31 replies to this topic

[SophieB]

For those (including me) who were startled by the deployment of the black and white flag, and indeed couldn't remember the last time they saw it in F1...

 

FIA race director Michael Masi says the return of a black and white flag warning for unsportsmanlike driver conduct should be considered Formula 1's equivalent of football's yellow card

 

Prior to last weekend's Belgian Grand Prix the signal was last used in F1 at the 2010 Malaysian GP, when Lewis Hamilton was warned for weaving in front of Vitaly Petrov.

 

Subsequently it fell out of favour, and former race director Charlie Whiting generally preferred to use radio messages to teams to convey warnings that an offence had been spotted by race control.

But Masi sees the flag as a useful tool, and specifically as a transparent public warning that will be seen by all.

After some discussions with teams it was formally reintroduced at Spa.

 

 

[Claudius]

I think it's a good idea. Warnings should be transparent for all to see.

[MKSixer]

I think it's a good idea. Warnings should be transparent for all to see.

Agreed. 

 

Is this a good time to put up what the flags mean?  I know that track rats such as myself know but as we are always introducing new members to the sport and more are participating in the forums, it may be a good time!

[Atreiu]

I did not know they had this flag.

 

edit: they should probably carry two to each GP, one with Magnussen's number already etched into it.

Edited by Atreiu, 04 September 2019 - 16:01.

[Clatter]

All well and good, but will they have the balls to show the black flag for a second offence?

[7MGTEsup]

All well and good, but will they have the balls to show the black flag for a second offence?

 

That's racist..........

[MikeTekRacing]

Transparency is welcome, and this is what the flag is for.

In that article, there is something else, though, I don't like - the idea that wee should move towards giving warnings more often than penalties (Albon talks about the Vettel-Ham incident). I am not sure that's the way forward on a lot of things. Good overtaking is hard enough already, I wouldn't want to know drivers rely always on a 1 time yellow card get-out-jail defending move. 

[ExFlagMan]

Now all they need to do is find someone with balls to show it for a drivers first track limit transgression and then follow it up with the black if they repeat it.

Maybe there is an opportunity for Sky to add another column to the driver position table to show the no of B&W flags they have accrued.

[7MGTEsup]

Another flag I haven't seen in a while is the red and yellow "slippery surface" flag when someone pops an engine and dumps a load of oil and fluids on the track.

 

And tongue firmly in cheek I haven't seen the white flag displayed whenever a Williams takes to the track....

[ExFlagMan]

It still gets displayed, its just that it does not show up all that well with all the Pirelli signs.

 

In F1 they tend to rely more on the flashing red & yellow light panels.

[Fatgadget]

Now all they need to do is find someone with balls to show it for a drivers first track limit transgression and then follow it up with the black if they repeat it.

Maybe there is an opportunity for Sky to add another column to the driver position table to show the no of B&W flags they have accrued.

Ummm Schumacher the last driver to have been black flagged?

Edited by Fatgadget, 04 September 2019 - 18:45.

[TomNokoe]

Weaving?? He was breaking the tow

 

[ExFlagMan]

Even then they managed to cock it up as they let him get away with ignoring it.

 

Seem to recall that a one time if you did not obey the black flag within 3 laps they just stopped counting your laps.

[masa90]

That's racist..........

 

What do you mean? Black flag=dsq, black and white=warning.

 

I like the clear rules.

[ExFlagMan]

Unless they have changed the rules, the black flag does not actually mean disqualification - the driver must stop in the pits - what happens then is up to the officials.

[PayasYouRace]

Unless they have changed the rules, the black flag does not actually mean disqualification - the driver must stop in the pits - what happens then is up to the officials.

 

That is technically true but it's use in F1 has been only for disqualification for the past 20 years or so.

[ConsiderAndGo]

When was the last time we saw a black flag?! Massa in Canada... 2008? Went through a red light?

[Cavalier53]

In the 60's, Zandvoort race director Jaap Zwart just waved a rolled black (or finish?) flag as a threat. That worked extremely well, in the days that authority was respected.

As were track limits, being sand and grass....

[Claudius]

Agreed. 

 

Is this a good time to put up what the flags mean?  I know that track rats such as myself know but as we are always introducing new members to the sport and more are participating in the forums, it may be a good time!

 

I can't say that I know all the flags tbh. It is a good idea.

[SophieB]

When was the last time we saw a black flag?! Massa in Canada... 2008? Went through a red light?

We saw it earlier this season to bring the Haas cars back to the pits when their comms failed. Weird when they could have used the meatball flag but I guess it got their attention.

[Bleu]

Last drivers to be black flagged were Fisichella and Massa in Canada 2007. However I think both were radioed the info (Fisichella's radio was played in the feed, back then Ferrari had closed radio during the race) and therefore pitted before they could see the flag (which can happen only at the finish line).

 

Last time I remember seeing actual flag was Austria 2001 for Trulli.

[redreni]

The penalty for foul play in football is usually a free kick. The yellow card can be shown in addition to the free kick for more serious fouls. Or, yellow cards can be given separately (i.e. not in conjunction with a free kick or penalty kick) for off-the-ball incidents such as dissent or timewasting - basically any offence that is committed while the ball is dead.

 

If you wanted - for some reason - to apply that to motorsport, I suppose the equivalent of an off-the-ball incident would be pit lane altercations such as Matt Neal on Jason Plato, or Schumacher on Coulthard. Those incidents could maybe attract a yellow card.

 

Any poor driving standards on the track would be comparable to foul play which, in football, is penalised primarily by free kicks and only secondarily by yellow cards. In football, if a referee thinks a foul has been committed he will require the offending team to turn possession over to their opponents by awarding a free kick (unless the offending team doesn't have the ball in which case the game may continue). Applying that to F1, an unfair move on track might result in the offending driver being required to give up track position (equivalent to having to give up possession of the ball), and in particularly serious cases where the driver's behaviour was grossly unfair or dangerous, then this might be accompanied by a black and white flag to indicate that any repeat will see the driver black flagged and disqualified.

 

Or - and this is controversial - we could just accept that football and motor racing are nothing like each other? Just a thought...

[redreni]

That is technically true but it's use in F1 has been only for disqualification for the past 20 years or so.

 

F1 introduced stop-go penalties in the early 90s but the black flag isn't shown to the driver who is required to come in. As you say, in F1 it's only ever used for disqualifications. Most European racing seems to follow what F1 does, but in Aussie V8s, for instance, they will use the black flag to tell a driver to come in to serve a drive-through penalty.

 

Also from down under, here's a proper old-school example of black flaggery. Hopefully nobody's recommending this as any kind of a way to run a sport!!!

 

https://www.youtube....h?v=00bT-Nvn1xU

Edited by redreni, 05 September 2019 - 12:22.

[pdac]

The penalty for foul play in football is usually a free kick. The yellow card can be shown in addition to the free kick for more serious fouls. Or, yellow cards can be given separately (i.e. not in conjunction with a free kick or penalty kick) for off-the-ball incidents such as dissent or timewasting - basically any offence that is committed while the ball is dead.

 

If you wanted - for some reason - to apply that to motorsport, I suppose the equivalent of an off-the-ball incident would be pit lane altercations such as Matt Neal on Jason Plato, or Schumacher on Coulthard. Those incidents could maybe attract a yellow card.

 

Any poor driving standards on the track would be comparable to foul play which, in football, is penalised primarily by free kicks and only secondarily by yellow cards. In football, if a referee thinks a foul has been committed he will require the offending team to turn possession over to their opponents by awarding a free kick (unless the offending team doesn't have the ball in which case the game may continue). Applying that to F1, an unfair move on track might result in the offending driver being required to give up track position (equivalent to having to give up possession of the ball), and in particularly serious cases where the driver's behaviour was grossly unfair or dangerous, then this might be accompanied by a black and white flag to indicate that any repeat will see the driver black flagged and disqualified.

 

Or - and this is controversial - we could just accept that football and motor racing are nothing like each other? Just a thought...

 

I'd much prefer some of the time penalties being awarded currently being replaced with penalties that involved giving up track position to one or more cars.

[redreni]

I'd much prefer some of the time penalties being awarded currently being replaced with penalties that involved giving up track position to one or more cars.

 

Absolutely. If you're a second a lap quicker than the car in front and there are 10 laps left, but you can't get past, at the moment there's nothing to deter you from abusing track limits to make the pass.

 

Once you're ahead, however illegitimately, you just pull out a gap of at least 5s. The penalty should, at the very least, put you back behind the car that you passed illegitimately. Ideally it should do more than that.

 

I suppose the reason for the reluctance to use track position penalties is the difficulty of being consistent, and how to react to unexpected scenarios. What happens, for instance, if you're told to fall behind car x but, before you can comply, car x stops, or runs off the track and loses a dozen positions, or makes a pit stop?

 

There could also be scenarios where a track position penalty is meaningless. If a midfield runner, for instance, opts for a quirky strategy with a very long final stint, he may be running ahead of some of the front-runners knowing full well that they're going to pass him easily before the end of the race, but he's not really interested in them. What he's hoping to do, on worn tyres, is fend off other midfield runners until the end. In that case, a track position penalty could be served by "letting through" a car that was inevitably going to come through in any case.

[absinthedude]

I have no problem with this. Hopefully the black/white flag will be spotted by the TV cameras and we all have transparency regarding which drivers have been warned. Maybe this could be backed up by a radio message "Hey Driver X, your warning is for weaving" etc. 

[CSF]

Ummm Schumacher the last driver to have been black flagged?

 

Haas in one of the practice sessions this year? 

[Spillage]

Fair enough, I suppose. Adds a sense of formality to accompany the radio messages that presumably will continue to be shared with the teams.

[SophieB]

Agreed. 

 

Is this a good time to put up what the flags mean?  I know that track rats such as myself know but as we are always introducing new members to the sport and more are participating in the forums, it may be a good time!

 

This webpage is from 2003 but covers it:

 

http://news.bbc.co.u.../html/flags.stm

[Beri]

This webpage is from 2003 but covers it:

http://news.bbc.co.u.../html/flags.stm

Can't remember any flags been introduced since then. So this information should cover it.

[redreni]

Can't remember any flags been introduced since then. So this information should cover it.

 

I don't think any new flags have been adopted as standard under the ISC.

 

I have seen purple flags, sometimes with white discs and speed limits on them, used to denote slow zones or full-course cautions, but I think those are series-specific, with their meanings defined in supplementary regulations. The 24 hour series has them, for instance. Plus there are the white boards denoting SC/VSC/FCY etc. I've never been entirely sure what the practical difference is between yellow flag+VSC board, yellow flag+FCY board or purple flags. They all appear to mean broadly the same thing.

[Eff1]

Ah the black and white flag - last time I saw it was F1 97 on the PlayStation...