How come it has not been made a onboard flag system. Say a led display that blinks yellow and so on.

It has been made a light system already (not onboard), it was tested at telenor arena on the petter solberg extreme show.

Legendary schanche of course being a complete nutter was the only driver to crash he also took out the light system at the same time.

The system can be seen on this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-HOVu_OUwk

Now remember its schanche and hes 65 years here.

To be fair on hes behalf:

One of the most incredible overtakes and saves ever.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PWLc5hw90Q

It has been done before. It only works as good as the driver wants it to work. In other words it gets ignored worse than the flags.

The system has been in Indy cars for many years. Works fine.

cool.

But i think F1 would lose some of its glam if there is no flags.

It's not a substitute for flags, just a supplement.

Note we've also discussed a remote control speed limiting system, where race control can actually remotely tap into the cars' ECU and effectively apply the pit-lane speed limiter option.

I think most of us agreed that doing something like that without direct control by the pilot himself is a Bad idea with a capital 'B.'

I believe Nascar use it. They used similar at Calder Thunderdome.
Would never work in road racing as normally the yellow is only on one section of track. Plus you have stationary yellow, waved yellow double yellow all meaning different things. And sometimes the body language of the flaggie tells you something too.
Ok on ovals though.

If you can do that then there's nothing to stop you from remotely setting the throttle to WFO when the driver is least expecting it...

And if that doesn't do wonders for F1s' entertainment value I don't know what would.

This system is already used in F1, called the F1MS system (F1 Marhsalling System).

Each car has a controller with integral two way telemetry with a GPS receiver linked to it, to allow positional information to be relayed back to race control and for the race control software to send status information as to whether the car is entering, yellow, blue etc zones.

The PCU display has LED's on it that correspond to the colour of flag being shown at that particular position on track

There was a fairly thorough article in IIRC Racetech or Race Engine Technology; and a google search for F1MS brings up some information

Actually I had a similar thought many years ago. If you allowed F1 cars cockpits to be covered (or even partially) it would have two main benefits. Firstly, the driver would have better protection from debris and untethered wheels. Secondly, the drivers would be able to utilise a head up display giving the sort of information commonly seen in most computer games i.e relative positions of competitors, warning flags e.t.c. I think this would help improve the racing as back markers would be better informed of the position of the front runners. Also the drivers could see well before hand any incidents that have occurred on track. All the technology is already present allow this. Any thoughts?

I like your idea. Something like this.


Particularly because of the HUD. Mainly because of the yellow flag systems possible with it.

It would also take F1 into a new Era.

Problem about it is that it might trap the driver inside the cockpit during a fire etc.

Perhaps not strictly OT, but not far off either ...

I had a stint on the flags at a recent club track day at Wakefield Park. Flags being of the electronicly controlled flashing light kind. Controlled from a touch-screen PC up in the control tower. Based on no training on the system, and a couple of hours on the job, I can say it was an educational experience, but not a replacement for the human flaggie.

Great for quickly throwing an all-course red, but the response time for a yellow left a lot to be desired. At a race meeting, presumably the flag points are manned, and they can not only quickly throw a flag of the flapping variety, but hopefully they also can trigger a local electronic flag, especially a yellow. It is all too easy for the incident to be effectively over, or at least a few cars are past, before the right button can be found and pushed up in the control tower. Add in a buggy system ... suffice it to say, we had to suspend proceedings at one point while we went in search of the old Mk1 flags .

Better training and more practice would improve things, as would a more robust platform/system. But I can't see it replacing the flaggie. Certainly not for a circuit that is less open for drivers and the officials in the control tower ...