1.) Live Administration does not prevent you from protesting. Neither was it the first time we did live investigations this season.
2.) Yes the app gives info about most of the contacts, but we only investigated if one of us saw it live and deemed the situation worth for review! Even the slightest contact gets insim reported, so that is not our base to launch investigations.
As well, if your situation allows it (be it you're in TS with a person who isn't driving) and you do witness a protestable incident, it's easy enough in TS to have a friend whisper to an admin briefly explaining what was witnessed. It's happened a few times under those circumstances this season as well.
It was more of an observation rather than a complaint. I would think that you would wait until after the race rather than penalizing for something that someone may not protest for. Of course what happened to Niki was for sure an issue. I guess it's a 2 faced coin in the fact that Steve may not have protested Rony and it could've affected the championship because of the decision.
But in the end it doesn't matter, I think I made this sound different than I wanted it to be interpreted and Mr. Provost didn't seem to understand that it was just an observation and something I mentioned in the incorrect manner. And often times we can call back penalties given at other series (where they were in fact protested mid race) and the drivers were so rash in filing a protest they made useless protests or the administration rushed a decision and penalized a car incorrectly. Vires receiving a SG for it only to be overturned post race and the penalty be awarded to the opposite team is one that comes to mind. LLM vs SR offroad overtaking call at 24 hours comes to mind where admins downgraded to a warning verses a DT. Or.. me protesting way too much and earning myself multiple penalties. I'm aware that a group of people make the decision and not just one person, but still mistakes can be made. Post race they are easier to reverse rather than if the penalties were given mid race and cannot be fixed.
I made many protests during the race because I was aggravated and they didn't need to be made in all honesty. Maybe a cool-down time would be a good idea for protests and have them submitted post race. This would also allow more flexibility such as penalties to next races grid position or pit lane starts rather than DT's, so that people cannot complain about unfairness and that it effected their race results because there was a caution in the closing laps (as we had at fernbay in GTWS)
I think in race penalties are great, but everything can use an attempt at a new approach now and again. A cool down period would prevent frivolous protests, something I am very guilty of, as well as making it so the admins don't have to worry about incorrect decisions during the race. Though, admins investigating incidents on their own without a protest could remain a good idea, but only if it is done in a way so that it is consistent for all teams.
Had a caution flag come out after a team was in an incident in the first lap and receive a DT for example, that will effect them more greatly than if there had been no caution flag, or a team that had completed their penalty before the full course caution. Just one thing that could make the difference between a team waiting to protest at the end or having someone do it at the end such a huge difference in the actual terms of the penalty track position wise.
Just throwing some ideas out there, the season has come to a close and maybe we can take somethings and use them to make the next years series or even GTWS better.
this post was written under the assumption that protests done post race would be handled in a timely fashion, and hopefully cut down on the work load for the race admins if a cooldown period is added.
Sadly I don't think a cooldown time would work too well, because instead of just "File protest", it becomes "Rage at driver, verbally abuse driver in TS/LFS/Forum, then file protest"