll have to see about next year though.
When I started watching F1 there was no refuelling, but drivers could run either A, B, C or D compound tyres. The hard A compounds would usually last a whole race, at some circuits the B would and sometimes they'd have to stop and change them. C's and D's would be a strategy that involved stopping.
It was good in that it introduced pitstops as an option, but tyre choice faded away as a strategic decision with mid race refuelling.
On the whole though, race these days are much closer.
Give them a tyre then that gives sufficient mechanical grip (which the aero restrictions will give more than the exact compound of a tyre) and allows maybe some cars that are easy on tyres to perhaps get through a GP without a stop whilst others might use it a bit harder but have to do a stop.
But I do not want a mandatory stop. They're horrid, and if a driver knows he can pass with a stunning in-lap then they'll wait to try that than have a go on the track.
What you mean is no other series has a problem with seemingly random results - in Indycar, fuel economy victories a la Danica Patrick are not scorned but lauded as legitimate wins.
I'm not sure about that. I'm not defending the overrated Danica Patrick, but in the F1 turbo era winning races was also about fuel economy. A midfield car could turn the boost up to max and walk away from the pack, but the winner was usually in cruise mode for most of the race.
I like the idea of a forced speed limit, as long as it could be done in such a way so as not to cause damage to the car or driver through excessive deceleration. It would have the advantage of keeping each driver in their relative track positions and distances, therefore taking away the unfair disadvantage of being "caught up" by a driver that wasn't even close to catching you pre-safety car deployment.
I also like the idea of "all the way to the end" races, just like in motoGP. It sorts the men out from the boys in terms of true car control as tyres "go off" etc. It will also punish the more reckless drivers who dive up the inside shredding tyres knowing full well they'll have a new set in 10 laps or so. What's so skillful about locking up the front tyres, diving up the inside of someone late in to a corner and forcing them to run wide and essentially "bullying" them out of the way? Nothing in my opinion.
Racing isn't about just being the one able to do the fastest lap. If it were we might as well just do Saturday and give the points to the drivers according to their "hot lap" times !!
