Pit lane exit warning lights for drivers in Korea

F1 Fanatic round-up

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In the round-up: Modifications to the pit lane exit are being made in Korea.

Links

Top F1 links from the past 24 hours:

Drivers to get pit exit warning (Autosport)

“This solution, which will likely mean white lights on the circuit and extra blue lights in the pit lane, should make drivers more cautious about their entry into the first corner.”

A legal but flexible T-Tray Splitter: The ‘See-Saw’ solution (ScarbsF1)

“At Monza last year the FIA doubled the test to 5mm of movement for a 2000 Newton (approximately 200kg) load. Yet in 2011 we still see cars with a nose-down raked attitude and wings nearly scraping the ground. How can a splitter meet the FIA deflection and still flex on track? I have a theory for a splitter construction, that actually exploits the method of the FIA test to provide the splitter greater stiffness during the test.”

Q&A with McLaren’s Jenson Button (F1)

“We have a very strong basis of the car and a big confidence within the team that we are able to chase Red Bull. Still there is no getting you away from acknowledging that they have been better all season.”

Korean GP – Conference 2 (FIA)

Paul Hembery: “We understand why people have maybe not wanted to run in qualifying], from a sporting point of view, trying to obtain a better result by holding onto a set of tyres. From a fans’ perspective it is clearly not ideal. From our point of view, if we can do something we are happy to sit down with the teams and try and find a solution that works for everybody.”

Rubens Barrichello via Twitter

“Great surprise when I received today a helmet that was missing in my collection. Thanks Vettel, really honoured: yfrog.com/ods0ddj

Kingfisher’s F1 move fools the market (FT, registration required)

“The F1 share issue comes just two weeks after Mallya announced he was shuttering Kingfisher Red, the low-cost subsidiary of his Kingfisher Airlines, which in January was more than $1.2bn in debt, and a day after the company ‘asked its lessors to release $200m of safety deposits to help it repay debt’.”

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Comment of the day

Amy turned up at the gates of the Korea International Circuit to watch practice. But despite the sparse crowd, could she get a ticket?

I showed up for FP2 and they didn’t sell one-day tickets, and wouldn’t let me in, so I listened to the cars and watched practice on my Fanvision from the car park.

Really stupid to not sell one-day tickets when there’s people wanting them and ten times as many staff as spectators.
Amy

Happily Amy will be in the circuit today enjoying Lotus’s hospitality.

From the forum

iamunplugged, Saumya Agarwal and olliekart are planning their trip to the next race on the calendar: the Indian Grand Prix.

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Corrected a few faults on the site including:

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Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to Fer No. 65 and Sebastiaan Huizinga!

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On this day in F1

And a happy birthday also to Bruno Senna, who is 28 today.

Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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24 comments on “Pit lane exit warning lights for drivers in Korea”

  1. The new pit exit warning will do nothing to help situations like the Rosberg incident. He understeered into the pit exit and Alguersuari was barely moving. The only real solution is to move the pit exit.

    1. yes but perhaps rosberg would have approached it with more caution had he known ALG was coming out.

      1. No driver will take it easy just because someone is coming out of the pit lane. Especially on Sunday – they’ll be racing for position!

        1. If anything they’d push even harder!

          1. @Mike and @Noelinho make a good point. It’s like showing them the prize and saying “come and get it!” :P

    2. For the moment thats the only thing they can do, however for next year they should think about improvements .. the long way around the corner behind the runoff isn’t really brilliant either but its probably better than the way it it right now.

      1. Or they could use the permanent pit facility in between turns 3 and 4 and just shift the start / finish line.

        Tilke and his crew really need to be asked some serious questions on how they let this pit arrangement happen. If it was a public road rather than a race track there would be no way that off and on ramps in similar locations would be approved by any engineer.

        1. Traditionally, the pit exits are usually on the inside of the track (e.g. Clockwise = right hand side; anticlockwise = left hand side). This theoretically allows the pit exit to lead cars onto the track off the racing line.

  2. An Abu Dhabi-style pit exit would make the most sense. Anything is better than what is there now.

  3. Happy birthday to Fer No. 65 and Sebastiaan Huizinga & Senna.enjoy the F1 weekend.

    1. Exaclty that wasif!

      Happy birthday to the three of you.

      1. Happy birthday all!

        1. A big happy birthday to all three! I hope you had a lovely day. :)

  4. The one move rule for defensive driving to be more strictly enforced from this weekend’s race onwards.

    Excerpt: “The wording will confirm that drivers can make one move to defend their position, and must then leave at least one full car’s width of asphalt on the outside (which does not include the kerb) if they return to their racing line.”

    A rediculous over-reaction to the entertaining bout between Hamilton and Schumacher at Monza in my opinion.

    Furthermore, surely Hamilton has had three reprimands already this season? If confirmed then according to the regulations he should have been given a 10 place grid penalty by now.

    Another example of overly harsh regulations which ironically could actually lead to Stewards being more lenient if they feel that the driver deserves a reprimand but not at the cost of a 10 place grid drop at the next event.

    1. @panache It’s been common practice for years that drivers can move off their line to defend, move back towards their line afterwards, but be required to leave room for the other car when they do.

      So I don’t think it’s ridiculous at all that this is being put into the regulations, I think it’s entirely sensible.

      This is what I’ve been saying should happen for years. They’re turning unwritten rules into written ones:

      Four of F1′s ‘unwritten rules’

      1. Yeah I’m entirely aware that this has been common practice for years Keith, but it seems to me that it’s being more strictly enforced now that it’s being set in writing.

        Specifically the part “and must then leave at least one full car’s width of asphalt on the outside (which does not include the kerb) if they return to their racing line.”

        The way I’m interpreting this, it seems that this now must be adhered to any time a driver moves off the racing line to defend an overtake; but as we saw with Schumacher and Hamilton at Monza, more often than not there is space for the defending driver to take up his racing line for the subsequent corner without crowding his rival off the track.

        Why shouldn’t the defending driver be entitled to do this?

        Perhaps we just interpret the statement differently but one thing is for sure, I agree that the one move rule is a good thing and I’d even go as far as to say that it is necessary from both fairness and safety standpoints.

      2. I’d like to add that the main reason I am a bit miffed about this unwrittern rule being set in writing is the way in which it appears to be defined.

        I would much prefer it if strict guidelines were set instead of such specific rules because incidents between drivers are always, in some form or another, unique from all others and should be evaluated with a heavy focus on context, or in other words the surrounding events leading up to an incident.

        I see this in a similar light to the clear distinction between US Accounting regulations which are incredibly specific and thus over time have become more and more complex with many clauses, whilst European regulations are written more like guidelines which ultimately makes them far more easy to interpret and understand.

        1. Horribly structured last paragraph, so modified for better comprehension:

          Such a distinction is akin to that which exists between US and European accounting regulations, the former of which are incredibly specific and thus over time have become more and more complex with many clauses, whilst the latter are written more like guidelines of best practice which ultimately makes them far less complex, easier to interpret and understand.

    2. @panache the way I see it, its been the drivers who started pushing for stricter (bot consistent) punishing of on track behaviour since late last year that made for more drive through penalties.

      And the fact Derek Daily spoke up after being a Monza steward about himself being miffed at why they did not investigat Schumacher’s antics and thereby bringing up open discussion of the rule has now resulted in this.
      It means the unclear general practise that led to a lot of inconsistent stewards verdicts should be clearer defined.

      Question remains (as you rightly state) about what should be allowed and if this is the right balance.
      But it seems the drivers themselves are behind this formulation and as they are the ones who have to deal with it on track, I guess that makes it the best compromise in this case.

      Personally I would hope it will also apply to the start, instead of largely ignoring weaving at that time, when Schu weaving at the start was what brought this offence into the sport in the first place.

  5. Hamilton had better hope he’s overcome whatever has been bothering him this season, because the FIA has granted the stewards a brand-new set of powers:

    http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/95369

    If a driver earns a drive-through penalty, the stewards can issue a reprimand with it. And if the driver gets three reprimands, he will take a grid penalty for the next race. The idea behind it is to punish serial offenders (though the rule will not be applied retroactively).

    1. For me it still makes that reprimand HAM got from the Maldonado incident in Spa more problematic, especially as they never actually explained what he got it for.

      Otherwise, I agree with you in principle.

    2. I think Lewis has been poor this year and not learning as he should be, but I can’t see his struggles with the stewards carrying over into next year. He’s just had a bad run and a new season with a competitive car will go a long way towards clearing his mind of any doubts he’s having.

  6. Isn’t this a Tilke track?

    He’s the genius that put the pitlane exit at the end of a straight…

    The lights crack me up. Like anyone is going to slow down if those lights are on…

    Besides, this is Korea. Everyone ignores traffic lights here, so “when in Rome…”

  7. Like MGriffin90 said, next year an Abu Dhabi style exit would work, so they can exit on the inside of the next straight.

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