19 replies to this topic

[Nustang70]

Has the FIA considered using a speed limiter that is activated by Race Control during accidents, either in place of or in conjunction with a safety car?  It seems to me that this would be eminently safer.

[DrivenF1]

Absolutely agree. If in areas of trouble, where a safety car isn't needed, a speed limit and overtaking suspension could be implemented that would be great.

[johnmhinds]

Sounds like a good way to cause more accidents if the car doesn't react how the driver is expecting it to.

[smitten]

Like a lot of ideas, I think the practice is harder than we think. Sudden loss of power in a corner could create a second accident, or if the guy in front has the power cut a fraction of a second before the guy behind.... As ever, not insurmountable but removing the requirement from the drivers to take responsibility for their own and other's safety is a double edged sword.

[Gyno]

The FIA should penalise the driver hard if he fails to slow down in a doubble yellow flag zone.

A 10 second Stop and go Penalty would be enough to make sure they go slow enough.

[Nustang70]

Sounds like a good way to cause more accidents if the car doesn't react how the driver is expecting it to.

 

 

Well, Race Control could announce that a speed limiter is going to be activated and instruct drivers to slow immediately to prepare for it.  

[redreni]

Absolutely agree. If in areas of trouble, where a safety car isn't needed, a speed limit and overtaking suspension could be implemented that would be great.

 

It's already used successfully in WEC and other categories. I'm sure F1 will adopt it in due course. F1 is just behind the curve, as usual. They've had it in VLN and at the N24 for a long time. F1 has been too busy introducing stupid gimmicks to keep up with the latest best practice for dealing with accidents and incidents on track safely without disrupting the race unduly. It's not like fans haven't been calling for it.

 

I don't think it's necessary or even safe to have Race Control cutting the power or imposing a rev limit in F1 because of closing speeds and other factors, but that doesn't mean there can't be a localised speed limit, similar to the one in the pit lane, at a particular point on the track where an incident is being dealt with. The practical difficulties have already been largely resolved in the categories where the slow zone system is used, so there's no real excuse for F1 not to bring it in. It would mean we could avoid the many dicey recoveries we've seen this season, including the one today that ended badly, without having to spend half the season running behind the SC.

[johnmhinds]

Well, Race Control could announce that a speed limiter is going to be activated and instruct drivers to slow immediately to prepare for it.  

 

And what would happen if one of the cars has radio issues and the driver doesn't get that message or the car doesn't keep to the speed limit due to a technical fault?

 

Sounds like a nice idea on paper but would be a disaster if any single thing went wrong with the system.

[sabjit]

Well, you could just have a button on the steering wheel which engages the yellow flag limiter (like the pitlane limiter but only faster). This must be on for the whole sector. Each sector is marked by a white line so drivers must make sure they activate the limiter before they enter the sector and disable it after they leave.

 

No different to the pitlane entrance and exit. Should theoretically mean SC's are unnecessary except for heavy rain.

[Nustang70]

It's already used successfully in WEC and other categories. I'm sure F1 will adopt it in due course. F1 is just behind the curve, as usual. They've had it in VLN and at the N24 for a long time. F1 has been too busy introducing stupid gimmicks to keep up with the latest best practice for dealing with accidents and incidents on track safely without disrupting the race unduly. It's not like fans haven't been calling for it.

 

I don't think it's necessary or even safe to have Race Control cutting the power or imposing a rev limit in F1 because of closing speeds and other factors, but that doesn't mean there can't be a localised speed limit, similar to the one in the pit lane, at a particular point on the track where an incident is being dealt with. The practical difficulties have already been largely resolved in the categories where the slow zone system is used, so there's no real excuse for F1 not to bring it in. It would mean we could avoid the many dicey recoveries we've seen this season, including the one today that ended badly, without having to spend half the season running behind the SC.

Okay, this sounds like a better course.

[bonjon1979a]

They drive to a delta now whenever the safety car comes out. Why not just give them all a delta and not bother with the safety car when the clearing of an accident only takes a lap or two, surely that's more preferable to full safety car. When it's time to race again, delta time disappears big green race light appears on the steering wheel. They'll continue with the same gaps etc they had beforehand so no one loses out.

Edited by bonjon1979a, 05 October 2014 - 19:09.

[redreni]

They drive to a delta now whenever the safety car comes out. Why not just give them all a delta and not bother with the safety car when the clearing of an accident only takes a lap or two, surely that's more preferable to full safety car. When it's time to race again, delta time disappears big green race light appears on the steering wheel. They'll continue with the same gaps etc they had beforehand so no one loses out.

 

That's fine for an incident like the Sutil one, where marshalls were working near the track but not on it. An incident like the Singapore one would still need a SC, though, because you have to bunch the field up to give the marshalls a decent, prolonged period where they can enter the track and clear the debris.

 

And if you're not having a SC and just going by the deltas, it's a small step from there to saying we'll just impose the deltas in the incident area rather than all around the track. That's basically what a slow zone is. Because with a recovery like the one today of Sutil's car, while there was (with hindsight) a clear need for additional measures to slow the cars in the incident area, no useful purpose would have been served by slowing everybody down anywhere other than in the immediate area of the incident. That would just lead to temperatures and pressures going down, brakes glazing and all the other bad consequences you can get with a SC period.

[PlatenGlass]

Sounds like a good way to cause more accidents if the car doesn't react how the driver is expecting it to.

The same applies for the pitlane speed limiter though.

[Kraken]

Absolutely agree. If in areas of trouble, where a safety car isn't needed, a speed limit and overtaking suspension could be implemented that would be great.

Which is exactly what is supposed to happen under yellow flags but under the control of the drivers. No technology is needed, all that is needed is enforcement of the rules. It's a problem through all levels of racing, people don't respect the flags.

 

Look at Le Mans this year where they implemented slow zones, drivers were barrelling in there and slamming the brakes on way past the marker boards.

 

Some of the club races I've been in they've been incredibly strict on yellows with people being thrown out of the whole race weekend for speeding under yellows and being banned from the next meeting for spinning under them.

 

They need to bring penalties like that in for safety infringements. There is never an excuse for not slowing down.

[SenorSjon]

It would be a lot better if we had the ancient SC rules back. They seemed to last a few laps with a quickly bunched up field. Now bunching up takes 2-3 laps, 3 laps behind SC for nothing, then 3 laps unlapping and letting them drive to delta to the back. It is horrendous.

[Kraken]

But the problem with the old SC rules was, yet again, the drivers couldn't be trusted to drive safely. They drove around flat out to make up as much time as possible after pitstops. There were several accidents which is why the rules were changed.

 

I do agree that letting the other cars unlap themselves is pointless and is unfair on the driver who is in front of them. Not only has he seen any gap he made up before the SC disappear the people behind him get a free pass on the backmarkers. Mind you when it wasn't like that people used to complain all the time that their favourite driver was being held up by backmarkers at the restart.

[DrivenF1]

Which is exactly what is supposed to happen under yellow flags but under the control of the drivers. No technology is needed, all that is needed is enforcement of the rules. It's a problem through all levels of racing, people don't respect the flags.

 

Look at Le Mans this year where they implemented slow zones, drivers were barrelling in there and slamming the brakes on way past the marker boards.

 

Some of the club races I've been in they've been incredibly strict on yellows with people being thrown out of the whole race weekend for speeding under yellows and being banned from the next meeting for spinning under them.

 

They need to bring penalties like that in for safety infringements. There is never an excuse for not slowing down.

 

The problem is that drivers need to show they have shown due concern (i.e. not go any faster in that sector/area than before).

 

I think the problem is that could be hitting a corner at 200kph instead of 220kph. Drivers want to minimise time loss but if they all had to do 100kph then there would be no discretion. I think in situations like this sectors or smaller areas of the track should be designated as speed limit zones. Drivers would then have the responsibility to not break the speed limit in those sectors.

 

Slight breaches of the rule could lead to 5 second stop and go, significant breaches lead to disqualification.

[bonjon1979a]

That's fine for an incident like the Sutil one, where marshalls were working near the track but not on it. An incident like the Singapore one would still need a SC, though, because you have to bunch the field up to give the marshalls a decent, prolonged period where they can enter the track and clear the debris.

And if you're not having a SC and just going by the deltas, it's a small step from there to saying we'll just impose the deltas in the incident area rather than all around the track. That's basically what a slow zone is. Because with a recovery like the one today of Sutil's car, while there was (with hindsight) a clear need for additional measures to slow the cars in the incident area, no useful purpose would have been served by slowing everybody down anywhere other than in the immediate area of the incident. That would just lead to temperatures and pressures going down, brakes glazing and all the other bad consequences you can get with a SC period.

Yep, all makes sense. Just whatever works. Surely it can't be too hard for them to work something out.

[redreni]

Which is exactly what is supposed to happen under yellow flags but under the control of the drivers. No technology is needed, all that is needed is enforcement of the rules. It's a problem through all levels of racing, people don't respect the flags.

 

Look at Le Mans this year where they implemented slow zones, drivers were barrelling in there and slamming the brakes on way past the marker boards.

 

Some of the club races I've been in they've been incredibly strict on yellows with people being thrown out of the whole race weekend for speeding under yellows and being banned from the next meeting for spinning under them.

 

They need to bring penalties like that in for safety infringements. There is never an excuse for not slowing down.

 

If the Le Mans drivers aren't getting it slowed down by the marker boards, that's equivalent to people not getting down to the pit lane speed limit by the control line. It can be solved easily enough, if the race officials are bothered. For many years in V8 Supercars, the only way they had of enforcing their pit lane speed limit was radar guns which required line of sight, so everyone knew that if you were running say two or three seconds behind somebody and then pitted on the same lap as him, you could go barrelling into pit lane and close right up to the car in front by speeding in pit lane, knowing that the guy with the speed gun couldn't see past the car ahead of you to clock you. It was a problem, but it didn't completely undermine the pit lane speed limit. They fixed it last year by putting a timing loop in.

 

The equivalent problem out on track at slow-zone approaches can also be solved by, for example, observers reporting cars that appear to still be braking when they pass the marker boards, and stewards using telemetry to determine that a car was speeding. I think the reason they don't bother at Le Mans is because they've got a GPS system to monitor how long it takes drivers to traverse the slow zones anyway, so if they do go in hot they're presumably having to compensate for that by allowing their speed to dip below the limit before they exit the slow zone, otherwise they would be penalised. If the system has a margin for error that allows minor transgressions to go unpunished, that's there for everybody to flirt with and it's the same risk for everyone so not a big problem. The point is that when they pass the incident, they're all going slowly, and they're all going equally slowly as well, which is the aim.

 

I do agree, though, that ultimately it's a question of the will of the officials. It's also true that, at the top level, there's more pressure on officials to get decisions right than there maybe is at a club race. At a club race, if the observer says you didn't respect the yellow flags, you didn't. In F1, there's data and telemetry and footage and everything gets analysed to death, so if you're going to give a penalty, you need to be able to show not only that the infringement occurred, but that you're being consistent in how you enforce it. Competitors are in a strong position to argue back. That's why the more technological, and perhaps more objective solutions appear more attractive for F1.

[PlatenGlass]

The problem is that drivers need to show they have shown due concern (i.e. not go any faster in that sector/area than before).
 
I think the problem is that could be hitting a corner at 200kph instead of 220kph. Drivers want to minimise time loss but if they all had to do 100kph then there would be no discretion. I think in situations like this sectors or smaller areas of the track should be designated as speed limit zones. Drivers would then have the responsibility to not break the speed limit in those sectors.
 
Slight breaches of the rule could lead to 5 second stop and go, significant breaches lead to disqualification.

Yes, a general "slow down" doesn't really work because some people might slow down more than others and people gain time by trying to slow down as little as possible without getting into trouble with the stewards. Where there are waved yellows, drivers shouldn't be racing, so need the incentive removed.