Remove the actual Safety Car
- This topic has 10 replies, 8 voices, and was last updated 13 years, 10 months ago by
.
- Posts
Why do we need the actual safety car these days? With laptime delta’s (or whatever they want to call them) has the actual car being out on track not been made redundant?
Also with the standard ECU surely we have the technology these days to put the cars into a ‘safety car mode’. Effectively each car could go into a lower mode a bit like pit limiter but one that’s not going to kill the engine after 3 or 4 laps (just drop the revs or something). It would be the same for each car so no arguments but it also means that wherever you were when the safety car situation is called is also where you end up at the end of it. There are none of the problems about being picked up by the safety car. Cars could also pit as normal if they wanted to and leave the garage without waiting for the pack to pass (because they will rejoin at the same speed and slot in wherever they can).
Clearly a bit more to it than that but my point is do we actually need the car itself?
you cannot get rid of the safety car. I have made these points before, the safety car acts to slow cars down and even stop them in areas where it is needed, It also allows the marshalls a timegap of about 2 minutes to clear up the mess, while the pack of cars is assembled behind it. The safety car also has direct communication with charlie whiting and the marshalls on scene, so it knows the correct route to take the cars along. Without a safety car incidents like Rubens Barichello’s crash in monaco would involve red flagging the race, because it would not be safe for the marshalls to go out onto the track. All that needs changing is the safety car rules, cars should banned from entering the pitlane until a full queue of cars has formed behind the safety car. The safety car should pull up and wait at the end of the start/finish straight until it picks up the leaders, one it has picked up the leaders an orderly queue of cars should form up behind them
I completely agree with Flutterfly. They need to look for an alternative to the SC such as speed limiters in the the ECU, keeping the gaps that drivers worked hard to build up before any incident.
The whole point of the SC when it was introduced is that it was the only way to neutralise a race and was a neccesary evil. That is no longer the case, they can neutralise the race perfectly safely while drivers maintain positions.
I partly agree with your points newnhamlea1 but I think they can all be worked around. If the safety car had to get to the point of stopping then surely this should be a red flag situation anyway.
I do see the advantage of the car making a train which gives the marshalls lots of track time but does this really work in practice. When cars pit under the SC they are still spread out so it’s never completely a clear track.
I think if the SC sitatuon was such that nobody would lose or gain anything the drivers would be sensible enough to keep clear and give marshalls room as they would have to no reason to try anything silly when there is nothing to gain (if that makes sense)
In the Rubens example you gave I don’t think you would need to red flag it, if you look back at it the cars slowed down themselves and picked their way around the mess to avoid punctures (other than the stearing wheel!). They were nowhere near the safety car – I think F1F posted a video for it somewhere.
I know my point is a very basic one and clearly lots more thought would be needed, but I just think with all the technology we have now there must be a way to neutraliase the race or ‘suspend’ the action for a few laps without having to have the lottery that is a SC deployment that we have now.
If you use an ECU only system, all you get then is cars all over the track in every position – just travelling a bit slower. The point of the SC is to back all the cars up into a file so that it gives the marshals enough time to clear the track of debris or injured drivers etc. The SC also gets the cars into the proper order.
The solution, as mentioned above, is to close the pit lane. The pit lane should go red as soon as the SC boards come out, and only go back to green again once the safety car has everybody lined up. Easy solution, maybe too easy for F1 ..
What is frustrating about the safety car is that the rule needs to be changed and fixed so that drivers do not benefit nor lose when the safety car is deployed. This has been a problem for a very long time, and they almost got it right a few years back when they introduced a rule to prevent cars from entering the pits under the safety car. I think this rule needs to be reintroduced and perhaps modified to prevent cars from running out of fuel – i have a few ideas how that is possible. Or, as newnhamlea1 stated above:
“cars should banned from entering the pitlane until a full queue of cars has formed behind the safety car. The safety car should pull up and wait at the end of the start/finish straight until it picks up the leaders, one it has picked up the leaders an orderly queue of cars should form up behind them “
On the end of the day, lets be realistic, the safety car will never be removed, and the safety car will never be fair. The drivers who build up a lead will always lose out when the safety car is deployed. But what is extremely annoying is to see cars from pos 10-15 all of a sudden go 2nd, 3rd or 4th… etc, and to see some drivers go to pits, change their wing, have a cup of tea and read the daily telegraph, come out without losing a position. Totally ridiculous.
Well maybe they should close pitlane until, the leader can enter it!
The closing of the pitlane could indeed be reintroduced since the refueling is banned now. I didn’t like it back then, but it might look good now.
I think, for reasons others have pointed out, that the safety car must remain. BUT should the safety car be used to escort the Doctors car.
In the recent incident if the Safety car had pulled onto the track (i.e. not driven up the pit exit lane) in front of Lewis he probably would not have passed it and the Doctors car would have had an empty track in front of it all the way to the accident site.
I think everyone is agreed the pits should be closed then? Maybe it should just be a ban on tyre changes during a SC as that would mean a car with damage (lost front wing) could pit for repairs without penalty and without advantage.
I agree with the theory of bunching the cars up but not sure it really works in practice. To keep you lot happy, what if I changed my suggestion to turning the lead car into the safety car. He can be set a maximum lap time to keep under (receiving a monetary fine like that for exceeding pit speed if he goes over it). This means with no pit stops and no overtaking the order would be exactly as it was pre SC conditions with the only disadvantage being the X second gap between cars being reduced to nothing (but apparently this is the sole purpose of the SC).
My point is I would like remove the very random element of when the SC exits the pits being a factor in deciding the race. Even if you closed the pits in Sunday’s race, the SC exited and picked up the car in second. Therefore the leader in this situation effectively gained a lap by re-joining at the back of the field behind the SC bunch. By turning the lead car into the SC this could never happen. Just a thought.
well you could also change the rule so that the lead car slows so the safety car can overtake it, that removes any random elememt. The rules need to be simplified and re-thought, thats all.
The best reason to have a safety car on track in safety car situations is that a safety car driver has a much higher vantage point than anyone driving an F1 car. The driver of the safety car can thus see potential hazards (and if the safety car is out, it is known the track is not in a safe state) much sooner and drive around them more easily. This decreases the likelihood of significant changes in direction in the snake, making it safer for the drivers.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.