Formula One Motor Racing - Safety car rules to be revisited
FIA governing body of Formula One will try to revisit “lack of clarity" in the rules of the game, as far as the safety car is concerned, after Michael Schumacher was handed a penalty after the Monte Carlo Grand Prix.
The FIA Admitted that the rules need to be clearer, for teams to understand and instruct their drivers, as it was the confusion that lead Mercedes driver Michael Schumacher a 20 second penalty after he had over taken Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso. While the safety care was deployed on the tracks, in the closing stages of Sunday’s Monaco Grand Prix made it clear that the rules were open to misinterpretation.
The FIA will seek an amendment to the wording of its sporting regulations regarding safety car procedures at the next meeting of the World Motor Sport Council, which will meet in June for its next meeting. It will look to find a solution to clarify the confusion, and try to come up with an amendment regarding the regulations concerning the safety car.
Article 40.13 of the FIA's sporting regulations states: "If the race ends whilst the safety car is deployed it will enter the pit lane at the end of the last lap and the cars will take the chequered flag as normal without overtaking."
But on the other hand, there is a variance with a new-for-2010 ruling which actually states that drivers are allowed to overtake before the start-finish line, as soon as the safety car makes it way into the pit lane.
The rule states that Once past the 'safety car line', which is normally cited just before the final corner, drivers can overtake one another, but that same rule becomes ineffective if the safety car peels off on the final lap.
According to an FIA statement "The problems identified during the final lap of the Monaco Grand Prix... showed a lack of clarity in the application of the rule prohibiting overtaking behind the safety car,"
"Adjustments to the regulations are necessary to clarify the procedure that cars must meet when the last lap is controlled by the safety car whilst also ensuring that the signalling for teams and drivers is made clearer.
"These adjustments will help to avoid the problem which occurred during the Monaco Grand Prix from happening in the future.
"The Formula One Commission, upon a proposal of the F1 Sporting Working Group will submit an amendment to the Sporting Regulations to address this issue. These amendments will be considered by the World Motor Sport Council at its next meeting in Geneva on June 23."
Formula one although a game of fast cars chasing one another is more complicated than one thinks. If a layman decides to follow a particular race, he would pretty much have no idea as to what is going on, as the race is not based solely on cars overtaking each other on the tracks, but the results are mainly dependant on the pre race strategies of the team, the assessment of the track, weather and number of Pit stops. It all sounds very complicated for someone who is not familiar with the game, and to think that the rules are hard to understand to the teams even; who are actually competing in the sport is even more baffling.
So the FIA will have to take a serious look at their rulebooks, and clear all ambiguities of the game.
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