Re-start at Monaco – why are they allowed to work on the cars?
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Up to Lap 71 this was an amazing race, brilliant! However, once the red flag stopped the race, why were the teams allowed to change tyres, work on the cars etc?
This changed the whole race, Vettel and Alonso had old tyres and the whole finish was dependent on whether Button could get past them with his much newer tyres.
The re-start was a joke – it might as well have been a completely new race!!!
I am very disappointed – it could have been a fantastic finish! We, the on-lookers were robbed, so was Jensen. . . . !
Why is this allowed in the Rule Book?
I have no idea why changing tyres is allowed at this point but it really made the final couple of laps really disappointing and pointless. Mrs LolaF1 & I feel hollow.
Agreed! It ruined the whole thing. As you said -POINTLESS !!!!
Last laps were still good with the Hamilton-Maldonado crash and Webber passing Kobayashi. But yeah, it would have been a lot better if they didnt get to change their tyres.
Vettel was first and had the oldest tyres;
Alonso was second and had old tyres;
Button was third and had the newest tyres.
It would have been perfect, but the tyre changes put all cars equal and obviously Red Bull benefitted from that, with Vettel easily winning and Webber passing Kobayashi.
Sorry to sound like a broken record, but I’ll say it again.
I know it’s frustrating but the rules are there because Red Flags are caused by big accidents, so they allow teams to change tyres to make sure there’s no punctures caused by debris on the restart. Remember, safety first – racing second.
Vettel just got another massive break at the best possible time.
Yes, we didn’t have a grandstand finish, but Petrov and the other drivers and the marshall’s safety is far more important than having an exciting finish to a motor race.
+1 to Geoff, the rules are the rules, Vettel just got a lucky break today. Dont forget the same rule means that if a car is damaged, like Hamilton or Sutil’s, they can be fixed and put back in the race for the restart.
The whole race was pretty chaotic but finally we have an interesting f1 season
To a point Geoffrey is right. I agree that on safety grounds the tyres should have been inspected. I disagree that they should have been allowed to be changed unless they were unsafe.
While I respect the rules on the matter the fact are there to keep people safe – if the tyres didn’t actually need to be changed and were safe, then it was a get out of jail free card for Red Bull.
I also think Hamilton should have taken a time penalty for fixing his rear wing or not allowed to continue.
As I understand it, once the race has started the cars are no longer under parc ferme rules. This means that the teams can make any changes to the car they want at anytime.
Obviously we don’t see this take place very often!! In theory a team could bring one of their cars into the pits rebuild any damage and send the driver back out again to carry on with the race.
I forget which season it was that drivers had a one lap qualifying in the reverse order they finished the previous race, so you would often see a team try and repair a broken car to get back out on track and further up the finishing order to get a better qualifying slot at the next race.
To a point Geoffrey is right. I agree that on safety grounds the tyres should have been inspected. I disagree that they should have been allowed to be changed unless they were unsafe.
I know what you’re saying and why you’d want to do that, but in my opinion I don’t think that’s an entirely fair way to handle it. In that scenario, it’d be an advantage to have damaged tyres over a rival who didn’t have damaged tyres as you’d be allowed to put fresh boots on and he wouldn’t. You’d be hoping that your driver picked up a puncture which I don’t think is a good thing at all.
I think that if you’re going to let them make changes on the car, you have to let them all do it.
This was a very, very unusual situation, remember. You could change the rules but you’d more than likely never ever see something like this happen again. We were just unlucky that the accident happened the way it did, when it did.
The whole climax of the race, until the crash, was based on the ‘fight’ between the front three. It was incredibly exciting, one of the best races so far, waiting to see if Button with his much newer tyres was going to overtake Vettel and Alonso.
If someone had got a puncture it would have been apparent very quickly as the race was stopped for a considerable length of time. Letting everyone change their tyres completely changed the outcome of what had been a great race up to that point.
I really think the rules need to be re-thought on this point!
I agree with sw6569. To all intents and purposes the race was frozen in time. If Vettel had had a puncture he would have had to pit, he shouldn’t get a free one because the race was stopped.
I think if a driver changes anything on his car he should have 20s added to his finishing time.
because if a race is red flagged because of rain or a storm, you need to allow in the regulations for them to change tyres so that no car goes back out on slicks after a downpour.
the regulations could be changed to say ‘if the red flag is because of an accident no work can be done on the cars or tyres changed’ but it would result in a very dangerous situation where you have cars going out again on old, used and cold tyres which would be like driving on ice
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