Safety car - isn't there a better way?

Question

The deployment of the safety car may be exciting, but surely it is very unfair? A driver can build up a substantial lead and be cruising to victory (as Lewis was last Sunday) and then because of another driver's crash, see that lead eradicated with the release of the safety car. The race in effect starts over again, and the all that hard work of the leader is for nothing. Why can't the drivers be told that they have to keep the same time and distance from the car in front? Surely this could easily be monitored by the pit lane computers and the drivers could be told if they were going too fast and told to slow down. Ok, this may be difficult to monitor precisely but they could build in something like a 1 or 2 second margin of error - i.e. when the safety car goes off the track and the race restarts, at that point all cars must be no more than 1 second closer to the car in front than at the time before the safety car was deployed. It's not perfect but the current rule is nuts!

Answer 1

As my racing coach used to tell me...

That's racing.

Answer 2

Easiest solution would be to get all the drivers to slow down and switch on their pit-lane rev limiters so they were all doing 80kmh, that speed is slower than what they do behind the safety car.

It would be easy to monitor as the cars rear lights flash when this is engaged, give the drivers a few seconds to react to the SC boards coming out and then when the SC period ends give them a countdown over the radios etc.

At those speeds the marshalls could still work on the track without much danger, you would still need an option to red flag the race of course if the track was completely blocked etc.

Answer 3

Better way is to put the rule back when you can pit during the safety car period like stated in above comments it is insane a driver having insane luck to get from 17th - 2nd congrats for the strategy. However thats the fun of it you see top teams lose places over it but then you see top teams gaining places when not deserved like Kimi in Hockenheim he didn't look like overtaking until the Safety Car was deployed he could of well of ended up with 0 - 1point

Safety Car in General is fun just like wet races its a lottery to guess the places 15drivers was in the pitlane at once on Sunday it was insane but i havent came up with a better way but if any off us spent 24hours thinking of 1 it would proberly be fair better than the rule now

Answer 4

Not at all. I love whenever the safety car has to come out. It always throws a spanner into the works.

Its just like whenever a downpour comes and everything changes.

Although i am glad they changed the rule regarding pitting when the safety car comes, they was pretty stupid before.

Answer 5

The introduction of the safety car in Hockenheim may have spiced things up but led to a stupid result.

Piquet climbed from seventeenth to second having overtaken nobody.

Makes no sense to me but I know not of a practical alternative.

The general idea is that F1 teams and drivers search for performance and good strategy if they are to reach the top step of the podium, the introduction of the safety car makes it all silly.

It would be good if there were no pitstops and it bunched up the drivers also allowing lapped cars to unlap themselves, but with cars pitting for fuel and tires the safety car turns a race into a lottery.

I know for some teams and drivers it may be their only chance for success but that's not the point of racing, the idea is they have to improve and achieve success on merit.

There are lots of racing series that provide artificial racing, I don't like to see it in F1.

Answer 6

it is only recently that a safety car has been used, they never used to need one, even when the cars had ground effects, bigger tyres and bigger engines, a safety car is an american thing......personally i would scrap them from F1, a rolling start like the indy 500 wouldnt be a bad idea though, at least it should get all the cars through turn 1...:)

Answer 7

A race is very boring when one man rules it.........Hamilton cannot dominate like that!!!........There should be some thing for the crowd!.........If theres no safety car people who have talent can never be seen!.......Best Example is Nelson Pq.JR......He is a good driver!!! I think Good srtategy and a Good Car will make a champion.........Other wise it will be called MONOPOLY!!!!! Come onn mann We need some Spirit and Exicitement

Answer 8

The safety car itself is really the best way they can do it, as stated further up it bunches up the field to give the marshals etc a clear track to do their vital work. The main thing I that needs to be addressed is the pit stop chaos that goes on as teams jockey for the slightest tactical advantage, having so many cars come in at once is getting dangerous and there is going to be bump sooner or later and even at 50mph(80kph) the cars will be able to do a lot of damage to the pit crews who are about.

Answer 9

I know of a safety car called "walking"

Answer 10

Personally I agree. The system is unfair and a "stay roughly as far behind as you were before" system seems to make sense. It's not perfect (what about people pitting under the safety car? etc.) but it makes more sense.

The slashing of advantages under the safety car has been present for as long as I've watched F1 though and I can't see it changing any time soon. I remember Britain '98 where Hakkinen was pulling away from Schumacher and was already 40 seconds clear before the SC came out. Schumacher went on to win the race.

Answer 11

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I always have held the view that the race director could regulate the cars speed thru some form of telemetry from Race Control.

Let's say an accident occured at Eu Rouge, the race director could be informed as to it's severity. If able to continue racing, the Director could govern the driver's speed through a certain point by pressing a transponder linked to the vehicle. The driver would be alerted and through Eu Rouge the speed stepped down and governed to 40mph say...this would not put marshalls in danger and drivers could avoid debris.

After Eu Rouge the transponder would automatically switch off, the speed steps up again to racing levels and for the whole lap racing speeds can be maintained until Eu Rouge again.

This system would maintain the exact same gap throughout the caution area AND allow racing to continue out of the caution area.....PERFECT! I can't believe why no one has thought of it before....I am God!

This technology could then be applied to all vehicles and speeds kept in check past schools etc where idiots believe they can better a 15 degree of slip under emergency braking  and lives are spared.  

*jumps off soap box*

.

Answer 12

That's the way it has always been - and although it might be easy to monitor distance between cars, it's very hard to actually put it into practice.  

The current rule does allow for a lot of excitment in a race (Piquet had a great drive, but the saftey car turned a great drive into a podium finish) - but unless you want to stop the race there really isn't an alternative solution.

And don't forget it's main purpose - safety.  You need all of the cars passed the danger zone in as small a time as possible to allow for recovery work to continue when the snake of cars has passed...

Answer 13

ya safety car could be replaced by this system-

like race control must have an electronic system which may stall all the cars at once at their respective places....hence there wont be any problem to the guys who have created a large lead....or maybe control the speed of all the car to a particular limit...or keep an light on the cars dashboard which may ask drivers to switch to pitlane speed limit...........but after saying em all i still feel nothing is better tha safety car....:-)

Answer 14

There must be a way to keep the distance between the cars when the Safety Car has to enter. Otherwise yes it is really unfair. As far as I know FIA is working on a new set of rules about Safety Car. I hope they will fix the issues this time.

Answer 15

It doesn't matter who will win after the safety car was being deployed. It's not a big deal wether the first or last car wins the race. The most important thing is the safety of each and every driver. Winning is worth nothing if anybody's life had lost. You should remember that SAFETY is the main priority.

Answer 16

I get your drift but if there is a viable alliterative then I don't know it.

On some more substantial accidents the race could (can) be red flagged and re- started at an appropriate time.

Though safety cars are a part of F1 and keeps the race ( usually) within the 2 hour race finish rule, so no laps are cut off.

Answer 17

The cars need to be bunched up by the safety car, otherwise there wouldn't be a gap in the traffic for the marshalls to clear debris from the track.

I agree it's a bit unfair when a good lead has been built up, but there is no other sensible way of allowing the marshalls to do their job safely

Answer 18

I thought it was great to see someone use a strategy to pick up a lot of positions.  Too often, the only strategy a driver can have is to be a member of 1 of the 3 big teams.  Seeing all those amazing cars regrouped and starting again nose to tail is enthralling and brings more excitement.  Formula 1 needs some more excitement and I thought that Sunday's race had just that.