234 replies to this topic

[redreni]

Well how about making it so that if you go over the penalty line you have 2 laps in which to set a lap 5s off of your previous lap. so lets say lap 21 you do a 1.20, lap 22 you cut the corner and go across the penalty line you have until lap 24 to do a 1.25 or you get an instant drive through. 

 

Okay, but go back to the scenario where one driver unfairly forces another off the track and over the penalty line. The stewards investigate and give him a 5-second pitstop penalty. Meanwhile the driver who was forced off has to serve a laptime penalty within two laps. The two penalties are the same, and it may well be that by being able to delay taking the penalty, the driver with the pitstop penalty will be hurt less by his penalty than the driver who did nothing wrong other than prevent an accident.

 

There has to be an allowance for leaving the track for a justifiable reason e.g. in avoidance. What if there is an accident and there are crashed cars on the circuit? Are the drivers going to pick their way past the wreckage on the circuit, rather than use the runoff area, for fear of getting an automatic penalty?

[baddog]

No points for pretending to know me so well, especially when you are totally wrong.

By your works shall you be known. 

Edited by baddog, 09 June 2014 - 22:00.

[RubalSher]

What's your opinion?

 

I believe that if a car goes off track on its own without being under pressure from one behind or without trying to overtake anyone should be given a warning.

 

If you are racing a car ahead or behind in close proximity (1-2 seconds), then you have to cede a place.

 

So in my opinion, the car that just made the pass should cede the place back if after making the pass, the car behind is within a second or two and you go off track.

[redreni]

The whole problem is that braking points, distance needed to the car behind etc is nowhere mentioned in the regs and the rules that are in place are not adhered to. Your opinion is valid but in the absence of any clear cut rules or their application, we are all debating against a wall.

 

No, I don't think we are; it's up to the stewards to judge this sort of thing. The question is if the position was gained as a result of going off the track, or if it had already been gained before that. I seem to recall there was a thread about an incident last year where RIC pulled a move at 130R (or, at least, in the approximate vicinity of it) and it looked amazing, but the stewards ruled he only got ahead at corner entry because he was carrying so much speed that he couldn't make the corner. He didn't make the corner within the white lines, he didn't give the place back, and he was penalised. Some people disagreed with the ruling on the basis that the move was done first and the failure to make the corner was a separate event.

 

The situation you're describing might be like that, or it might be as I originally interpreted it. I'd have to see it to form an opinion. As long as the principle is clear that the driver who goes off must not derive an advantage from going off, we can leave the stewards to judge individual cases. Some cases will be borderline. Others, like the Rosberg one, will be pretty clear-cut as far as whether the position has to be ceded. The position definitely doesn't have to be ceded in a case like this. The only quesion is whether Rosberg did enough to give back the laptime advantage he gained.

[redreni]

I believe that if a car goes off track on its own without being under pressure from one behind or without trying to overtake anyone should be given a warning.

 

If you are racing a car ahead or behind in close proximity (1-2 seconds), then you have to cede a place.

 

So in my opinion, the car that just made the pass should cede the place back if after making the pass, the car behind is within a second or two and you go off track.

 

I wouldn't object if that were the rule. But it isn't.

[RubalSher]

I wouldn't object if that were the rule. But it isn't.

 

Fair enough.

 

But what is the rule now with respect to the Rosberg / Ham incident and if you were a steward, what would have been your verdict?

[Gareth]

I actually think the current rules interpretation is mistaken, and drivers who cut a chicane should ALWAYS be penalised, preferably by designing the track to achieve it (hard to do safely) but otherwise by some other mechanism. HOWEVER this is not how the rules are interpreted at present and Sunday's ruling was consistent and fair.

Agree with this.

 

Well I don't recall an actual 'driver is being investigated' announcement for such a single chicane-cutting error ever being announced before, do you? And this in many dozens of identical incidents. I genuinely cannot recall even one. It was a very odd thing to do unless they have decided to change procedure from the past and we missed the memo.

I think it was an unusual example of a single chicane cutting error with no place gained.  I've not seen one before where the driver has set a fastest lap as a result of the cut and has broken the DRS.

 

I agree with the stewards decision (see above), but equally I understand why they investigated.  I think this was about as close as anyone has gotten to the line without actually going over it (when it comes to chicane cutting).  So I don't think it was an odd thing to investigate, even though it was the right thing (based on past precedent) to rule as they did.

[redreni]

Fair enough.

 

But what is the rule now with respect to the Rosberg / Ham incident and if you were a steward, what would have been your verdict?

 

One rule is that you mustn't intentionally leave the track without justifiable reason. Rosberg's in the clear on that since it was clearly an error. Nobody locks up that hard for that long on purpose.

 

Another rule is that if you leave the track, you must not gain a lasting advantage when you rejoin. If I was only thinking about Hamilton I would rule that there was no lasting advantage since Hamilton was faster and so his pace was limited by Rosberg, so that fact that Rosberg did one slightly faster lap then only gave back part of the time gained didn't give Rosberg any lasting advantage, since Hamilton was quickly back on his tail. It may have given him a bit of a breather, but I don't think that's a lasting advantage. If Charlie had told Rosberg to slow down by another couple of tenths to give back the full advantage, that would only have slowed Hamilton as well so it it would have made no odds.

 

However if I were the stewards I would not only judge Rosberg's time advantage relative to the car he was racing at the time, but relative to every other car in the race. Because if you think about it, by gaining half a second cutting the corner, he increased his gap to Massa, Perez, Ricciardo, Vettel etc by that amount. That's why the time has to be given back in full. I don't think it was so, if I were Charlie, I would have instructed Rosberg to throw in a couple more slow sectors (compared to his previous laps) and if he didn't, I'd have referred it to the stewards for a 5 second pitstop penalty.

 

In the end it doesn't matter since Mercedes gave Rosberg a 2 second pitstop penalty (accidentally, of course) which was enough to swap the positions anyway. So it's a bit of a moot point.

Edited by redreni, 09 June 2014 - 22:29.

[docronzo]

We shouldn't look for reasons why drivers haven't be penalized. Let the drivers take it out on the track. Race control should only intervene when drivers leave the track to overtake others illegally.

Overcontrolling the race will only multiply discussions after the race by a logarythmically scale. We really don't want that.

[docronzo]

I believe that if a car goes off track on its own without being under pressure from one behind or without trying to overtake anyone should be given a warning.

If you are racing a car ahead or behind in close proximity (1-2 seconds), then you have to cede a place.

So in my opinion, the car that just made the pass should cede the place back if after making the pass, the car behind is within a second or two and you go off track.

How would you apply that rule on a multi car incident at turn 1 after a race start where multiple cars leave the track and rejoin randomly? Could you really determine how many cars would be allowed to pass within the first couple of turns when there is so much action and position changes?
It's impossible to apply that rule without destroying original racing completely...

[Myrvold]

I believe that if a car goes off track on its own without being under pressure from one behind or without trying to overtake anyone should be given a warning.

 

If you are racing a car ahead or behind in close proximity (1-2 seconds), then you have to cede a place.

 

So in my opinion, the car that just made the pass should cede the place back if after making the pass, the car behind is within a second or two and you go off track.

The V8 Supercars rule: You go off the track, you 'have' to lose time, you made a mistake.
Though, I know about a way to fix it. It's called grass and sand/gravel.

 

 

How would you apply that rule on a multi car incident at turn 1 after a race start where multiple cars leave the track and rejoin randomly? Could you really determine how many cars would be allowed to pass within the first couple of turns when there is so much action and position changes?
It's impossible to apply that rule without destroying original racing completely...

The starts doesn't follow the same rules, yes they all follow the same rulebook, but things are more chaotic in the start.

[SHODAN]

So how do you consistently punish drivers for going off track while not having a gravel trap?  What about a penalty line.  If any of your tyres cross the penalty line, you get a 5 second penalty (plus you must give up any position if gained in the process of going off track)

 

 

You don't cover the whole area with the gravel trap

 

 

[Jovanotti]

But it cannot be a non-issue! It's exactly what this topic is about. And it's a best example of double standards in stewarding.

However we try to interpret it, the fact is that Kimi gained several places due to deliberately and unnecessarily leaving the limits of the track with all four wheels. Those two serious offences basically won him the race, it was not a small mistake but a calculated offence.

We won't find a consensus on this I believe. Was it a calculated offence? My view: La Source was calculated, but no offence as the stewards explicitly clarified it before the race. Les Combes was a (minor) offence, but not calculated - I don't think anyone would have wanted to go off there, there was no tarmac run-off and if it went wrong he would've lost several places.

It shows the crucial point in the discussion here though: in most of these situations, it is very hard to judge whether 1) an action was calculated and 2) how serious the offence was, i.e. how big the advantage was that the driver gained. The solution to both points is obvious: remove any incentive for calculated risks and make sure that also involuntary offences are punished by the nature of the track. Partial gravel traps as suggested by shodan are a great solution because in both cases the offence leads to a considerable loss of time without completely removing the safety bemefits of a tarmac run-off. Most importantly, it removes any need for (inconsistent) stewarding as the appropriate time penalty is handed out on the track itself.
The safety aspect is overrated anyway, drivers will adapt to the respective circumstances and calculate the viable risks differently. Take the Variante Ascari: how often do you see a lock-up there? Very rarely, because going off means a big time loss. Places as the final chicane in Canada just beg for risky late-braking maneuvers.

Edited by Jovanotti, 10 June 2014 - 06:30.

[redreni]

We won't find a consensus on this I believe. Was it a calculated offence? My view: La Source was calculated, but no offence as the stewards explicitly clarified it before the race. Les Combes was a (minor) offence, but not calculated - I don't think anyone would have wanted to go off there, there was no tarmac run-off and if it went wrong he would've lost several places.

It shows the crucial point in the discussion here though: in most of these situations, it is very hard to judge whether 1) an action was calculated and 2) how serious the offence was, i.e. how big the advantage was that the driver gained. The solution to both points is obvious: remove any incentive for calculated risks and make sure that also involuntary offences are punished by the nature of the track. Partial gravel traps as suggested by shodan are a great solution because in both cases the offence leads to a considerable loss of time without completely removing the safety bemefits of a tarmac run-off. Most importantly, it removes any need for (inconsistent) stewarding as the appropriate time penalty is handed out on the track itself.
The safety aspect is overrated anyway, drivers will adapt to the respective circumstances and calculate the viable risks differently. Take the Variante Ascari: how often do you see a lock-up there? Very rarely, because going off means a big time loss. Places as the final chicane in Canada just beg for risky late-braking maneuvers.

 

Check out footage of the 1999 Canadian GP, specifically Irvine's pass on Herbert about 10 laps from home, over the gravel trap at the last corner...

[SenorSjon]

The tarmac part was gravel in the past.

[Jovanotti]

It was grass. But yeah, if an advantage is gained, today's ruling should be still in place nevertheless, but it would be used way less frequently and thus accomplish its goal of reducing the risk of inconsistent stewarding.

Edited by Jovanotti, 10 June 2014 - 07:54.

[Oho]

Actually the FIA has allowed passing cars off track at starts at least as late as in 2011.

Edited by Oho, 10 June 2014 - 07:58.

[peroa]

The problem is with the chicane, add rumble strips or extend the yellow kerbing till the end so that no car can get on track with full speed.

That is the simplest solution.

[fenixracing]

Why are there no yellow bars like the run offs in Barcelona? Then he would be forced to back off and be punished for notkeeping his head cool.

Rosberg clearly gained a advantge their.

[Timorous]

Okay, but go back to the scenario where one driver unfairly forces another off the track and over the penalty line. The stewards investigate and give him a 5-second pitstop penalty. Meanwhile the driver who was forced off has to serve a laptime penalty within two laps. The two penalties are the same, and it may well be that by being able to delay taking the penalty, the driver with the pitstop penalty will be hurt less by his penalty than the driver who did nothing wrong other than prevent an accident.

 

There has to be an allowance for leaving the track for a justifiable reason e.g. in avoidance. What if there is an accident and there are crashed cars on the circuit? Are the drivers going to pick their way past the wreckage on the circuit, rather than use the runoff area, for fear of getting an automatic penalty?

 

Yes I agree that is unfair but imagine there was grass on that chicane and the same thing happened, it would result in a time loss for the driver going off track and a possible investigation into the driver who forced them off track. Making it so going across the penalty line results in the driver being forced to do a 5s slower lap is similar to a driver being forced onto grass and the driver who did the forcing should be given a drive through penalty. 

 

Since the FIA seem to love acronyms why not call it the Imaginary Wall Line (IWL) with the following rules.

 

1) When crossing an IWL

   a) Should the lap in which you crossed the IWL already be 5s off of the previous lap the time loss will be considered as served and no further slowing down is required. (in this case you have already suffered for your mistake, no need to suffer twice)

   b) Should you enter the pits on the lap you crossed the IWL you must do a 5s pit stop penalty instead of running a racing lap 5s off the pace. (It would be hard to tell if a lap was 5s off the pace with new tyres and their previous lap would already be slow due to coming into the pits)

   c) Should a safety car come out between crossing the IWL and you completing a 5s slower lap then the requirement to set a slow lap is voided. (safety cars close the pack up anyway so in this instance the driver would not have gained a lasting advantage anyway, might be unfair if the mistake would have lost them a position but losing 5s upon resumption of the race is equally unfair, can anyone come up with a solution to this conundrum? Perhaps swap position with the car behind while under the safety car if the car was within 3s of you when crossing the IWL?)

   d) Should the corner have an IWL on entry and on exit and you cross both of them only 1 penalty is applied. (again no need to suffer twice for the same mistake)

   e) Should going across the IWL be due to avoidance then as long as no time is gained in that sector no penalty will be applied. (that should cover avoiding a collision in a battle or due to other cars blocking the circuit.)

 

2) When forcing a competitor over an IWL

   a) The driver on the inside line is required to leave a cars width between themselves and the IWL. So as not to interfere with close battles then leeway shall be given along the following guidelines

      a.1) If the inside driver leaves a gap between 0% and 89.9% of a cars width a drive through penalty will be issued.

      a.2) If the inside driver leaves a gap between 90% and 94.9% of a cars width 1 warning will be issued prior to a drive through penalty.

      a.3) If the inside driver leaves a gap between 95% and 99.9% of a cars width 2 warnings will be issued prior to a drive through  penalty.

      a.4) If the stewards cannot unanimously decide what level the infraction is then it will be deemed to be the more lenient infraction.

      a.5) Any warnings accrued count against all infractions so a driver who received a warning for breaking a.3 will receive a drive through penalty if they break rule a.2 in the same race.

      a.6) Once a drive through penalty is issued the warnings reset, any further infractions will result in a penalty point being added to the licence in addition to the usual penalty.

 

All the numbers in the above are up for amendment to get the balance right so that making a mistake is not too costly and disruption to great on track battles is not too high.

 

As a lot of people felt that Hamilton stepped over the mark in Bahrain when pushing Rosberg out in T4 you could use an IWL along the exit of this corner to force fairer racing as well as using it in chicanes to stop corner cutting, or make corner cutting hurt like it should and so on.

[brr]

We shouldn't look for reasons why drivers haven't be penalized. Let the drivers take it out on the track. 

 

 

"Let the drivers take it out on the track", exactly. Not off the track.

[Buttoneer]

I believe that if a car goes off track on its own without being under pressure from one behind or without trying to overtake anyone should be given a warning.

 

If you are racing a car ahead or behind in close proximity (1-2 seconds), then you have to cede a place.

 

So in my opinion, the car that just made the pass should cede the place back if after making the pass, the car behind is within a second or two and you go off track.

If DRS is enabled wthin 1s, then why should we extend 'close proximity' to a figure twice that?

 

All very sensible of course, until the person who has to cede is someone you support, and then it's a terrible rule. It's also not what we have now.

[SenorSjon]

Actually the FIA has allowed passing cars off track at starts at least as late as in 2011.

 

Schumacher started it on the new Hockenheim I guess, where he passed someone (Fisichella?) due to the grip given by the tarmac runoffs there.

 

Watch any Rosberg start in Singapore and he makes a mess of the first corner. Always very wide and always gaining places by it.

[RubalSher]

If DRS is enabled wthin 1s, then why should we extend 'close proximity' to a figure twice that?

 

All very sensible of course, until the person who has to cede is someone you support, and then it's a terrible rule. It's also not what we have now.

 

1 or 2 seconds can be decided and I am ok with 1 second too.

 

It wont be a terrible rule. If the car behind is only 1 second and you go off track, there is no reason the leading driver should be allowed to hold position and this applies to all drivers.

[1Devil1]

Schumacher started it on the new Hockenheim I guess, where he passed someone (Fisichella?) due to the grip given by the tarmac runoffs there.

 

Watch any Rosberg start in Singapore and he makes a mess of the first corner. Always very wide and always gaining places by it.

 

There is and was a fine line, Schumacher was pushed by Trulli in 2003 to the outside while for example Button did not push Vettel in 2012

Edited by 1Devil1, 10 June 2014 - 11:53.

[Buttoneer]

1 or 2 seconds can be decided and I am ok with 1 second too.

 

It wont be a terrible rule. If the car behind is only 1 second and you go off track, there is no reason the leading driver should be allowed to hold position and this applies to all drivers.

 

"It was all over in one lap thanks to that stupid rule.  We used to have lap after lap of dicing and we were on the edge of our seats for ages." *

"We were robbed of a good fight."

"Hold on, he didn't have all four wheels off the circuit.  Isn't the kerb still the circuit?"

"It doesn't matter if it was the last corner, the first lap is different."

"I know he had to slow down, but he didn't intend for a second driver to get through as well"

etc etc.

 

Just saying.  As a rule applied consistently, I don't have an issue because everyone works under the same set, but don't think for a minute that it is a silver bullet to resolving all of the problems.

 

*Said by anyone who findly remembers San Marino 2005 or 2006.

[RubalSher]

"It was all over in one lap thanks to that stupid rule.  We used to have lap after lap of dicing and we were on the edge of our seats for ages." *

"We were robbed of a good fight."

"Hold on, he didn't have all four wheels off the circuit.  Isn't the kerb still the circuit?"

"It doesn't matter if it was the last corner, the first lap is different."

"I know he had to slow down, but he didn't intend for a second driver to get through as well"

etc etc.

 

Just saying.  As a rule applied consistently, I don't have an issue because everyone works under the same set, but don't think for a minute that it is a silver bullet to resolving all of the problems.

 

*Said by anyone who findly remembers San Marino 2005 or 2006.

 

Everything you quoted has an easy rebuttal but the point you are trying to make is that the moaning will never stop.

 

My idea aint to stop the moaning either but a sport that reward .001 seconds in qualy and fails to do so in a race is not consistent. Consistency has gone up over the years and what was acceptable yesterday may not hold good today. This will be a step in making races consistent and punishing mistakes as they ought to.

 

On the subject of San Marino 2005/06, I have no idea what you are talking about and would appreciate it if you could link a clip. Thanks.

[Buttoneer]

Now would be a good time to Google.

[ardbeg]

I watched the F3 race at Hungaroring. "Warning for exceeding the track limits". Then again. And again. In the end half the field had made a stop and go because they had been wide at one place or another.

Silly.

 

Stop and go and drive through is too much of a penalty and no penalty is all is too little. 5 seconds added to the time destroys the whole race flow since first over the line might not be the winner. At Hungaroring, I guess we would have needed to wait half an hour after first car passing the finish line until we got the official result. Not only that - the drivers would not really know if the car in front is actually behind.

Still, the problem needs to be solved and there must be enough to seriously discourage people from leaving the track.

There are some existing solutions, some in simulators, some in real life:

Simulators:
Going off track more than X times = DQ
Cutting: Various solutions here;
-slow down and make that sector very slow.
-Slow down to 50kmh/h
-X seconds with max XX% throttle
-more
 

Real life:
RallyCross:
A special "penalty box" where the drivers make their stop and go. This is basically their version of a normal stop and go, but it could be applied to F1 so that a stop & go would be less painful. It could also be just a drive through in the penalty box that would add 3-4 seconds to your lap time.
Kind of an extra "penalty chicane".
I think I like that idea since it would be easier to give out penalties that is not race destroying.

 

It would also be reasonably cheap and a bit fun to watch.

Edited by ardbeg, 10 June 2014 - 15:11.

[purplehaireddolphin]

To stop incidents like this, the FIA need to get rid of tarmac run off areas, they let the driver off to easily. I know gravel trap don't work cos of the danger of flipping the car, but in areas like the final chicane in Canada gravel probably would work, but maybe there needs to be some research into something better than just tarmac. 

I wonder if some kind of super sticky compound can be used, something that will act almost like treacle that will slow the cars down but also make it hard for them to get out of as well, but not impossible, so that if they enter that area itll cost them time.

[Frank Tuesday]

You don't cover the whole area with the gravel trap

 

 

 

Personally, I don't mind the gravel traps of old when drivers would get stuck and their race was over.  Whether we want them or not, gravel traps are not coming back for at least two reasons.  1) The teams, sponsors, FOM and FIA want as many cars finishing the race as possible.  2) The prevailing opinion of those in the sport is that tarmac runoff is safer than gravel.  #2 is the same reason why we won't see speed bumps in the runoff or a big curb to hop when re-entering the track.  I'm all for putting gravel there, and I'm fine with the idea that Rosberg and Kvyat may not have ever left the gravel trap except on foot.  But the return of gravel traps isn't going to happen anytime in the foreseeable future.   

[Dolph]

In both incident he who jumped over the chicane gain and advantage over his rival. In Hamilton vs Kimi incident, Hamilton gave back the time/distance/position that he got from jumping the chicane. What happened after that is another story. 
 

 

Really?

 

I see the difference and understand the effects.

 

 

Rosberg gave back his advantage in the 1st and 2nd corner of THE NEXT LAP. The British commentators were pretty clueless about that possibility.

 

Hamilton didn't give back the whole dvantage. Instead he gace back the position but the advantage he gained as that he was perfectly set up to pass Kimi in the next corner.

 

 

Hamilton's corner cutting resulted in him gaining an advantage to pass Kimi.

 

Rosbergs corner cutting resulted him in not gaining time or position.

[Atreiu]

I have finally found the answer, gaining an advantage is defined by upsetting the stewards badly enough, or not. It;s really that simple.

[fenixracing]

I still think should be done something about this. Making speedbumps would work imho, they work in Barcelona why would they not work there.

Or put some tyre wall there so when they go oftrack they have to drive a s curve to pass them, like Monza.

If there would be a graveltrap he would be forced to take the pitlane .So a drivetrue sound's harsh ,buth infact it would make sence.

[SenorSjon]

Really?

 

I see the difference and understand the effects.

 

 

Rosberg gave back his advantage in the 1st and 2nd corner of THE NEXT LAP. The British commentators were pretty clueless about that possibility.

 

Hamilton didn't give back the whole dvantage. Instead he gace back the position but the advantage he gained as that he was perfectly set up to pass Kimi in the next corner.

 

 

Hamilton's corner cutting resulted in him gaining an advantage to pass Kimi.

 

Rosbergs corner cutting resulted him in not gaining time or position.

 

Watch the sector times again then. He gained over half a second in S3 and was only 2 tenths slower than his previous lap in S1. He also got the benefit of having Hamilton out of his DRS for 2 laps.