Gravel vs Tarmac
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Thought I’d make a thread on this as it’s a topic that has been frequently coming up in commentary between Martin Brundle and DC.
As we all know runoff area is essential to any safe racing circuit, and there are only two choices, tarmac or gravel.
Here I’d like to kick off the debate and see what all the F1 fanatics have to say. I’m personally on the side of Martin Brundle and hate the tarmac, but would like to attempt to put forward some non-biased arguments for both:
TARMAC:
Pros:
-Brilliant for stopping cars going sideways.
-Allows a driver to apply the brakes effectively.
-Allows a car to re-enter the race after going off.
Cons:
-Look TERRIBLE.
-Do not punish a driver’s mistake, In fact in some cases drivers GAIN AN ADVANTAGE from going off track: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yzgb0SVfiIc&feature=related (at around 0:40, sorry for the rubbish quality)
-Allow cars to continue aquaplaning in the rain: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69JUz9BDrXQ (watch closely, the cars sliding off at turn 1 only start slowing down significantly when they reach the gravel trap.)
-Allow a car to continue accelerating during an accident involving an unconscious driver or stuck throttle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjd5p8dDQdU (This is the thing that worries me most about tarmac, watching the graphic its clear that Felipe had both pedals fully compressed, saving him from further harm. It’s not difficult to imagine a situation in which an unconscious driver could simply keep accelerating across the runoff and strike the barrier at full 190mph+ speed.)
GRAVEL:
Pros:
-Look ok aesthetically.
-Slows down a driver going off track (punishes a mistake)
-Prevents a car accelerating over the runoff area (as explained above)
Cons:
-Can sometimes flip a car that goes in sideways
-A car going straight on car sometimes taboggan across without losing any speed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7ecvgOtp3k
Over to you guys, I’m pretty sure I’ll think of some more arguments with youtube examples over the coming days, so will keep popping into the argument! :D
It’s tough to choose between the two. At some circuits there are run off areas which start out as tarmac and end with gravel. It think that’s how it should be at the biggest run off areas, and with the fastest corners. At slower corners, there should be gravel. I don’t think there should be run off areas with a complete tarmac surface.
Basically, I think tarmac is safer, but in every other regard grass and gravel is better. Sadly safety must always come before anything else
@Ned
I don’t think that’s a valid point at all. Safety is very much an important argument but I reckon that treating it as the most important one is a mistake. With that logic racing in general should be banned because racing creates risks by definition. It’s about managing the risk whilst keeping the spirit of the sport – something which F1 seems to forget. While the DRS ban at Eau Rouge is the most obvious example of that, putting ‘safety’, i.e. tarmac run-off areas, above precision and mistake-free driving falls into the same category.
Having said that, you could extend that argument if you were the devil’s advocate and claim that since going off the track should always be punished tracks should be enclosed with concrete walls. It is, of course, about balance – personally I don’t feel that gravel run-offs are not safe enough.
I ditched gravel but tarmac is like starting a game of monoply and giving every a get out of jail free card at the start.
The best compromise seems to be that high grip abrasive stuff which is used at Abu dhabi (the blue stuff around the track) from what i know its designed to slow the cars down if they use it, but it wont flip them flip them or beach them like gravel. Also there are different abrasivenesses too, so it can be painted strategically, to allow more leeway in certain ares, this happens at Paul Ricard, the red bits are harsher than the blue.
Reading about it now (on wikipedia mind you) at paul ricard if the cars use the red bits it damages the tyres to the extent that they’ll have to pit.
Id rather they used this stuff too just tarmac tbh.
http://forums.audiworld.com/picture.php?albumid=46874&pictureid=193342
I’m fully against tarmac run offs. They should be there, but not totally next to the track.
There are some places where they just are not that necessary. Like the new bit at Spa, they don’t go that fast round there anyway.
They should have track/a bit of grass or gravel/tarmac or something like that. Not enough gravel to really flip the car, but enough to punish the driver.
I agree with slr and Fer no.65. The current convention is for tarmac then a bit of gravel. I’d like to see that reversed; the gravel trap bordering the track, with tarmac behind. That way if a driver makes a mistake or has a minor off he has to go through a gravel trap, but if he’s in really serious trouble he’ll skid all the way onto the tarmac.
What annoys me most like Fer no. 65 said, tarmac is just being put at unnecessary places, I think it should be reserved for particularly dangerous or high speed turns. And give it a lick of paint. Preferrably green.
If there had been a gravel trap at Tamburello might Ayrton have been saved.
Maybe even one of those deformable barriers at the wall.
I’m also for gravel over tarmac for the fact that it better punishes mistakes. However, keep in mind another con about gravel is any time someone gets into the trap and escapes, they spit and spread the rocks all over the track which then creates a hazard for other drivers. So unfortunately I think zazeem’s plan would backfire in that way.
Edit: Obi, there was a gravel trap there I believe
As Zadak once said…
I am against gravel traps everywhere except where they are most needed. If a driver is to be “punished” for his mistakes then having him slowly grind to halt on the gravel trap is not really what anyone wants to see. Tarmac runoff allows drivers to keep up speed as they come back on, Fernando Alonso at Abu Dhabi showed everyone that Tarmac runoffs do not improve the show, or aid overtaking.
The cars are safe enough now in my opinion. It’s time to induce more crashes, grass and barriers are the best solution for Modern F1.
I would also like to add that I disagree with one of the points Zazeems made about asthetics. I think tarmac runoffs have the potential to be much better looking than gravel. Have you seen the Paul Ricard track recently, the blue stripes are awesome.
http://forums.audiworld.com/picture.php?albumid=46874&pictureid=193342
Joey Poey, if memory serves me correctly I think there was a narrow grass strip & then concrete or tarmac all the way to the wall.
I remember watching live in horror, but memory has a way of playing tricks.
One more pro for tarmac: it allows rescue vehicles, tractors, marshalls etc. to move freely.
I dislike tarmac runoffs, because they’re completely overused these days. Just look at Abu Dhabi. Why is there tarmac next to the track on straights? Is someone going to have an accident there?
Just jumping right in here, I don’t agree tarmac is better at slowing the cars going sideways, in fact it’s worse, which is exactly why cars can roll in gravel.
The way I see it, because tarmac run-offs become useless in the most dangerous of conditions F1 races in (heavy rain), if we’re going to have one or the other it has to be gravel.
But I too would like to see a tiny bit of tarmac and then mostly gravel. The new run-off at Rivage failed to slow down Schumacher’s accident to any real degree, but as soon as he hit the gravel strip he slowed down a lot more. Compare to Webber’s acrobatics in Valencia last year, he just speared straight into the wall and that could have been very nasty. One of his wheels was dangling by the tether, if the force of the impact and could easily have been in between Webber’s head and the wall when he hit it, with consequences I don’t want to think about.
So perhaps a mix of all three ideas, a small strip of abrasive tarmac at the side of the track about a car’s width wide, a similar strip of tarmac and then gravel would be the ideal compromise. At the end of the day the drivers are surviving because of the cars, not because these tarmac run-offs are slowing them sufficiently – which in most big accidents we’ve seen, they aren’t.
I agree with you Icthyes, webber hardly seemed to lose any speed at all, and in the case of gravel traps it’s a case of how deep they are.
Back in ’99 Schumi just skated straight across because it was a really shallow one. I think I recall Martin Brundle saying back at the Nurburgring “A gravel trap you can drive out of isn’t a very good gravel trap”, as one of the Lotus cars simply drove back out after a spin. Gravel traps at high speed corners need to be deeper, so that they ‘trap’ the car as they’re supposed to. In contrast, at lower speed corners (if they are even needed at all) they can be shallower, so drivers can get back on the track after low speed spins.
Also, something quite topical:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoMDeaXtyhw
It concerns me that tarmac has a tendency to ‘spit’ the car back towards the track after an impact, potentially worsening an accident, wheras at least gravel holds the car where it has crashed.
The problem is that it’s easily possible for there to be a huge range of accidents involving different types of vehicle (all circuits host other types of racing, even Monaco) at any given corner. Gravel would do a better job for some types of accidents, tarmac does a better job in others, but crashes are notoriously difficult to predict.
Gravel can be very good at slowing F1 cars down if the car goes straight into the gravel (although it doesn’t always work, especially in the wet), as F1 noses tends to act as scoops. But it doesn’t always work and cars entering sideways or with wheels missing sometimes dig in and roll, making the accident worse.
At Valencia in 2010, Mark Webber didn’t wipe off much speed before hitting the barriers, but it could have been worse if he’d gone into a gravel trap. The Red Bull lands on the edge of the run off area travelling sideways with only three wheels attached. Had the edge of the monocoque dug in the car would probably have rolled.
It’s a difficult call but overall I’d plump for tarmac over grass or gravel – less chance of putting a single seater upside down.
As someone who has had to dig out armfuls of gravel from a single seat racing car more than once, however, I should probably declare a conflict of interest…
(you’d be amazed how much gets in and how much damage it can do even at slow speeds)
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