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Mercedes and Aston Martin to share safety car duties from 2021


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#101 Risil

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Posted 12 April 2022 - 09:31

A rogues gallery of early F1 safety cars.

 

You've forgotten an important one!

canadiangp-73.jpg

They should all drape yellow flags on the back bumper. You know, so people know it's the safety car.



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#102 pacificquay

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Posted 12 April 2022 - 10:19

So Opel and Vauxhall were aligning their names by then.

Not quite, that would still have been a Cavalier



#103 BRG

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Posted 12 April 2022 - 10:26

Not quite, that would still have been a Cavalier

Yes, that model was still called Cavalier by Vauxhall.  The SC pictured was at Imola (San Marino GP) and was the four wheel drive, turbocharged Opel Vectra GSi model so not just a slow shopping car.



#104 Beri

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Posted 12 April 2022 - 10:46

You've forgotten an important one!

canadiangp-73.jpg

They should all drape yellow flags on the back bumper. You know, so people know it's the safety car.

 

I bet that Porsche was quicker than the Vectra one shown earlier.



#105 Ivanhoe

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Posted 12 April 2022 - 11:06

I bet that Porsche was quicker than the Vectra one shown earlier.

As were these

08-B50-DA8-FC10-4371-AF01-02-CCEFEF8-FB8EFA3-AE6-C-456-A-4799-8-ED7-2-E2000024-DB19-BDDAF-4185-422-A-96-C7-59-BC09-B8-F4



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Posted 12 April 2022 - 11:13

I bet that Porsche was quicker than the Vectra one shown earlier.

Not the tiniest chance in the world of that.

#107 Beri

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Posted 12 April 2022 - 11:16

Thos are some proper pretty safety cars Ivanhoe!

 

But on the subject, it wouldnt be too hard for the FIA to find a manufacturer that is willing to develop a true race car from scratch with having the safety car demands intertwined, rather than having a menufacturer delivering their fastest car and then convert them to a safety car? I mean, ofcourse it would cost a lot, but given the fact that the safety car is pretty much a guarantee about every race in this era, it is pretty good advertisement as well for said manufacturer. Or at least start off with a proper racing car like an LMP2 car. I do understand that the safety car should also go around the track in a certain given delta to make it safe for mashalls to clear the scene of the occurance that caused the safety car. But if this continues to be a thing, perhaps the FIA should look at such measures.



#108 Ivanhoe

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Posted 12 April 2022 - 11:25

So much missing of the point here.  By drivers and forum members.  The point of the SC is too SLOW DOWN the traffic in the interests of the poor marshals clearing up Latifi's latest disaster.  

The SC should drive at a safe speed, but not unnecessarily slow. Cold tyres or brakes can lead to new safety cars. Nothing wrong with slowing down at the place of the incident and pick up the pace on the rest of the track.



#109 Beri

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Posted 12 April 2022 - 11:28

Not the tiniest chance in the world of that.

 
Despite the absolute specs do favor the Vectra, it being 20 years younger than the 914, it does not have RWD and is not as light and nimble as the 914. I would love to see them head to head if I am being honest. YouTube sadly doesnt provide me this.

914
RWD
100 bhp
970 kg
192 km/h
9.9 s to 100 km/h
9.6 kg/hp
162.0 Nm @ 3500 rpm

Vectra
FWD
134 bhp
1180 kg
210 km/h
9.5 s to 100 km/h
8.7 kg/hp
185 Nm @ 4000 rpm

Edited by Beri, 12 April 2022 - 11:29.


#110 Risil

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Posted 12 April 2022 - 11:31

I wonder if the Vectra would be any better at picking up the race's actual leader.



#111 Beri

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Posted 12 April 2022 - 11:35

The Vectra did, didnt it?   ;)



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Posted 12 April 2022 - 11:59

Despite the absolute specs do favor the Vectra, it being 20 years younger than the 914, it does not have RWD and is not as light and nimble as the 914. I would love to see them head to head if I am being honest. YouTube sadly doesnt provide me this.914RWD100 bhp970 kg192 km/h9.9 s to 100 km/h9.6 kg/hp162.0 Nm @ 3500 rpmVectraFWD134 bhp1180 kg210 km/h9.5 s to 100 km/h8.7 kg/hp185 Nm @ 4000 rpm

What you've referenced is a run of the mill Vectra, it's a Cavalier anyway. The Cavalier Turbo in the showroom was 204bhp and 4 wheel drive. Just a chip change took it to 250bhp. They were factory governed to 155mph (250kph), seriously quick motor cars. I've owned both and rallied the Vectra successfully.
https://ukmotortalk....turbo-4x4-1993/

Cavalier Turbo 4×4
Power, enough of it to keep a fair sized third world country in electricity, comes from a superb, turbo, 4 cylinder, 2 litre, 16 valve alloy head, sequential port injected engine. 204 bhp and even more stunning, 206 lbs feet of torque from 2,400 rpm. The water cooled turbo is almost completely lag free, power delivery right on the button, seamless acceleration right through the rev range in all gears, Vauxhall have not just strapped on a big turbo, they’ve completly re-thought the top end of this engine to produce a sophisticated package that’s a dream to drive and goes like stink, capable of near 150 mph yet tractable enough to doodle along at 40 mph in sixth and still pull away without a change down.

The Getrag 6 speed box is a dream, slick and perfectly suited to the enormous torque spread, it’s pure delight to play with, 5 extremely close ratio gears and a genuine sixth gear overdrive that sees 70 mph come up with barely 2,500 rpm showing, which makes this barn storming Cavalier amazingly frugal, the trip computer showing me a 26 mpg average for some very spirited driving.

With 4 wheel drive all of the prodigious power can be got on the ground with amazing composure and stability, nary a trace of torque steer, the car continually delighting as it allows power to be applied so early on the exit of every bend, all in amazing safety with superbly engineered suspension, surely a product of the BTCC successes, tremendous grip from the very low aspect ratio 205/50 tyres, nil roll, inch perfect placing from one of the best power steering setups around, perfectly weighted and all backed up by stunning braking from massive discs – vented at the front – and ABS.

A truly well sorted and incredibly well balanced handling package. The Cavalier 4×4 Turbo is a really practical supercar, 5 good seats, a large boot, lightning fast, supremely well sorted, perhaps the ultimate Q car, so involving and rewarding, a real joy to drive. I will even admit to quite liking it!

FACT FILE

PRICE £19,705
TOP SPEED 149 MPH
0-60 6 SECONDS
FUEL CONSUMPTION 24 MPG [URBAN CYCLE] 42 MPG [CONSTANT 56 MPH

Edited by milestone 11, 12 April 2022 - 12:09.


#113 RA2

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Posted 12 April 2022 - 12:19

Why does the safety car have a driver and another person in the passenger seat? What does he do?

#114 Ivanhoe

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Posted 12 April 2022 - 12:23

Why does the safety car have a driver and another person in the passenger seat? What does he do?

Probably assisting with communication and operations, expect he has an overview of where all cars are positioned on track.

 

Edit: googled it

 

My co-driver, Richard, is very important because he’s handling navigating and he has a complete overview from monitors and radio contact. We are connected to race control and that’s even more important than the safety car itself because you get all information from race control. They’re handling us and given us the right information about when we have to deploy or come back, and we just report to them what’s going on out on the track, such as a slippery area from wet conditions.


#115 Beri

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Posted 12 April 2022 - 12:25


What you've referenced is a run of the mill Vectra, it's a Cavalier anyway. The Cavalier Turbo in the showroom was 204bhp and 4 wheel drive. Just a chip change took it to 250bhp. They were factory governed to 155mph (250kph), seriously quick motor cars. I've owned both and rallied the Vectra successfully.
 
Cavalier Turbo 4×4
Power, enough of it to keep a fair sized third world country in electricity, comes from a superb, turbo, 4 cylinder, 2 litre, 16 valve alloy head, sequential port injected engine. 204 bhp and even more stunning, 206 lbs feet of torque from 2,400 rpm. The water cooled turbo is almost completely lag free, power delivery right on the button, seamless acceleration right through the rev range in all gears, Vauxhall have not just strapped on a big turbo, they’ve completly re-thought the top end of this engine to produce a sophisticated package that’s a dream to drive and goes like stink, capable of near 150 mph yet tractable enough to doodle along at 40 mph in sixth and still pull away without a change down.
 
The Getrag 6 speed box is a dream, slick and perfectly suited to the enormous torque spread, it’s pure delight to play with, 5 extremely close ratio gears and a genuine sixth gear overdrive that sees 70 mph come up with barely 2,500 rpm showing, which makes this barn storming Cavalier amazingly frugal, the trip computer showing me a 26 mpg average for some very spirited driving.
 
With 4 wheel drive all of the prodigious power can be got on the ground with amazing composure and stability, nary a trace of torque steer, the car continually delighting as it allows power to be applied so early on the exit of every bend, all in amazing safety with superbly engineered suspension, surely a product of the BTCC successes, tremendous grip from the very low aspect ratio 205/50 tyres, nil roll, inch perfect placing from one of the best power steering setups around, perfectly weighted and all backed up by stunning braking from massive discs – vented at the front – and ABS.
 
A truly well sorted and incredibly well balanced handling package. The Cavalier 4×4 Turbo is a really practical supercar, 5 good seats, a large boot, lightning fast, supremely well sorted, perhaps the ultimate Q car, so involving and rewarding, a real joy to drive. I will even admit to quite liking it!
 
FACT FILE
 
PRICE £19,705
TOP SPEED 149 MPH
0-60 6 SECONDS
FUEL CONSUMPTION 24 MPG [URBAN CYCLE] 42 MPG [CONSTANT 56 MPH
 
Is there a way to see if the safety car was a Vectra Turbo (it wasnt in the UK  ;) )? Or that it is a standard one? I couldnt find any information about that.
 

Why does the safety car have a driver and another person in the passenger seat? What does he do?
 
The driver has to focus his attention to driving and the other one is keeping in touch with race control to make sure the SC has the right lights on and to give the driver instructions where to drive slower/faster/avoid or cut a corner because of debris and such.


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Posted 12 April 2022 - 12:28

Why does the safety car have a driver and another person in the passenger seat? What does he do?

Get a buzz.  ;)

#117 Ivanhoe

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Posted 12 April 2022 - 12:33

 

Is there a way to see if the safety car was a Vectra Turbo (it wasnt in the UK   ;) )? Or that it is a standard one? I couldnt find any information about that.

This site confirms it's a Vectra Turbo 4x4



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Posted 12 April 2022 - 12:34

Is there a way to see if the safety car was a Vectra Turbo (it wasnt in the UK   ;) )? Or that it is a standard one? I couldnt find any information about that.
 

 
The driver has to focus his attention to driving and the other one is keeping in touch with race control to make sure the SC has the right lights on and to give the driver instructions where to drive slower/faster/avoid or cut a corner because of debris and such.

The nose cone, front bumper and wheels are common. If you look at other period Opel/Vauxhall Cavaliers, even the GSI and SRI, the front bumper is not as deep and that wheel pattern was not on any other model. There's a small spoiler on the boot lid as well but you can't make it out in the safety car pic.

#119 milestone 11

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Posted 12 April 2022 - 12:38

This site confirms it's a Vectra Turbo 4x4

Apologies if it was marketed as a Vectra, I thought that name was first used in Europe later. It was definitely a Cavalier on the UK market, the Vectra came later.

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#120 Ivanhoe

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Posted 12 April 2022 - 12:40

Apologies if it was marketed as a Vectra, I thought that name was first used in Europe later. It was definitely a Cavalier on the UK market, the Vectra came later.

Yeah, same car for me, different branding.

 

From that website you must like this SC milestone  :)

5-C9-F7248-4-E38-41-CE-950-C-B6-B76-EAAC



#121 milestone 11

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Posted 12 April 2022 - 12:45

Yeah, same car for me, different branding.
 
From that website you must like this SC milestone  :)
5-C9-F7248-4-E38-41-CE-950-C-B6-B76-EAAC

Lovely. A GT2, better than mine even if I have to admit it.

#122 smitten

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Posted 12 April 2022 - 13:46

The SC should drive at a safe speed, but not unnecessarily slow. Cold tyres or brakes can lead to new safety cars. Nothing wrong with slowing down at the place of the incident and pick up the pace on the rest of the track.

Do cold tyres and brakes not make for more exciting restarts?  Isn't that what we want (certainly seemed to be a theme in the "pulling alongside during the SC" thread)



#123 Blue6ix

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Posted 12 April 2022 - 14:17

Didn’t they essentially try this at the beginning of the safety car era which was dangerous and the reason we began bringing the Mercedes SC everywhere in the first place?

 

They allowed that situation to exist yes, but actually they had Official Safety Car providers even back then for the years of 1992-1996.

 

First was Ford and then Renault starting from the 1994.

 

Mercedes-Benz were actually brought in by advance in the middle of the 1996 season when they actually were co-providers with Renault before the start of Mercedes-Benz exclusive rights in the year of 1997.

 

Season of 1992 as the re-introduction for the Safety Car were definitely quite interesting.

 

The following example comes from the one of my earlier messages and from the another thread when considering about this question:

 

''In Magny-Cours and in Silverstone back in the year of 1992 they actually had also a trials for the Safety Car.

 

Trials were conducted for the race weekend's practice sessions.

 

In the 1992 French Grand Prix and as in the race they weren't used unless that neat looking Ford Escort RS Cosworth were sent on the track just when the red flag was shown like Safety Car's predecessor, meaning of course the Course Car had many times inevitably back in the 1980s or in the early 1990s excluding some very, very few races like in the 1991 Australian Grand Prix when that wasn't the case at least for a time being before the organizers finally had enough of the horrendous rain.

 

Safety Car were also meant to be used back in the 1992 Hungarian Grand Prix when they actually did show the signal for the Safety Car and it could have be seen on the TV feed though without it's own signal view for the world feed, but for some reason (Either it was a error of the organizers, Safety Car had some sort of technical malady or just for some other reason didn't never go to the track on the race day causing quite of a confusion.) they never didn't use it.''


Edited by Blue6ix, 12 April 2022 - 14:18.


#124 macjim

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Posted 12 April 2022 - 14:22

Yeah, same car for me, different branding.

 

From that website you must like this SC milestone  :)

5-C9-F7248-4-E38-41-CE-950-C-B6-B76-EAAC

 

I thought it was a VW Beatle when I first looked  :eek:



#125 Blue6ix

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Posted 12 April 2022 - 14:25

I thought it was a VW Beatle when I first looked  :eek:

 

It seems to me that Marc Duez is also behind the wheel, if I'm not mistaken.



#126 Ivanhoe

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Posted 12 April 2022 - 14:31

Do cold tyres and brakes not make for more exciting restarts?  Isn't that what we want (certainly seemed to be a theme in the "pulling alongside during the SC" thread)

That certainly wasn't my argument, didn't see much wrong or dangerous with it, but that's another topic and dealt with in the mean time  :)

 

Don't get me wrong, don't think this is a big issue either, if any at all, but I can understand the drivers feel the SC is driving too slow at times and I think all drivers have complained about it some time. It's nothing new. This thread was reanimated because the AM appears to be slower than the AMG.



#127 Laptom

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Posted 12 April 2022 - 14:33

Not the tiniest chance in the world of that.

 

I presume you have never driven the 914-6 on track.



#128 Scotracer

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Posted 12 April 2022 - 18:03

So Opel and Vauxhall were aligning their names by then.


No because we called it the Cavalier.

#129 ARTGP

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Posted 12 April 2022 - 18:10

The faster the SC goes the greater the no of laps you lose under the SC.

 

The SC isn't supposed to go faster while they are cleaning up. It's only supposed to go faster after the track is cleared. Atleast that seems like a sensible request to manage both the safety requirement, and avoiding cold tire carnage. Some may think it's interesting to see the drivers tested driving on ice, but there's always going to be that one or two drivers who will just cause the next safety car as soon as the green flag drops. Do you really want to see the kind of damage Latifi can do on cold tires? lol


Edited by ARTGP, 12 April 2022 - 18:11.


#130 PayasYouRace

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Posted 12 April 2022 - 18:11

You've forgotten an important one!
canadiangp-73.jpg
They should all drape yellow flags on the back bumper. You know, so people know it's the safety car.


Not forgotten. I was just going for the boring hatchbacks and saloons. At leas that was a sports car.

Not as cool as the 911 from 1995 though.

#131 ExFlagMan

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Posted 12 April 2022 - 20:22

The SC isn't supposed to go faster while they are cleaning up. It's only supposed to go faster after the track is cleared. Atleast that seems like a sensible request to manage both the safety requirement, and avoiding cold tire carnage. Some may think it's interesting to see the drivers tested driving on ice, but there's always going to be that one or two drivers who will just cause the next safety car as soon as the green flag drops. Do you really want to see the kind of damage Latifi can do on cold tires? lol

 

I agree, but the drivers seem to think otherwise given the amount of whinging that some of them do.  In addition I wonder what the mass reaction on here would be if the SC stayed out for a couple of laps after the track is clear.



#132 Dutchrudder

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Posted 13 April 2022 - 14:45

Not forgotten. I was just going for the boring hatchbacks and saloons. At leas that was a sports car.

Not as cool as the 911 from 1995 though.

I can’t cope with you calling the Williams Clio a ‘boring’ hatchback!

In my younger years I had a Clio 182 and it was far from boring, and these days despite owning an M3 and working my way towards a Porsche, there is a part of me that misses the feeling of ringing everything a car’s engine and chassis has to give out of it down a B road, where the more powerful stuff still feels within itself.

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Posted 14 April 2022 - 09:32

https://mobile.twitt...530333080928256

#134 BRG

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Posted 14 April 2022 - 09:39

The FIA statement falls short of saying "Stop whining, you over-entitled little muppets" but you can tell that was what they were thinking.



#135 Ivanhoe

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Posted 14 April 2022 - 09:39

So they're saying the Aston Martin isn't slower than the Merc lol



#136 Astandahl

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Posted 14 April 2022 - 09:44

The funny thing is that Lec said that the SC was at the limit in terms of speed as it was sliding a lot in the corners.



#137 billm99uk

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Posted 14 April 2022 - 10:23

It's forever going to be known as 'the turtle' now though  :D



#138 mmmcurry

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Posted 14 April 2022 - 10:28

It's forever going to be known as 'the turtle' now though  :D

 

The Safety Turtle.



#139 andyscoot

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Posted 14 April 2022 - 10:55

The FIA statement falls short of saying "Stop whining, you over-entitled little muppets" but you can tell that was what they were thinking.

 

I see it as covering for the bad press against Aston who it seems have built a safety car that is considerably slower than it's Merc counter part. I appreciate the purpose of a safety car is not to go fast but their statement of driving to a prescribed lap time is clearly a lie since Leclerc and Maylander have confirmed that the Aston was on it's absolute limit. 

 

It shouldn't matter but it does matter to their brand that their SC when on the limit is quite a bit slower than the other.


Edited by andyscoot, 14 April 2022 - 11:18.


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#140 Clatter

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Posted 14 April 2022 - 11:27

The FIA statement falls short of saying "Stop whining, you over-entitled little muppets" but you can tell that was what they were thinking.


Good, it echos the thoughts of many of us.

#141 billm99uk

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Posted 14 April 2022 - 22:12

The Safety Turtle.

 

helmet_3_392x460.jpg