I reckon you should carpet the run off area, big thick shag pile would mean you couldnt floor it when u ran wide. Oh and the stuff where its easy to wash out any stains from red wine as Im sure theres a lot of about during a gp weekend.

S

What's wrong with the old gravel traps?

sounds dodgy, but ever been on a kiddies playground where theres a soft floor? got a surface texture like tarmac, but has some give in it. would probably make it safer for bike riders.. would be suseptable to being cut by debris i guess :/

They often hardly slow the cars down at all, because if the car doesn't happen to dig in it just skates over the surface, and the gravel needs a lip to contain it and that tends to launch the car up so it does skim over it.

Also then that car is often out of the race, no longer to be enjoyed.

Yes, we must have in mind the KISS principle.
A combination of gras/gravel strip along the track and outer tarmac safety zones sound good to me.

Any solution has to work for the other series that race, especially bikes (so no thumbtacks or broken glass ). I like idea of the 3 meter section of grass/astroturf, just as long as its even with the tarmac and the transition is smooth (again for the bikes).

Not sure entirely if this was mentioned before:

Not to rolly-press the very last layer of Asphalt, and lay the very last finish layer with slightly more aggraveated aspahlt then the car will stop better. This causes chances of damaging the tyre leading to a possible puncture. Would the drivers then aviod using the run off areas? Yes i do think so. Wold this make run off safer? Yes I do.

Wood-chip runoff areas!

keep them tarmac, but put a few drawing pins down. or some stingers. that'll slow em up!

Sand strips.


You drive over, sand sticks to hot, sticky tyres, sand comes off after a few corners - no car damage, it slows the car for a short period without tyre damage, either.


Only trouble is windy days might blow the stuff onto the track, so parts of the circuit might end up like driving in the wet. Which, given what we saw on Sunday, might not be a bad thing either....

make them paddling pools and you have a winner. it looks better, it will help slow the car, tyres will be wet on rejoining, water won't blow onto the track apart from at windiest places, drivers who retire on the spot get wet feet. probably flood the engine tho...

I am glad that this thread now exists.

The RFID idea is good. However, I would suggest that the limiter would have to kick in with a short delay or be otherwise programmed how to react when brakes fail etc. So long as everyone knows x has gone off and here comes the rev limiter with a flashing light signal then it would work.

What is important about this thread is that at least here we are not looking at the world as if incentives don't matter - drivers do what makes the best sense in the situation they find themselves. If leaving the track had an immediate penalty it would not happen much. On the other hand if there are normally no consequences it will happen an awful lot more.

Get it done and take the perception of politics out of it. Do it and watch the problem that brought it about disappear overnight.

Pat

surely it just increases the incentive for kimi to push lewis off?

Please no hi-tech gadgets, satellite communications, tracking device and so on. Everything that can break would eventually break even if it cannot break at all.
The need is for as simple as possible and as cheap as possible solution.

Does anyone know if they'll remove the gravel trap in China's pitlane?

In response to Le Chat Noir, yes it would increase the incentive to punt people off. However, this would have been stronger with gravel traps. The incentives of the potential punter have always to be controlled retrospectively - there are no a priori rules that says which moves go over the line.

The tarmac runoffs probably make it more likely that a move will be made but some of these will be more speculative than would otherwise occur. Moving back would make overtaking more difficult and less likely to occur - the real issues behind this are being addressed through the technical group. Less overtaking attempts would be bad but we can't have drivers make up a wholly new and faster circuit than the original one and have this punished only infrequently.

Moreover, these issues can arise when only a single vehicle is involved. So long as they post a normal lap time there is no penalty. To me this is too easy. If you leave the circuit because you get your breaking wrong you should by down about 20 secs a lap not a couple of tenths.

no the gravel trap make an incentive for the 'lewis car' to remain on track, which means the 'kimi car' had the option of crashing or giving space. with tarmac and technical whizzardry the 'lewis car' would usually prefer to take the hit, and fight for another day, than have the collision and the 'kimi car' knows this, so is not incentivised to give space.

so gravel or walls are the best for racing, but not safety sadly.


--
but i don't disagree with the point you're wanting to get to. watching pedro in bahrain was a joke.

the best corners have a bit of tarmac, then gravel, so you can get it a little wrong, but not a lot. even a little can cost a lot, like michael at turkey going round the outside of the corner off track. that was also due to big kerbs, so more of those please.

actually they'd possibly be good in these chicane situation, the big kerbs. they'd unsettle the car a lot.

a further option is for a wall on the inside of the chicane exit, that feeds the cutter back on track along some convoluted route, much like a pitlane. see the monza turn 1, far left, escape road for an example. probably too unsafe still though. but painted lines wouldn't be - with strict enforcement a la pitlane exit.

there we go, an answer.

In general I would say that it's very hard to give an alternative to tarmac. High-speed corners are much safer with tarmac than gravel. That's not even debatable. Gravel can make a car bounce and get airborn if something happens at an off at a high-speed corner. Tarmac is the best choice.

Slow-speed corners and chicanes were there is an opportunity to cut them and have an advantage should have graveltraps. The new Bus Stop is a perfect example and so is the first chicane at Monza.

directly in front of the highest speed portion of the track you mean? hmmm. not convinced.

You mean Monza, right? There could be tarmac the first couple of meters so that drivers would get a chance to break heavy and rejoin if they made a mistake. But put some gravel at the end so that you can't cut it. Even if you manage you will have dirty tyres.

Yeah - that's a downside.

Well ... you could make tail-lights and some light inside the cockpit flash in some kind of pattern, like first slowly, then faster, then solid light, with the solid light indicating the car is under reduced revs.

And then have the drivers go off the racing line immediately, when the lights were flashing.

Oh my ... immediately ... it's one of those "soft" terms open for interpretation.

Well, ok then - how about this:

RFID chips on the cars and RFID grid on track. A car leaves the grid by more than the designated amount - say centerline crossing the line - and it triggers a drive-through penalty that must be served next time you pass the pits (no "3 laps to do your thing" rules).


By adding another line through the corners, it would be easy to judge whether a car left room on the outside/inside in passing situations, which could then also result in instant drive-through penalties - no stewards involved.

Data would be readily available for all to see whenever a transgression was made, and if A pushed B off the track, then both would go to the sin-bin.

Of course ... what the h*ll would all of us fanboys be discussing then?! ;-)

both places. though to be fair i'm not sure of the exact kph at kemmel so feel free to have a go if that's the purpose of the question.

what happens when they can't brake? at the moment they can cut it for a reason, the same reason you wouldn't put gravel on a high-speed corner.

A KISS solution.

Where run off areas are provided for safety, designate them to be penalty areas. If a driver uses a run off area to continue driving he should be issued a penalty by the stewards in that area. It could be either a drive through or a black flag penalty. Drivers can be made aware of run off areas that carry penalties in their pre race meeting.

I see your point Le Chat Noir but from my perspective 'defend hard' by the car in the lead is the dominant strategy - it will be adopted no matter what (so long as they believe that they have the corner). The real change is that the driver trying to make the pass will suddenly remember they have a brake pedal and slow down sufficiently to avoid the crash - and will build this into their behaviour and normally leave this as an option. Hence, I don't see that the car defending will make space unless they have lost the corner - if there is a chance that they might stay in front they will always put it up to the driver attempting to pass.

The complication is that it is a repeated game and reputations matter. Everyone would like the reputation as a really hard defender of their positions and also have the reputation as someone who is prepared to crash when they are attempting to make a pass.

That all said what you make clear is that is we may not be able to really predict what will happen but it should be taken out of the stewards room asap - though the exact way to do this is probably harder than we all first thought.

under current tech regs i think you'd see quite a massive drop in the few overtakes attempted, and i'd want to avoid that. perhaps next years cars, with passing more possible, will allow for more passing with space, hence making it clearer they should back off and they'll know they can have another better go.

prob at the mo is that any opportunity must be taken and backing off isn't an option. when it becomes drastically required, racing will stop. especially at tight tracks without walls.

i really do like the idea of chicane lanes like pitlane exits. would require more space outside the corner tho, difficult at the race stop, sorry bus stop.

though it is what they had before actually, with soft walls. why did that go?

I agree with this wholeheartedly. Not only would it accomplish everything listed above, but it would make the racetracks look more like racetracks and less like shopping center parking lots.

If you break heavy when missing the first chicane at Monza you would never be in danger because of the gravel further down. Why? Because that's the direction the track is going in. A car would either stop in the gravel or just bounce past it with dirty tyres.

Kemmel straight? I didn't even mention it. I said Bus Stop.

Wouldn't that potentially lead to the strange situation seen in the 1993 Detroit Grand Prix, where Unser, attempting to overtake Sullivan, was pushed into a designated runoff area while attempting to make a pass? Whatever the legality of either Unser's pass or Sullivan's defence, the subsequent stop-go for Unser was a rather poor way to end the race. Certainly it would lead to more instances of the kind of penalty that Hamilton got at Spa on Sunday.

or flip over at high speed when you can't brake heavy which was my point in that i said what happens when they can't brake. if you break heavy you're already screwed.

bus stop entry is one of the fastest points on the track, you seemed to be questioning it, i thought by considering kemmel faster, clearly not tho.

you're both correct of course. as evidenced by lewis turning before the grass became an issue. he may have gone earlier or stuck with it if it ran all around the chicane

The cleanup as well would be an ongoing process during the race. Pebbles strewn all over the racing line every time someone gets a wheel off.

So that is more tiresome than blatant cheating?

In the "Les Combes" corner there is a little lane which drivers usually use when they miss the first apex, instead of using full tarmac run-off areas they could put some lanes which would be taken at a certain speed:

if it was blatant there'd have been a message on screen and different response from charlie

100% agree, this is it really, they need to work out a surface that's punishing but not necessarily dangerous, something that will slow cars down while still being (or as a consequence of being very) grippy. Tarmac run-offs are too focused on the safety aspect and not really punishing at all anymore (even quite the opposite in many cases). Something tells me with all the rocket science involved in F1 it could be sorted out easily, if the will to do it was strong enough.

The problems stated were that a) At high speed cars simply bounced over them instead of scrubbing off speed via braking/friction - this contributed to Schumacher's Silverstone accident in 1999, and b) Spinning cars have a tendency to roll over on gravel, and once they do that, the rollbar can dig into the ground and become separated. See Zonta's accident at Eau Rouge in 1999 for an example of the first (or Johnstone's at Road America in 1996 if you're allergic to modern F1), and Diniz's near-fatal first-lap crash at the 2000 Grand Prix at the Nurburgring for an example of the second.

Unsurprisingly, after 1999-2000 gravel traps began to be phased out of Formula One circuits.

There was a message on sunday. Car #1 and car #22 under investigation. And it seems there was only one respons made by Charlie and it was a faulty one.

post race
why faulty if blatant?

leave them as it is, count offenses. give time penalty which increases with each offense, say first offense is worse 5 seconds, second is worth 7 seconds and so forth. Impose a maximum number of offense, you reach it - you're DQ'ed.

Man, the answer is so obvious: do away with the damn chicanes! They've been polluting F1 circuits for way too long. If they really need a chicane at some circuit, they could always bring Sato back.

Great to see this thread. The FIA should really get of their arse and do something about this pronto. The Spa race should be the last straw.

I dont know what the right answer is, but my suggestion would be a mixture of strips of gravel, grass and also those monza speed humps installed in various guises at all tarmac run off corners.

The FIA needs to start investigating the safest and easiest way to deter drivers from going off line. We can no longer have penalties deciding this.

If you go off track, it should be slower than taking the race track, no matter what.

Why not a "stop box"? If a driver takes to the runoff/escape road, have a painted box where the car must come to a complete stop before continuing. It could be placed in a safe section, to minimise another car doing the same runoff and hitting the stationary car. Failing to stop would be an automatic imediate pitlane drive through.

What if you didn't stop completely, or stopped with a wheel outside the box? Would that be a drive-through penalty? What if Hamilton was awarded one of those penalties after a race?

The KISS method huh?

The easiest and simplest way to stop people cutting chicanes is to penalise anyone - and I mean ANYONE - who cuts the chicane. No ifs, no butts - avoiding an accident? Tough. Forced wide? Tough. Outbraked yourself? Double tough.

Zero tolerance.

EDIT: unfortunately the downside to this is that if the penalty is too severe we may see drivers 'unwilling' to have a go at overtaking - so the severity of the penalty is also an important consideration. As has been suggested earlier, utilising the spec ECU so that a driver who has infringed has reduced revs for say 5 secs, will penalise the driver but hopefully wouldn't completely deter drivers from having a go.

With the KERS coming online perhaps the penalty could be no KERS 'boost' for 1 or 2 laps?

If it were up to me, I'd bring back gravel traps, walls and even surround the circuit with spiked chains like those used by the police in roadblocks. And fire. Probably some wild, rabid beasts too... the car may be out of the race, but the fun of watching the driver run for his life would be as thrilling.

Seriously... anything other than a physical deterrent will only get us into more "Ham at Spa"'s scenarios. It's been shown many times that leaving the penalty in the hand of stewards leads to inconsistency and unfairness, we need something there that tells the driver "you know, cutting the chicane IS going to make you lose time".



In the good ol' times drivers didn't line up just because the surroundings were dangerous. I don't see Hamilton or Alonso being happy with a 6th place just because there's a gravel trap on a chicane... he'll be more careful or look for another place to pass, but otherwise, it'll be business as it has allways been.

For those that "fear" overtaking to avoid runing off-circuit, I say they are spineless whelps that don't deserve a racing seat, let's get rid of them sooner rathern than later.

What about the speed bumps they have at Monaco. Leave the tarmac as is but install some speed bumps which the car will have to cross over when it rejoins the track. For the final chicane.... like this..

Won't damage the car as long as the car is slowed before crossing them. Wouldn't cost much to impliment either.

Spot on

The only penalty that might work is ze punishment, handed by Max personally ;)

Otherwise, this problem must be solved in "natural" way; go off the track, lose time or DNF. No need for interpretations, drivers figuring out how much they want to gain/lose, etc.

All IMHO.

watch the Diniz crash again, his rollover hoop dug into Grass no gravel, which shows the problem with grass as well/

Gravel traps are unsafe and are a step backwards in time. Cardboard boxes are Hollywoodish. Spike strips.. no comment. Spears and knives are too primative. Plus, if it costs alot to impliment the people that have to pay for this stuff will resist and say it's fine the way it is now. :\

Oh the good old days.. back in the day things were so much better, blah blah blah. Oops I can't remember the rest, I need to grab my walking stick and take my pills now and rest.

HoldenRT, I was just about to mention the same myself. Properly placed and designed speed bumps will not interfere with cars slowing down but will make any car that exits the track slow down before rejoining.

Possibly installing the kerbs in the shape of one-way ramps (like this, but much less steep: /| ) about, say, 10cm high and 2m wide all along the length of the tarmac run off areas might do the trick as well. These would be low enough so that the car isn't launched when going over them, but once you leave the track you can only really rejoin in a specific area, "chicaned" by styrofoam walls where such a kerb is removed on purpose, or you seriously risk damaging the car.