56 replies to this topic

[Jejking]

I would like to take a moment to get a thread going about the regulations: a re-writing of the rules.

 

Originally it was this, right?

Article 20.3 reads: "More than one change of direction to defend a position is not permitted. Any driver moving back towards the racing line, having earlier defended his position off‐line, should leave at least one car width between his own car and the edge of the track on the approach to the corner."

 

 

Source: https://www.formula1..._penalties.html

 

 

What the sporting regulations say:

• There are strict rules governing on-track behaviour and stewards have the power to impose various penalties on a driver committing an offence during a race or practice session.

<...>

 

More than one change of direction to defend a position is not permitted. If a driver has moved off the racing line while defending their position, they may move back but must ensure there is at least one car’s width between their own car and the edge of the track.

 

A conceptual draft should be a summary of these following elements. Is this everything? What did I miss?

 

- leaving a gap.

- who goes first.

- what happens when are you alongside a competitor.

 

So after a bit of thinking these elements would trickle down to:

- If you are on the defense and you move first, you have to leave one cars width of space but you can dictate the line into the corner, as long as your competitor is not alongside with a significant part of his car (should be closed down further, no grey areas).

- If you are on the defense and you move second, after the attacker did, you're too late and you can not occupy the space (line) of where the attacker will be after he has started his attack. You are obliged to give him at least one cars width directly alongside the original position of your car to ensure a safe arrival of both cars into the corner.

- If you are on the offense and you move first, you have the right to at least one cars width directly alongside the line the driver was originally heading to.

- If you are on the offense and you move second, you will drive into a decreasing gap which is going to disappear and you should expect to be squeezed out. This is to inspire controlled commitment and avoid half-hearted moves and divebombs.

 

Synopsis:

- The driver who instigates a move first to attack or defend and pushes through, deserves the corner.

 

This is a draft, I'm tired and probably I overlooked some things and my translation is miles off the mark. If you have feedback, post it in a constructive manner please, thanks. I want to discuss what it would take to make the rulebook loud and clear about defensive driving, without opening loopholes to get around them. Defending should be allowed up until a certain point of no return.

 

Edit: finally, this is NOT a topic to discuss certain on-track events, that is NOT allowed, take that elsewhere. It's purely a topic about getting the theory to paper.

Edited by Jejking, 10 October 2016 - 06:17.

[Raikkinen]

Easy:

 

FIA Formula 1 regulations 2017-:

 

 

Take a box of 4000mm. x 2000mm. x 1200mm.

 

Whoever makes an open-wheeled, open-cockpit car that fits in this box and makes it come first over the finishline after a 300km. race is the winner.

Whoever has the most points after all races in one season have finished, is champion.

 

End of regulations 

 

 

 

Oops... just see 'defending' rules. 

Edited by Raikkinen, 10 October 2016 - 06:28.

[Jejking]

Easy:

 

FIA Formula 1 regulations 2017-:

 

 

Take a box of 4000mm. x 2000mm. x 1200mm.

 

Whoever makes an open-wheeled, open-cockpit car that fits in this box and makes it come first over the finishline after a 300km. race is the winner.

Whoever has the most points after all races in one season have finished, is champion.

 

End of regulations 

 

 

 

Oops... just see 'defending' rules. 

Here, have some coffee

 

Edited by Jejking, 10 October 2016 - 06:31.

[Muppetmad]

Copy the IndyCar rules on defending and change the spelling from American English to British English. Job done.

[Marklar]

Copy the IndyCar rules on defending and change the spelling from American English to British English. Job done.

Nah, that's too difficult 

[Kev00]

It's difficult to define. If you show your nose from 100m behind then you can't expect to have the inside line just because you moved first. But some defensive moves are so late that I consider it blocking, and the guy behind has to take evasive action. It's a difficult rule to define. I just wish they wouldn't do it.

Edit: but in the braking zone, choose your line and stick to it. Otherwise you are most likely relying on the guy behind to avoid an accident.

Edited by Kev00, 10 October 2016 - 07:42.

[muramasa]

　

that chocolate looks yummy

[FullOppositeLock]

"Thou shalt not overtake unless using DRS on assigned DRS zone straights"

 

Let's be done with this 'racing' nonsense altogether.

Edited by FullOppositeLock, 10 October 2016 - 07:56.

[Xentas]

Only allowed one direction of defense in overtaking and it must be made clear, within the corners as well. But never to react to another driver overtaking, a driver must act first or don't act at all in defense. If a driver fails to follow these simple rules they will automatically be reported to the stewards regardless if a protest is lodged. If it is deemed a driver failed to follow the regulation dependent on how severe the incident was, a simple fine all the way up to a potential race ban for dangerous defensive driving could be the punishment.

 

there, cleared up.

[FPV GTHO]

Copy the IndyCar rules on defending and change the spelling from American English to British English. Job done.

Don't they use some rubbish about lanes and not being able to block yhr inside?

[Muppetmad]

Don't they use some rubbish about lanes and not being able to block yhr inside?

No. That was the case quite a few years ago when there were only a handful of road/street courses on the calendar, but that's no longer the case. The rules they have now - and have had for a fair few years - are excellent and allow inside defending.

Edited by Muppetmad, 10 October 2016 - 08:25.

[Xentas]

No. That was the case quite a few years ago when there were only a handful of road/street courses on the calendar, but that's no longer the case. The rules they have now - and have had for a fair few years - are excellent and allow inside defending.

 

A driver can still be punished for blocking though. it depends what fair racing is on the track in Indycar.

[Jvr]

No. That was the case quite a few years ago when there were only a handful of road/street courses on the calendar, but that's no longer the case. The rules they have now - and have had for a fair few years - are excellent and allow inside defending.

Do you happen to have a link for that Indy regulation? Would love to take a look later today.

[Lights]

F1 Metrics - The rules of racing

[Kev00]

F1 Metrics - The rules of racing

This actually covers everything you need. Charlie Whiting should use this this from now on.

[Xentas]

This actually covers everything you need. Charlie Whiting should use this this from now on.

 

Perhaps, however this was published in 2014 and rule 1 would need to be amended since for safety reasons pushing a car off the track thats besides you and on to the grass would be a bad thing.

[HoldenRT]

US based blocking rules work well there, especially considering the ovals and general safety.  Even despite those rules, there are sometimes some huge crashes and serious injuries.

 

F1 is a different thing though, and I've always liked that F1 rules are a bit looser and have more grey area.  It allows more room for each driver to impart their will on the outcome of the race by how much they risk and how much they are willing to fight.  In the pre DRS days it might have been a bit much but since DRS, it's good that the driver in front also has some tools at his disposal to fight back.

 

The blocking rules in F1 are fine as they are, with one extra clause maybe to be added..

 

Use common sense.

 

Lawyers or engineers shouldn't be determining what fair racing is.  Have experienced racers or people who have seen the track record of F1's racing incidents over the last 10+ years works better, assuming try to maintain a consistency.

 

I thought Nico and Lewis' battles have been borderline for the last season or two, Nico was borderline in Hockenheim and that Max was over the line in Spa.

 

The rule as it's written is basically saying "don't weave all over the place and give the driver behind nowhere to go".. and to not drive erratically.  Don't drive to cause collisions by using contact as a way of preserving your track position.  But it's ok to anticipate a move and to take that space that the driver behind wants, as long as it's early enough.  As long as it's a consistant steady movement and not erratic and unpredictable.  But it's not okay to Maldonado someone off the edge of the corner by faking to give them space and them barging them out of the way.

 

To drive aggressive in attack or defence at high requires a high level of precision and that's what I like about watching F1 battles.  High risk, high reward but they get it right most of the time.  Every now and then there will be grey area ones where it's hard to pinpoint blame ie "racing incidents".. and Max is pushing those limits and seeking to build an intimidation factor so that anyone behind him knows it will be twice as hard to overtake him, as with someone else.  Which will probably pay off in the next few years.  Obviously the other drivers don't like it.  If it's over the line (like in Spa) there should be a penalty.  If it's like it was yesterday, there is nothing to talk about.

 

TLDR version.. nothing is wrong, nothing needs fixing, just apply common sense.

[Prost1997T]

Isn't the driver steward for that given race the person who interprets the rules?

[Slowersofterdumber]

No need to rewrite anything. Just need to bother enforcing the rules we already have.

[Muppetmad]

Do you happen to have a link for that Indy regulation? Would love to take a look later today.

http://www.indycar.c.../Chp9-Penalties

 

The most relevant regulation is amusingly brief:

 

9.3.2. Blocking - A Driver must not alter his/her racing line to pursuing Drivers.

 

Essentially, it captures the need to not defend reactively. If the driver behind you makes a move, you keep your line. That's the basis of good racing. You can say it's still vague, woolly etc. and I'd somewhat agree (my original post on this was tongue in cheek. For one thing, there is no American English in this regulation that needs translating  ), but in IndyCar everyone knows where they stand. If you included this with the current F1 regulations on defensive driving and enforced them, I think defensive driving standards would be excellent.

[Xentas]

No need to rewrite anything. Just need to bother enforcing the rules we already have.

 

The driver steward there has to collect all information, opinions and facts about an incident including from drivers, telemetry and other sources when needed about an incident, the steward himself can not force a penalty without an agreement from all the other stewards and approval from the party protesting.

 

they got to get the rules right and punish the rule breakers.

Edited by Xentas, 10 October 2016 - 11:28.

[jonpollak]

Needs a diagram.
Jp

[Dr. Austin]

A driver can still be punished for blocking though. it depends what fair racing is on the track in Indycar.

 

We have a fair chief steward in Al Unser jr.  He had an entire career of being absolutely correct on the race track (as did his father and Uncle Bobby), so Al can look at any situation and instantly know who to penalize and who not to, and which situations to stay out of.

 

Formula One just needs one fair guy to preside over all the driving standards stuff, and nothing else. I am sure in all of Europe you can find at least one fair person, right?

[Dr. Austin]

Needs a diagram.
Jp

 

With lines, graphs, protractors, magic parrots and black swans,

[lustigson]

 

9.3.2. Blocking - A Driver must not alter his/her racing line to pursuing Drivers.

 

This.

 

Times 1,000.

[Prost1997T]

 

http://www.indycar.c.../Chp9-Penalties

 

The most relevant regulation is amusingly brief:

 

 

It's also worth noting that enforcement works differently, ranging from a warning to giving up a position to a drive-through penalty. The latter tends to be reserved for clear-cut dangerous cases (Will Power at Pocono 2014 for example). Graham Rahal (Detroit 2015) was told to give up position for driving all the way across the track to a wall, with the opposing driver immediately behind him.

 

The rules are fairly similar in the ladder series as well. What I appreciate about that is penalties are often given in-race and act as a good deterrent. If necessary, heavier penalties follow (points deductions or suspensions).

 

 http://usf2000.com/d...88.pdf?sfvrsn=0 - you won't see a race report like that in a typical ADAC F4 event, it's pretty much a free-for-all instead.

[Ivanhoe]

When is the trailing car considered to be a "pursuing" driver under Indy regs? Or is that just the first car behind you no matter how far he is behind you?

[Prost1997T]

When is the trailing car considered to be a "pursuing" driver under Indy regs? Or is that just the first car behind you no matter how far he is behind you?

 

It's the dictionary definition, ie someone that is following to attempt an overtake.

[Ruusperi]

"Thou shalt not overtake unless using DRS on assigned DRS zone straights"

 

Let's be done with this 'racing' nonsense altogether.

Drivers already prefer to wait till the DRS zone. That's why I deeply hate DRS for it taking away all the excitement. Luckily, not everyone has always the patience for making their move in the DRS zone.

 

Obviously it should be clear to the drivers that dive bombs and changing the line while doing 300kph are just as idiotic than driving recklessly in normal road cars. That goes without saying.

But restricting on-track battles with a plethora of rules makes thr racing artificial (due to the DRS preference) and ends up more fights being decided by the stewards. Yes, collisions happen sometimes when drivers defend or attack, but they are part of the game (so called racing incidents) and should remain so.

[RECKLESS]

The sport being so safe leads to lack of respect. That's the root of the problem.

[redreni]

I know we want consistency, but it's also the FIA's job to ensure a reasonable level of safety.

 

The debate about moving under braking is happening because people think it's dangerous. You can argue about how dangerous it has to get before you should penalise it and specific incidents are always debatable, but dangerousness is the issue as far as I can tell. Well, Article 27.5 already bans driving in a manner which could be deemed potentially dangerous to other drivers or any other person.

 

Therefore the controversial defensive moves are, to the extent to which they're dangerous, already banned and I don't see why it's necessary to change the rules. Maybe change the Race Director so that the incidents will be looked at by the stewards rather than dealt with by way of "now look here old boy"-type conversations.

 

And maybe try to give the stewards a bit of informal guidance about the sort of thing they should be looking out for. But for goodness sake don't start making more rules about the number of different changes of direction and significant portions of car or anything else of that nature. The whole point of driver stewards is they're supposed to be able to tell when a blocking move is fair and when it's unfair or dangerous. If it's dangerous they should use the existing Article 27.5 and issue a penalty.

[Xentas]

We have a fair chief steward in Al Unser jr.  He had an entire career of being absolutely correct on the race track (as did his father and Uncle Bobby), so Al can look at any situation and instantly know who to penalize and who not to, and which situations to stay out of.

 

Formula One just needs one fair guy to preside over all the driving standards stuff, and nothing else. I am sure in all of Europe you can find at least one fair person, right?

 

Al has been right on a lot of the incidents and i think his immense experience counts a lot for that. But it's not just europe, there are drivera all over the world who raced in Formula one that can be considered and not all of them will see the incident in the same way. it would be nice having a permanent driver steward who knows how it all goes.

[johnmhinds]

 

http://www.indycar.c.../Chp9-Penalties

 

The most relevant regulation is amusingly brief:

 

9.3.2. Blocking - A Driver must not alter his/her racing line to pursuing Drivers.

 

Essentially, it captures the need to not defend reactively. If the driver behind you makes a move, you keep your line. That's the basis of good racing. You can say it's still vague, woolly etc. and I'd somewhat agree (my original post on this was tongue in cheek. For one thing, there is no American English in this regulation that needs translating  ), but in IndyCar everyone knows where they stand. If you included this with the current F1 regulations on defensive driving and enforced them, I think defensive driving standards would be excellent.

 

 

How would a steward be able to confirm that a driver saw what was going on behind him and moved across the track in reaction to it?

 

Couldn't the lead driver just say he was going to move over to take that defensive line anyway and just happened to do it after the car behind started moving?

 

And it sounds like you'd open yourself to the possibility of someone pulling out to pass half way down a straight and the driver ahead wouldn't be able to make any kind of defensive move into the corner.

[Xentas]

How would a steward be able to confirm that a driver saw what was going on behind him and moved across the track in reaction to it?

 

Couldn't the lead driver just say he was going to move over to take that defensive line anyway and just happened to do it after the car behind started moving?

 

And it sounds like you'd open yourself to the possibility of someone pulling out to pass half way down a straight and the driver ahead wouldn't be able to make any kind of defensive move into the corner.

 

A driver can make a defensive move, but only once and they must not get in the way if the driver going around the outside or the inside is going to overtake, if the driver reacts to that, it is blocking and can be reported. however if the driver attempting to overtake realizes he isn't in the right position or it is too risky, then it is simply racing.

 

i mean a driver in indycar can't intentionally react to another driver to prevent them from having a chance to overtake just for the hell of it, that would be blocking and can be reported. you either defend cleanly or you don't.

[johnmhinds]

Like I said though, how would you ever know for certain that the lead driver was moving in reaction to what was going on behind him.

 

The car behind could be in his blind spot while he is making his one defensive move, they can barely see out of the cars these days with all the head restraints.

 

Is it always going to be considered blocking just because the lead driver turned his steering wheel second?

Edited by johnmhinds, 10 October 2016 - 18:18.

[Xentas]

Like I said though, how would you ever know for certain that the lead driver was moving in reaction to what was going on behind him.

 

The car behind could be in his blind spot while he is making his one defensive move, they can barely see out of the cars these days with all the head restraints.

 

Is it always going to be considered blocking just because the lead driver turned his steering wheel second?

 

Tv replays, telemetry and other things, race control will have all that information if they should need to request it.

[Prost1997T]

 

Is it always going to be considered blocking just because the lead driver turned his steering wheel second?

 

No, because blocking penalties aren't handed out for every defending move. A fixed panel of stewards makes the decision.

Detroit I: 1x (yield position)

Detroit II: 1x (yield position)
Road America: 2x (yield position)
Watkins Glen: 2x (yield position)

 

That's it for the entire 16-race 2016 season. I didn't investigate context because quite frankly I don't have the time. I'm sure you could check out the box scores and go through the Youtube videos of the races if you're so inclined.

 

Edit: actually, St Pete was for contact, scratch that one.

Edited by Prost1997T, 10 October 2016 - 18:38.

[johnmhinds]

Tv replays, telemetry and other things, race control will have all that information if they should need to request it.

 

Sure, but I'm asking how you use any of that information to differentiate between a blind defensive move and a blocking reactionary move if they look the same and have the same affect?

 

What are the "tells" for reactionary moves that you're going to write into this regulation?

[Xentas]

Sure, but I'm asking how you use any of that information to differentiate between a blind defensive move and a blocking reactionary move if they look the same and have the same affect?

 

What are the "tells" for reactionary moves that you're going to write into this regulation?

 

that would be up to the drivers steward, but with all that information you can piece together the events and know that if it was just a simple twitch then it can be overlooked if it was a one off, race control would likely be asking the driver during the race for their side of the story and adding that and coming up with something that fits within the regulations or it can be dismissed as an innocent mistake. Race control has all it's fingers in every pie on the table, they need to so they can run the whole show.

 

the tells are that a simple twitch would not set off any red flags that would call for such a case if that was all it was, but drivers on track need to trust each other otherwise it could cause all sorts of crashes.

Edited by Xentas, 10 October 2016 - 18:36.

[johnmhinds]

If you leave it up to the stewards like that then we would be in exactly the same situation that we're in now.

 

The stewards have so much discretion with every rule that penalties start to look random to the viewing public.

 

If you can't adequately describe what a reactionary move is and how it is different to a blind move then any new regulation is going to be next to useless to the stewards because all the driver will have to say in a stewards meeting is "I didn't see him gov".

Edited by johnmhinds, 10 October 2016 - 18:50.

[Xentas]

If you leave it up to the stewards like that then we would be in exactly the same situation that we're in now.

 

The stewards have so much discretion with every rule that penalties start to look random to the viewing public.

 

If you can't adequately describe what a reactionary move is and how it is different to a blind move then any new regulation is going to be next to useless to the stewards because all the driver will have to say in a stewards meeting is "I didn't see him gov".

 

That is where Dr. Austin's point comes into it, assigning one very experienced driver for the steward role permanently could solve the problem, he would know exactly what is going on and how to solve it fairly. However, the ultimate point is that the stewards are the ones who decides these actions, if the FIA chose a permanent driver steward who can play hard and be fair as well, we could have as you want a more fair decision making effort.

[Sash1]

Don't knock the other, yourself or both of you off while overtaking or defending. - end of rule

Keep it simple and exciting.

[redreni]

The other option would be to ban mirrors, of course. That would prevent reactive blocking. It would also restore to F1 one of the true tests of a driver's claim to greatness; the ability to lose less time than your rivals when passing backmarkers...

[pdac]

Once the FIA manages to write any rule well, I'll have a think about this one.

[Dr. Austin]

The sport being so safe leads to lack of respect. That's the root of the problem.

 

Let's take the fuel cells out of the cars, remove barriers and put the trees back where they were in 1966. All of this chopping, blocking and swerving stuff would disappear overnight.

[ANF]

And so would the drivers.

[HeadFirst]

And so would the drivers.

 

And sadly, some of the best of them.

[asdf24]

Like I said though, how would you ever know for certain that the lead driver was moving in reaction to what was going on behind him.

 

The car behind could be in his blind spot while he is making his one defensive move, they can barely see out of the cars these days with all the head restraints.

 

 

Are there really blond spots in a F1 car? the only thing that is in the way are the rear wing end plates and the engine cover.

[asdf24]

Are there really blond spots in a F1 car? the only thing that is in the way are the rear wing end plates and the engine cover.

Upon further analysis, I found the blind spot scenario to be a non issue.

If the leading driver suddenly can't see the trailing driver in his mirror, it means that the trailing driver had already made the move to move along side.

[Myrvold]

Where did the issue with "what if a driver doesn't see him".

IndyCar rules state that cannot alter it to pursuing drivers. If you haven't seen it, are still alter it, after the attacker have made his/her move, and thus violates the rule.
Clear Cut.