Comments on: Bad rule calls screwed Davidson’s race

By: Alianora La Canta

Alianora La Canta — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 14:40:57 +0000

The rule is that five blue flags must be waved before a penalty is issued; however the cameras were not sufficiently focused on Davidson to tell how many flags were issued.

By: Mike H.

Mike H. — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 11:54:10 +0000

I will hold my hands up and state that I missed the race on Sunday, but can someone confirm if blue flags were actually shown to Davidson, and if so, did he get the recommended three before the penalty was imposed?

In all of the tean/driver commnets read so far, I have not found one that refers to the actual waving of a blue flag as a warning..?

By: Clive

Clive — Thu, 31 May 2007 19:33:30 +0000

Oh, I’m not arguing over whether the penalty was fair or not – in fact I think the marshals waved their flags far too early. But the fact is they did wave them and Davidson, bearing in mind the irrationality of official decisions these days, could have saved himself a drive-through penalty by just slowing and letting Massa through. Unfair, but realistic.

By: Denis Davidson

Denis Davidson — Thu, 31 May 2007 16:22:48 +0000

Anthony was getting updates from his team over the radio about Massa’a progress. When Massa got within 1.7 seconds behind him, Anthony was just getting ready to move over for Massa when he got closer to him, when the penalty was issued!

By: Clive

Clive — Thu, 31 May 2007 12:11:32 +0000

The blue flag business is yet another example of rules being changed because overtaking is so difficult in F1 these days. The new rule states that a driver not reacting to three waved blue flags (presumably meaning not letting the car behind through) will be penalised. They waved the flags, Davidson did not let Massa through – end of story.

What is wrong is the rule – it gives too much weight to the interpretation of the marshals. We have seen often enough how marshals’ view of the race can be affected by partisanship and they are more likely to wave a blue early for a driver they like. At the beginning of the season, there was talk of coloured lights being fitted to the cars to indicate blues, yellows, etc. What happened to that? It’s possible that such a system, centrally-controlled, could produce a fairer result than the arbitrary decisions of a few marshals. Flag-waving is a bit of an anachronism anyway and I sympathise with those drivers who have claimed not to have seen flags waved. Their concentration must necessarily be elsewhere during a race.

As for the Spykers and Sato at the first corner, the offence is quite clear and was missed by the marshals. I don’t know what can be done about it now but it’s something that should be looked at for next year’s race.

By: Number 38

Number 38 — Wed, 30 May 2007 21:49:27 +0000

A word from someone who’s been there…….about blue flags.
Like so many things in F1 definitions get altered in practice from what is in print.
When a blue flag is waved at a race driver it is only a WARNING to look in your mirror, it is not an ORDER to do anything. The responsibilty of any action is between the signaled car and the following car which many of us call the slower car and the faster car and for some reason we all expect the slower car to merely get out of the way, TOO many F1 drivers have that attitude also. In the Davidson/Massa situation, Massa was ‘heavy’ on ‘soft’ tyres, Davidson was near empty on hard tyres and both were lapping in identical times. If you’re a steward the PERCEPTION is Massa’s Ferrari must be the faster car and the instinct is to WARN Davidson, no harm in that except, but Massa didn’t have the margin in performance to pass Davidson. Davidson knew this but the stewards didn’t. In penalizing Davidson the stewards were in essence telling him to give up his position. As Davidson was then running something like 17th it was not a big deal but what if he were running 8th and got that penalty, same conditions, Massa did not have the margin to pass, and the stewards drop Davidson from a points paying position. Isn’t that “interfering with a race result”? Food for thought.

By: Alianora La Canta

Alianora La Canta — Wed, 30 May 2007 20:55:54 +0000

This is a typical case of the race stewards in any location focusing their attention upon the front of the field. And I agree with Number 38 that expectations appear to have a lot to do with the stewards’ perceptions (I would argue that this is the case for people’s perception in general, but then again stewards are supposed to be above that…) Anthony has a very good point there, and I would have expected a penalty. Quite what punishment can be meted out to a pair of DNFed Spykers at this stage is a mystery, but Takuma could surely have been given a time penalty if the problem was only discovered post-race. Ideally, these things would be picked up as they happen, but this isn’t an ideal world…

However, the times you have given for Anthony Davidson and Felipe Massa do not indicate that Felipe Massa wasn’t held up – only that he held station with Anthony. Since the flag marshals do not differentiate between holding station and faster-car-behind when waving blue flags, then the blue flags were waved correctly so far as convention is concerned. The punishment Anthony got wasn’t for holding Felipe up – it was for ignoring blue flags. Watching the flags is an important part of being a racing driver, and unfortunately Ant has learned this the hard way – moral right doesn’t help with regulatory right.

By: sidepodcast.com

sidepodcast.com — Wed, 30 May 2007 20:00:43 +0000

i find the Chequered Flag works okay in iTunes, it does seem to have issues coming directly from the beebs own site.

it’s worth a listen, always some good comments contained within.

By: sidepodcast.com

sidepodcast.com — Wed, 30 May 2007 19:58:39 +0000

oh. apologies, i stand corrected. only i just finished listening to the podcast and Ant said almost exactly what you wrote, in exactly that order.

maybe Speed TV heard it? i’ll go and berate them instead.

ignore me and keep up the good work!

By: Keith Collantine

Keith Collantine — Wed, 30 May 2007 19:33:18 +0000

In all honestly I can say I’ve never heard the Chequered Flag podcast – every time I paste the link into my player it doesn’t work!

I saw the piece on Speed TV and had a look at the video myself. Hand on heart.