184 replies to this topic

[smr]

After the tragic loss of Anthoine Hubert last weekend, predictably the FIA are now looking at the safety of the asphalt run off area at the Raidillon.

 

Surely it should not take the death of a man to be the catalyst for looking at such areas of race tracks and begs the question, why asphalt run off areas at all?

 

I haven't seen one comment from an F1 fan raving about asphalt run off areas, on the contrary, I've only ever seen negative comments regarding them.

 

There are two factors here; safety, and whether a driver should be allowed to go off track and return having completely messed up his corner entry. These guys are paid circa £20m - £30m per year. Surely we want to see them driving on the limit, at the edge of adhesion with the risk that one mistake will put them into the gravel, not allow them to bounce into barriers and for the car to roll along asphalt into the path of other cars.

 

So why aren't they looking at all asphalt run off areas at every track in the world to make sure that they can be changed for safety and also better racing?

[ExFlagMan]

Maybe this might give you a clue as to why tarmac is preferable to. gravel

[absinthedude]

Truth be told, there's no perfect solution to run off and barriers.

 

But in some circumstances, gravel traps cause cars to somersault. Grass/crops when wet can make it impossible to slow down.  Catch fencing can get snagged in a driver's helmet.

 

What tarmac does, provided the car is right way up and has four wheels, is give space for considerable retardation of speed before a car hits a barrier. The driver can brake and slow down on the tarmac, and there's no real risk of the car digging in and somersaulting. But it's not perfect, it does provide a "hard landing area" if the car is already in the air and it leads to drivers not being penalised if they have a small "off".

[Imperial]

I haven't seen one comment from an F1 fan raving about asphalt run off areas, on the contrary, I've only ever seen negative comments regarding them.

Just because you haven't read such comments doesn't mean they don"t exist.

Also, F1 is just one series that races at Spa (or indeed many circuits). Does an F1 viewers voice on this count more than any other category?

[smr]

Just because you haven't read such comments doesn't mean they don"t exist.

Also, F1 is just one series that races at Spa (or indeed many circuits). Does an F1 viewers voice on this count more than any other category?

 

Of course you are right, it applies to every series of motorsport. I just follow F1 so I was talking about what I have read. 

 

But the owners are saying that they will definitely use gravel traps instead and we have seen a lot of bad crashes at Raidillon over the years. I think out of every part of every F1 track in the world Raidillon was / is the most precarious and they should have changed it to gravel traps before now.

Edited by smr, 04 September 2019 - 14:41.

[Risil]

After the tragic loss of Anthoine Hubert last weekend, predictably the FIA are now looking at the safety of the asphalt run off area at the Raidillon.

Are they?

I've read that the Spa circuit is looking to replace it to conform with bike safety regulations. But nothing about the FIA's view.

[Ross Stonefeld]

Maybe this might give you a clue as to why tarmac is preferable to. gravel

 

I'm not really seeing why gravel made that car vault the barrier? 

 

There is a concern with cars getting air when they hit gravel, but properly designed gravel traps could mitigate that. 

[ExFlagMan]

It vaulted the barrier as a result of hitting the edge of the gravel trap while going sideways, causing it to barrel roll - saloon cars tend to go a long way once they start rolling.

[917k]

Tarmac should allow a car to brake - or scrub off speed - far more effectively than gravel or grass.

Edited by 917k, 04 September 2019 - 14:54.

[redreni]

It's an uncomfortable fact to admit, but the Eau Rouge / Radillon section of Spa-Francorchamps is legendary because it is difficult, fast, blind and dangerous. If it was unchallenging and slow and safe, drivers and fans wouldn't love it so. Nobody loved the 1994 layout.

 

The difficult problem, then, is to understand the relationship between the challenge presented by a corner and the danger posed to the drivers and others. The level of risk faced by the drivers needs to be acceptable. Any steps that can be taken to make them safer without ruining the track should be taken (e.g. there has been discussion on another thread about various ways of making secondary impacts less likely).

 

The replacement of the gravel and grass in that section with tarmac did make the corner less challenging. I went to the track for the Spa 24 hours a few years ago and was struck by how easy it seemed to be for cars to cut the last apex.

 

I have no doubt, though, that the asphalt makes big contribution to safety.overall. Yes, the fact that drivers know they can use the asphalt run-off can put cars that come to rest in the run-off area at risk of being hit. By the same token, though, crashed cars can come to rest on the circuit, in which case the ability of following cars to avoid them by driving onto the asphalt run-off areas reduces significantly the chances of a secondary collision. By far the most significant factor, though, and the one that convinces me that asphalt is safer, if the number of incidents where the cars lose control, then regain control and continue without hitting the barrier. In many cases, these non-incidents go almost unnoticed, even though if the gravel traps were still there, the car would have been sent barrel-rolling into the fence.  Stopping cars from crashing in the first place is a pretty good way of preventing secondary impacts.

 

Ultimately it's a very fast corner and, last weekend, a very unfortunate sequence of events unfolded. You could hold another 100 Formula 2 races on that circuit, without modifying the cars or the circuit in any way, and you wouldn't see a similarly unlucky scenario happening again.

[maximilian]

Tarmac run-offs have been one of the primary reasons certain forms of racing have become unbearably boring, without consequences for mistakes made, and there doesn't seem to be any significant solid evidence that it really makes racing any safer - in fact, it creates the problems associated with the Hubert crash.

 

My understanding was that it was primarily aimed at improving safety for motorcycle racing, and I can see where sliding on tarmac would be much better than on gravel for an unprotected bike rider, but not really sure it was worth all that trouble, and basically almost ruining auto racing in the process.

[BuddyHolly]

Sadly nothing it 100% safe and freak accidents will happen with all surfaces but in general I much prefer gravel to tarmac.

[Tsarwash]

Tarmac should allow a car to brake - or scrub off speed - far more effectively than gravel or grass.

It depends on the situation.

[uzsjgb]

Gravel does not work for single seaters at high speeds. In the best case cars just skate over the gravel, in the worst case they dig in and start flipping. A rotating single seater can clear barriers and catch fences, enough examples of that. Or dig in and come to an extremely abrupt stop, see Servia's crash at Laguna Seca.

 

The FIA started to acknowledge this in 1999, after Schumacher's crash in Silverstone and Häkkinen's crash in Germany. After research into the matter the FIA concluded that asphalt is a much better way to stop cars. This has been an accepted fact for almost 20 years now and since then gravel traps have been removed from many tracks. Spa is a great example, because all fast corners do not have gravel traps anymore, slower corners still have them.

 

Of course a compromise is often needed, especially if motorcycles race on the same track. Making a track safer for motorcycles with a gravel trap will make it unsafer for cars. I think it is very unlucky timing that exactly this is now happening at Spa (especially because it will lead people to think this is a safety measure after the crash). There are two famous Formula 1 crashes into the gravel traps at Raidillon: Zonta digging in and rotating and Villeneuve just flying over the gravel without reducing any speed. I don't know the exact year, when the gravel traps were removed at Raidillon (early 2000s), but these two crashes will surely have sped up that decision.

 

I do wonder why some people still think gravel traps are a good idea. Because if you think that, you must also think the FIA has willfully been making circuits less safe in the past decades. Isn't that a bit absurd?

[Ross Stonefeld]

I don't think they've made things more safe, I think they've made it less likely to crash. Which is very different. 

 

And I think in driver psyche, knowing all of Eau Rouge(or 130R or Copse or etc) is paved means you just boot it through there no matter what. 

[AnttiK]

I don't know the exact year, when the gravel traps were removed at Raidillon (early 2000s), but these two crashes will surely have sped up that decision.

It happened in two parts. In 2001 the last part where Villeneuve crashed in 98 and 99 still had gravel, while the section where Bellof crashed was already tarmacked. In 2002 everything was tarmac.

[SenorSjon]

Schumacher had no brakes, so would have had the same problem on tarmac. We've seen a couple of hard crashes on tarmac runoffs where a car seemingly lost no speed before spearing into a barrier.

The added problem with runoffs is that drivers make a mockery of track limits. Nascar on Watkins Glen (iirc) disappeared from canera view while running off track. Similar IndyCar and WEC/IMSA at Austin. The resulting speeds then exceed the design limit of the barriers.

[ExFlagMan]

The added problem with runoffs is that drivers make a mockery of track limits.

How about a novel solution - just make it non-productive to abuse track limits without adding the extra problems associated with gravel traps..

[Brackets]

It depends on the situation.

It actually doesn't. Even in the worst possible scenario - car sliding on plank (eg with wheels ripped off) or on its head - tarmac will bring the car into the barrier along the longest possible tangent to the corner, since tarmac cannot alter the trajectory of an out of control car. The barrier that will be found at that spot (when the FIA have done their job, which they obviously have ) will have been calculated to receive that car at it's maximum possible 'unslowed' speed.

Contrast this with gravel. ~Of course~ there will be crashes where the car digs in 'just enough' to scrub off speed without the car getting airborne or starting to roll, so it will reach the barrier at a lower speed than would have been the case with tarmac, but this is a scenario which relies on blind luck, not on science/math. Most of the crashes into gravel however will introduce variables that cannot be controlled, nor can be accounted for.

Schumacher had no brakes, so would have had the same problem on tarmac.

You've actually just made yet another argument in favor of tarmac: even in the worst possible cases, it's still just as good as gravel in the best possible cases (car going straight off with no flipping).

(And then I'd even argue that Schumacher was actually jumping over the gravel, so even his 'perfect' crash wasn't as perfect as it could have been in gravel, and WOULD have been with tarmac)

[SenorSjon]

We've seen last weekend how tarmac spits out cars back on track again...

[JeePee]

It actually doesn't. Even in the worst possible scenario - car sliding on plank (eg with wheels ripped off) or on its head - tarmac will bring the car into the barrier along the longest possible tangent to the corner, since tarmac cannot alter the trajectory of an out of control car. The barrier that will be found at that spot (when the FIA have done their job, which they obviously have ) will have been calculated to receive that car at it's maximum possible 'unslowed' speed.

 

In this example the car actually starts to spin/drift to the left:

 

https://www.youtube....h?v=ZMZJ3ZaEcIQ

 

Gravel was still there to save him tho.

[Brackets]

In this example the car actually starts to spin/drift to the left

Indeed. As soon as he hits the patch of grass   
 
 

We've seen last weekend how tarmac spits out cars back on track again...

Hubert was still in the run-off. Alesi was indeed back on track, but then again, so was Villeneuve who went off at the exact same spot but with gravel still there. One could argue there is not enough run-off on the inside of Raidillon but I can guess how popular that would be.

Besides which, it's not the asphalt doing the spitting. It's the tire walls. There should be more SAFER barriers, but then we have fans bitching about track repairs taking too long...

Edited by Brackets, 04 September 2019 - 16:25.

[PayasYouRace]

 

The FIA started to acknowledge this in 1999, after Schumacher's crash in Silverstone and Häkkinen's crash in Germany. After research into the matter the FIA concluded that asphalt is a much better way to stop cars. This has been an accepted fact for almost 20 years now and since then gravel traps have been removed from many tracks. Spa is a great example, because all fast corners do not have gravel traps anymore, slower corners still have them.

 

 

 

This is basically the answer to the OP's question. In most situations tarmac does a more effective job at slowing a car in the same way that slick tyres offer a more effective method of doing anything. More contact patch, more friction.

 

As I alluded to in another thread, most safety innovations have come with some sort of compromise, and sometimes it turns out that they introduce unforeseen dangers. Hay bales and catch fencing were to two examples I used, and after widespread adoption initially, they were removed.

[LucaP]

I've got two controversial opinions

1) the purpose of asphalt runoffs is exclusively economic... what governing body or sponsor wants to see their cars (moveable advertising boards) stuck on the gravel at lap 2, eliminating visibility of their logos for the rest of the race?

2) when you think of a safety solution, surely you have to think first and foremost about the worst case scenario? And then gradually going down from there in the priority list?
In racing (except spectator injuries) the worst scenario is a car losing the brakes and going straight against the barriers at full speed.
In this case, paved runoffs do nothing.

Edited by Luca Pacchiarini, 04 September 2019 - 16:58.

[ExFlagMan]

Drivers have the option to try and spin the car to scrub speed off - you cannot do that with a gravel trap and Schumacher's accident  showed that gravel does not really work either - flat bottomed cars often sledge across the top of the gravel unless the driver manages to brake to get it to start digging in.

[ExFlagMan]

The is some truth in your first suggestion - but not for the reason you suggest.  Once you have installed the tarmac, maintenance is a great deal cheaper than grass or gravel. 

 

At permanent circuits with race meeting nearly every weekend tarmac saves a lot of work and hence expenditure.  This was the reason that when Palmer took over the circuits in the UK he was determined to find a way to cut track limit abuse.

 

I recall talking to the guy who was in charge of maintenance at Oulton Park, who reckoned it often took his team 2-3 days to rectify the damaged caused by cars running wide at a weekend meeting, which tended to reduce the circuits ability to generate income from running track days.   The result was the cost had to be passed to the competitors in increased entry fees.

Edited by ExFlagMan, 04 September 2019 - 17:12.

[jee]

They should put large pools of water into the run off area deep enough for the cars to get sucked into, like 20 or 30 cm. People will also stay away from the run off areas and will not try to cut them to gain an advantage.

[ANF]

Schumacher had no brakes, so would have had the same problem on tarmac.

His front brakes were working, but the car was skipping over the gravel. Look at the onboard below (at 0:45) and see what happens when the car leaves the tarmac:

[PayasYouRace]

2) when you think of a safety solution, surely you have to think first and foremost about the worst case scenario? And then gradually going down from there in the priority list?
In racing (except spectator injuries) the worst scenario is a car losing the brakes and going straight against the barriers at full speed.
In this case, paved runoffs do nothing.

Only a barrier will stop a car in that situation. As has been said many times, cars at full speed just skip over gravel. It does nothing either.

[ExFlagMan]

They should put large pools of water into the run off area deep enough for the cars to get sucked into, like 20 or 30 cm. People will also stay away from the run off areas and will not try to cut them to gain an advantage.

Great idea, right up to point that a car land upside down - not all single seaters are fitted with the halo and F1 is not the only race series that runs on these tracks.

FIM rules require all gravel traps to be drained of water before allowing bikes to race.

Seems like some posters need to engage brains before hitting keyboard.

Edited by ExFlagMan, 04 September 2019 - 18:27.

[PayasYouRace]

They should put large pools of water into the run off area deep enough for the cars to get sucked into, like 20 or 30 cm. People will also stay away from the run off areas and will not try to cut them to gain an advantage.

 

Only works on perfectly flat circuits.

 

When I say "works", it doesn't work anyway. But still.

[NewMrMe]

Weren't some gravel traps reinstated at the Circuit de Catalunya after Luis Salom was killed in a Moto2 crash in 2016?

[Bleu]

Weren't some gravel traps reinstated at the Circuit de Catalunya after Luis Salom was killed in a Moto2 crash in 2016?

 

 I believe that actual spot had tarmac all the way to the wall while mostly circuits which bikes use have tarmac and then gravel. That meant that both Salom and bike slid all the way to the wall, bike bounced up and I think bike crushed Salom as it came down.

[RacingGreen]

I've got two controversial opinions

1) the purpose of asphalt runoffs is exclusively economic... what governing body or sponsor wants to see their cars (moveable advertising boards) stuck on the gravel at lap 2, eliminating visibility of their logos for the rest of the race?
 

 

and of course in a packed calendar full of back to back races teams don't want to deplete their resources or spend their budgets by expensive midweek rebuilds. Keeping the cars on track after a minor off is the only economically feasible solution these days.

[PayasYouRace]

I've got two controversial opinions

1) the purpose of asphalt runoffs is exclusively economic... what governing body or sponsor wants to see their cars (moveable advertising boards) stuck on the gravel at lap 2, eliminating visibility of their logos for the rest of the race?
 

 

Actually I think the circuits do have an economic incentive here, but it isn't to do with professional racing and sponsors. After all, many sponsors will get more coverage from repeated replays of an incident than by having their car finish in an anonymous midfield place.

 

Where I think there is an economic incentive is for the countless amateur and club racing events and track days. When dealing with amateur drivers who have to pay for any damage they do to their cars out of their own pocket, it makes good business sense to offer a circuit that is likely to keep them able to do their hobby as cost-effectively and as often as possible.

[OneAndOnly]

Both solutions work better than other one only under certain conditions. It's hard to find perfect solution.

How to dissipate kinetic energy quickly from an object that has a lot of it, but not too quickly in order not to kill human being inside of it? 

Either make more space for that to happen, or make more friction.

 

Is asphalt in runoff areas same as the one on a track? 

Edited by OneAndOnly, 04 September 2019 - 20:27.

[Frank Tuesday]

Tarmac and gravel are ideal under different circumstances.  The question of which is best depends on what problem you are trying to solve, or more accurately how each system performs a variety of functions of varying degrees of importance.  If you change the relative importance of different functions, the "ideal" system may change.  If you have a change in technology, the functional outcomes of different systems can change.  Let's be honest, not all functions are safety related.  

 

So what functions are important?

1. Encourage increased finishing rate of cars

2. Reduce amount of time marshalls and non-racing vehicles are inside the track area (track area is everything inside the walls and fences including track, runoff, etc.  

3. Reduce disruptions to race (SC, VSC, local yellows, etc)

4. increase occurrence of driver of out of control, but fully functioning car, regaining control of vehicle while off of the racing surface.

5. Reduce likeliness of car flipping.

6. Reduce instances of and/or velocity of car striking containment features (tire walls, fences, etc.)

7. Reduce likelihood of car re-enteringracing surface while not in control of the driver.

8. Encourage drivers to keep their cars on the racing surface during normal race activities.

9. Reduce likelihood of non-functioning car or incapacitated driver from striking containment features.

10. relative safety of fans, track workers, team staff and drivers. 

11. Consider the race fitting into the allotted TV time. 

 

I could probably list another dozen.  If people don't agree on what is most important, they can't agree on which system is better, or how a mix of systems might best be implemented.  In the wake of an accident, the FIA will look at new technologies, and reconsider the relative importance of a number of factors.  They may decide to keep the same system in place, or make changes.  I personally don't care about TV schedules and cars not finishing.  I'm more concerned about a non functioning car than a functioning one, and given the choice between losing a driver or a race attendee, I'm picking the driver every time.  It sucks to have to think like that, but these are the realities.  

 

What is important to you? 

[Spillage]

It seems to me that asphalt and gravel both provide different risks. Asphalt slows a car that isn't damaged to the extent that it avoids contact with the wall, but doesn't do a lot to slow a car that is already damaged. Gravel slows a damaged car much more effectively but not one that still has all four wheels attached and pointing in the right direction.

I personally prefer gravel because it punishes mistakes - you can't have an innocent spin with a gravel runoff; you'll get beached. But I don't feel qualified to say which is the safest solution.

[Fastcake]

I'm not sure you'll find any people loving tarmac run-offs. They're rather ugly, spoil the challenge of many corners and invite constant abuse of track limits.

 

But they were put in place for a reason. They slow down cars more effectively than gravel, as has been explained by many poster already. Regardless of working brakes or not, wheels attached or not, a car going off on a tarmac run-off will remain in constant contact with what is usually, German drag strips excepting, a high contact surface. Compared to gravel where a car may skip along, barely making contact, or grass which could barely stop a car at all. And you have the added bonus of preventing a car from rolling and flipping into the air, potentially landing anywhere. The circuits were not changed, at great time and expensive to track operators which are normally not very wealthy, just on a whim, but after years of evidence and investigation that this was the better option.

 

I think there is a tendency for some, in their understandable pique about track limits, to disregard the evidence on safety in order to have their preferred solution back. That's not going to happen. What could happen is we see some areas of tarmac run-off at some circuits removed, as we have seen at Silverstone, where it is now regarded as superfluous. We could also see, as stronger crash tests on cars have improved survivability and as I recently have read, newer tec-pro barriers can more safely stop a car, the amount of run-off needed may decrease. That won't be a very popular argument this weekend, but it is nonetheless true that it is safer to crash in today's cars than it was in the 2000s when tarmac started replacing gravel.

[macfannz]

How about improve the barriers so that cars hitting them at speed dont bounce back into the path of other cars.

[Tsarwash]

It actually doesn't.

Are you saying that tarmac will allow the car to scrub off more speed than gravel would, in all situations ? 

[Tsarwash]

 

At permanent circuits with race meeting nearly every weekend tarmac saves a lot of work and hence expenditure.  This was the reason that when Palmer took over the circuits in the UK he was determined to find a way to cut track limit abuse.

 

Is that the same Palmer who killed a driver in Portugal by forgetting which side of the road that he was supposed to be driving onto, and then refused to face justice in that country ? 

[Kalmake]

After the tragic loss of Anthoine Hubert last weekend, predictably the FIA are now looking at the safety of the asphalt run off area at the Raidillon.

Source? All I've seen in the news is FIM and track of Spa looking at making it FIM grade C, which requires gravel traps. This was planned before last weekend.

[Brackets]

Are you saying that tarmac will allow the car to scrub off more speed than gravel would, in all situations ?

Not really when my next paragraph started with : "there will be crashes where the car digs in 'just enough' to scrub off speed … so it will reach the barrier at a lower speed than would have been the case with tarmac".

I am however saying that tarmac will allow the car to reach the barrier at its intented spot, and at its intented orientation, i.e. upright. One scenario relies on blind luck to 'work better', the other relies on science to always offer a guaranteed safe outcome.

Answer me this: which would you prefer:
1) plowing head first going 200km/h into a tire wall that was designed to be hit at 200km/h;
2a) plowing head first going 100km/h into a tire wall that was designed to be hit at 200km/h, while knowing that your head, depending on blind luck, may or may not have first made contact with gravel at 250km/h;
2b) plowing head first going 100km/h into a catch fence above a tire wall that was designed to be hit at 200km/h;

I know it's counter intuitive since we often (*) see lots of speed - and car bits - being ripped off in gravel crashes, and we therefore naturally assume it's safer because the ~final~ hit into the barrier - if the car indeed even gets that far - will look a lot less violent, but it's not the final hit that's problematic, since that one will have been accounted for, it's what happens along the way. The key is to remove as much variables as possible along that way.

You know that I love you Tsarwash, and that I'd marry you if you were into blokes and if my wife would let me, and - perhaps the biggest hurdle - if you got rid of the cats coz I'm allergic to them, so don't take this personally because the following is no longer aimed at you:

I'm really done with this. When we're at the point where people are suggesting water run-offs, or opinioning that flying through thin air is safer than sliding over asphalt, or when we're shown footage of cars literally flying over tarmac run-off while ignoring the car was actually already airborne prior to reaching the run-off, it is time to accept I'm in a battle I can't possibly win.

Especially when realising the actual issue - with Huberts' crash, which is what re-ignited all this - is that it mostly happened because of a blind corner, and when realising that people are pretending - without much success - that tarmac run-off offers a bigger safety hazard than gravel when in fact they just hate track limit abuse. A problem - which I also hate and - which is not fixed by bringing back the more unsafe gravel, but by the generous distribution of cojones in the race control room.


(*) And we tend to ignore the ones where we don't, such as Servia in Laguna Seca, Alonso in Oz, Schumacher in Silverstone, or basically everyone when the gravel is wet.

[dissident]

Speaking of high speed corners, I'd have a mix of asphalt and gravel (kind of):

 

- curb > short grass strip (optional if there's already a curb) > short gravel strip > high abrasion asphalt > short gravel strip again just before the barriers

 

IMO this is the best compromise between keeping a corner challenging/enforcing track limits and safety.

 

This could also be combined with a system similar to T1 at the Hungaroring, where there is a small tyre barrier 1 or 2m before the main barrier, which "catches" the cars.

[phrank]

Tarmac has made drivers loose their respect for the track and combined with the halo gives them a false sense of invulnerability

[Rinehart]

Maybe this might give you a clue as to why tarmac is preferable to. gravel

We can all pick out a video that fits our chosen arguement, cars have gone over barriers before where there is no gravel, ya know!

 

The things I don't like about tarmac runoff are (1) its abused in racing (2) there is no penalty for going wide during racing (3) I don't see evidence that it consistently slows cars down (4) during accidents following cars take to the tarmac at full speed which is proven to be an unintended danger (5) cars and debris often seem to bounce back further into harms way.

 

What I don't like about gravel is (1) it can flip cars sometimes making an accident worse (2) cars are often more difficult to recover (3) It doesn't always slow cars down

 

I'm all for an investigation/study and the best decisions made going forwards based on science. A gut instinct that one or other is better, is not the answer, imo. 

[ExFlagMan]

How many on thus forum have been on the receiving end of a car being launched into a barrel roll after digging in to a soft run-off area?

Been there, seen the resultant fatality, and have no desire to see it repeated as a side effect of a 'solution' to a problem that can be solved a lot more easily/safely.

Edited by ExFlagMan, 05 September 2019 - 08:56.

[Rinehart]

Tarmac should allow a car to brake - or scrub off speed - far more effectively than gravel or grass.

There is very inconsistent evidence that is the case, when it matters. In many BIG accidents (where the circuits safety features really come into effect), the car leaving the track has already come into contact with another car or suffered a mechanical problem and is therefore not able to brake properly anyway (say it has a broken wing/suspension). Without optimal braking, the tarmac is relatively useless as the stricken car skates across it, the gravel seems to more often than not, do a better job of slowing a damaged car. 

[Rinehart]

 

I do wonder why some people still think gravel traps are a good idea. Because if you think that, you must also think the FIA has willfully been making circuits less safe in the past decades. Isn't that a bit absurd?

They've sanctioned F1 cars to go faster, racing to be more robust, a tyre specification causing dangerous qualifying speed differentials, hi voltage electrical technologies, restarts after SC phases... as a few examples... all of these things have theoretically made racing more dangerous... where do you get the impression that the FIA's only objective is to make racing safer?

 

Here's a question for you. Since many F1 circuits still feature sand traps, do YOU think they are being wilfully incompetent?