Run-Off Area Alternatives

[strad]

Agree totally with the last two posts.

[Tim.Wright]

I like the idea of having something small on the ground to rip the suspension off a car if they go too wide.

I think it´s cheaper to simply DNF anyone who has four wheels outside the track limits if you want to remove the person from the race altogether. It would have the same effect.

I thought the idea was to keep cars running, but penalize people who goes off so they don´t get either an advantage or momentum thanks to all these asphalt runoffs.

If you don´t want any car to enter the race again you make it simple to the drivers:

If anyone of you is caught on camera putting all four wheels of the racing line you get DNF:d, no three chances crap, you get one chance and you´re out.

Way simpler if that´s the sort of outcome you are after.

It doesn't give what I'm after. There are a few things that a wall (or something similarly drastic) gives that a camera doesn't in terms of enforcing track limits:
First and foremost it shows which driver has the biggest balls and whether they have the skills to back them balls up. This alone adds a large element of drama and makes qualifying in particular much more exciting. Monaco is the perfect example of this. Everyone slander the place as a race track, but in qualifying nothing showcases a driver's precision more than the armco of a street circuit.

Second, you have a much better visual indicator of who is pushing the limits. 15-20 years ago you could differentiate the skills of Schumacher and Senna compared to most of their rivals by watching how much closer they came to the walls at the apexes and corner exit. The great driver's are able to place the car centimeters from an accident every lap, the average drivers leave more of a margin and occasionally overcook it. Again, its a huge source of anticipation and drama that doesn't exist now.

Additionally, you can gauge the stint pace better (and in a more enjoyable way) with walls and stuff close to the track because you have this visual indicator of the speed. Currently you need to be watching the sector times, or gaps in the live timing to see if someone is pushing because its practically impossible to get any appreciation for this otherwise.

[beelsebob]

Not really, you´re assuming all of a sudden he lost the ability to steer his F1 car. Which isn´t the case.
If he were to go on that path, he can let up and take the right one, slow down and get back on again.
It´s not ice.

Except that he will be unable to steer effectively on the extremely low grip surface. He may already in fact be travelling sideways. The idea of providing large areas of low grip surface is exactly what the FIA are trying to get away from - the entire reason for run off areas is to provide a large high grip surface to recover a crash on.

Why not reverse the pattern? Imagine the same corner but in the other direction. Still no way to floor it, but much safer.

Much better, but still not ideal - again, the entire point is to avoid large low grip areas, not add them back in.

The answer is so simple. Replace the kerbs with real kerbs instead of these low jokes of kerbs that they can simply drive over and cut corners.

Great, and now we can't have any motorbike racing ever.

Why are people so convinced that these problems have "simple" solutions, when no one has come up with the ideal, perfect solution in several decades of trying to design systems to cope with this well.

[strad]

The higher kerbs can easily be removable.. Many street courses have kerbs that literally bolt in place.

[beelsebob]

The higher kerbs can easily be removable.. Many street courses have kerbs that literally bolt in place.

This is true, but even within F1, there are serious problems with high kerbs - they tend to launch cars in serious accidents.

[Moxie]

I like the idea of having something small on the ground to rip the suspension off a car if they go too wide.

I think it´s cheaper to simply DNF anyone who has four wheels outside the track limits if you want to remove the person from the race altogether. It would have the same effect.

I thought the idea was to keep cars running, but penalize people who goes off so they don´t get either an advantage or momentum thanks to all these asphalt runoffs.

If you don´t want any car to enter the race again you make it simple to the drivers:

If anyone of you is caught on camera putting all four wheels of the racing line you get DNF:d, no three chances crap, you get one chance and you´re out.

Way simpler if that´s the sort of outcome you are after.

It doesn't give what I'm after. There are a few things that a wall (or something similarly drastic) gives that a camera doesn't in terms of enforcing track limits:
First and foremost it shows which driver has the biggest balls and whether they have the skills to back them balls up. This alone adds a large element of drama and makes qualifying in particular much more exciting. Monaco is the perfect example of this. Everyone slander the place as a race track, but in qualifying nothing showcases a driver's precision more than the armco of a street circuit.

Second, you have a much better visual indicator of who is pushing the limits. 15-20 years ago you could differentiate the skills of Schumacher and Senna compared to most of their rivals by watching how much closer they came to the walls at the apexes and corner exit. The great driver's are able to place the car centimeters from an accident every lap, the average drivers leave more of a margin and occasionally overcook it. Again, its a huge source of anticipation and drama that doesn't exist now.

Additionally, you can gauge the stint pace better (and in a more enjoyable way) with walls and stuff close to the track because you have this visual indicator of the speed. Currently you need to be watching the sector times, or gaps in the live timing to see if someone is pushing because its practically impossible to get any appreciation for this otherwise.

How does this work for you? Runoff areas painted with the high grip tire destroying paint used at Paul Ricard and Yas Marina. However, at the edge of the racing surface there is a thin foam wall. ( 1/2 inch foam insulation board. V grooved and taped to form a right triangle. The foam wall is not intended to provide protection. It is there for the visual definition of the racing surface, and as the indicator that the racing boundary has been broken. If a driver breaks the wall, he will be penalized with a DNF.

[strad]

The higher kerbs can easily be removable.. Many street courses have kerbs that literally bolt in place.

This is true, but even within F1, there are serious problems with high kerbs - they tend to launch cars in serious accidents.

Well that would put a stop to it wouldn't it?

[beelsebob]

The higher kerbs can easily be removable.. Many street courses have kerbs that literally bolt in place.

This is true, but even within F1, there are serious problems with high kerbs - they tend to launch cars in serious accidents.

Well that would put a stop to it wouldn't it?

Not exactly the affect that anyone's going for here. The whole point of tarmac run offs in the first place was to improve safety, not to force people inside the track limits.

If you want to force people inside track limits (which is an entirely worthy cause), that goal has to take second place to safety, and any solution you come up with has to make safety no worse.

[strad]

And any number of good ideas have been offered only to have one or more people try to shoot them down.
I think a lot of this is that so many are young and grew up with this safety trumps all attitude.
Gotta have a warning label to tell people not to iron their clothes while wearing them,,, that coffee is hot, that EVERYONE riding a bicycle must wear a helmet. While I can agree with cutting trees next to the track down and the like. let's not forget that racing is supposed to be dangerous. You know like the saying, "if it wasn't anyone could do it."
I've shown videos where prominent drivers after serious accidents have said, "oh, now I know I can live through such a serious wreck , I know I can push the limits even further."
In the industry I work in you are required to wear a hard hat, which is fine to protect you from small falling objects, gravity always works, but that on the other hand people hit their heads against beams and such more often because sub-consciously they don't worry about hitting their head.
There is a line where it being dangerous, protects them from themselves.

[Moxie]

And any number of good ideas have been offered only to have one or more people try to shoot them down.
I think a lot of this is that so many are young and grew up with this safety trumps all attitude.
Gotta have a warning label to tell people not to iron their clothes while wearing them,,, that coffee is hot, that EVERYONE riding a bicycle must wear a helmet. While I can agree with cutting trees next to the track down and the like. let's not forget that racing is supposed to be dangerous. You know like the saying, "if it wasn't anyone could do it."
I've shown videos where prominent drivers after serious accidents have said, "oh, now I know I can live through such a serious wreck , I know I can push the limits even further."
In the industry I work in you are required to wear a hard hat, which is fine to protect you from small falling objects, gravity always works, but that on the other hand people hit their heads against beams and such more often because sub-consciously they don't worry about hitting their head.
There is a line where it being dangerous, protects them from themselves.

I can't speak for others, but I relate to this on several levels. I too work in a hard hat industry (construction, specifically commercial and industrial insulation). I accept that my job is dangerous, but I wish to minimize that risk for myself and those that work for me by using our engineering controls, safe work practices, and as a last resort our personal protective equipment. It is with this perspective that I view the safety of racing. Indeed the act of driving a car 200 mph is inherently dangerous, but if the Armco and concrete can be replaced by safer options then I believe they should be.

However, increased driver safety need not be so deleterious to the sport. If the Armco is removed, that should not permit a free-for-all to drive anywhere. Walls must be substituted with rules. Unfortunately, the FIA has proven to be utterly incompetent and unwilling to enforce any rule with consistency. The result is that there is no physical risk for leaving the racing surface, and depending on the corner, there is little or no competitive risk for doing the same. Most of the ideas being floated in this thread seem to have the intended effect of taking the ability to make a decision away from the FIA and to put it firmly into the hands of physics.

[beelsebob]

And any number of good ideas have been offered only to have one or more people try to shoot them down.
I think a lot of this is that so many are young and grew up with this safety trumps all attitude.
Gotta have a warning label to tell people not to iron their clothes while wearing them,,, that coffee is hot, that EVERYONE riding a bicycle must wear a helmet. While I can agree with cutting trees next to the track down and the like.

No. I'm not particularly young, and I haven't grown up with a safety trumps all attitude. The attitude I've grown up with is that if the choice is between safety, and not safety, and there's no other gain to be had, then safety it is. Putting bloody massive curbs around corners has no benefit. We can enforce that people don't drive off the track in plenty of ways that don't cause risk to people's lives (not just drivers in the case of launching cars, but also spectators, and marshals). These aren't good ideas, they're just bloody stupid drivel made up by morons who want to sound smart, and think they know engineering better than actual F1 car/circuit designers.

let's not forget that racing is supposed to be dangerous.

Is it? Who says? When was that defined? Last I checked, racing was supposed to be a competition to see who could drive around a particular circuit a set number of times in the least amount of time. There's no "supposed to be dangerous" in there.

You know like the saying, "if it wasn't anyone could do it."

Could they? Last I checked, the risk of death made no difference at all to my ability to beat Fernando Alonso around a circuit. Something about my enormous girth, my slow reaction times, and my lack of ability to drive a 200mph open topped sports car...

Frankly, --- you and your "lets kill drivers, marshals and spectators" attitude.

[SectorOne]

Except that he will be unable to steer effectively on the extremely low grip surface. He may already in fact be travelling sideways. The idea of providing large areas of low grip surface is exactly what the FIA are trying to get away from - the entire reason for run off areas is to provide a large high grip surface to recover a crash on.

He will steer just fine. If he´s oversteering he will have issues whether it´s all tarmac or stripes of astro-turf.

There will be several areas to slow down exactly as you would as if the stripes weren´t there.

Much better, but still not ideal - again, the entire point is to avoid large low grip areas, not add them back in.

That would be even less safe!
Because now there´s no 100% tarmac area to run off but instead alternating astro and asphalt as he´s slowing down while at the same time creating off shoot ramps for the driver to once again, just floor it up on track.

[J_Clark]

Hello,

First of all, English is my second language, but I hope you will understand my idea.

I didn't go through all of the pages on this topic, so sorry if idea like this have already been posted.
Idea is simple. No astro-turf, no GPS, no technology is involved.

Simply put some gravel layer on tarmac run-off areas. That gravel layer should be only around 5 to 10 cm thick, so there should be no danger of car flipping over and putting driver in dangerous position.
Gravel will insure that driver is punished for his mistakes and it will stop all talks did someone gained an advantage by going wide in corner.

Here is simple vizualization of it.

[andylaurence]

How do you make it more severe? Make the slippery bit wider? The drivers will just drive out further on the slippy bit before gunning it on the tarmac. Make it slipperier? No difference (see Hungaroring 2011 for evidence).

i´ve shown one way to do it, they just can´t gun it up on the track again.

OK, let's look at your idea. We'll assume that the average retardation of the astro turf and the tarmac sections is the same as the tarmac in use today, because if it's lower, then we need bigger runoff areas. If that's the case, then the average grip is the same, thus the driver can continue at the same pace off the track that he can off the track. What have we gained? I know you're saying that you'll have stripes tangential to the corner, but as others have pointed out, those stripes could also be renamed "death rows" as whilst you say the driver could steer off of them, any time spent on those stripes is time spent not slowing down and that means it takes longer to stop. That's a higher impact speed when they hit the wall. You're also assuming the driver can control where the car goes at a time when, by definition (otherwise he'd be on the track), he is not in full control of the vehicle.

There might be mileage in your idea, but at the moment, it doesn't appear to work. Your solution revolves around a surface that is grippy in one direction, but is not grippy in another. What other ways could this be achieved? Perhaps ripples in the surface so that driving parallel to the track makes the tyres leave the surface and lose grip whilst tangential travel uses the tarmac effectively?

[SectorOne]

OK, let's look at your idea. We'll assume that the average retardation of the astro turf and the tarmac sections is the same as the tarmac in use today, because if it's lower, then we need bigger runoff areas.

That´s the thing, you don´t.
You still have several slow down zones with 100% tarmac just like now to decelerate.
The stripes will coming into effect when you go back on the circuit and for that you don´t need bigger run-offs.

The width of the stripes can be made much smaller as well, again this is a quick rough idea only.
They are merely there to stop high lateral/ full throttle applications coming back on the track.

You're also assuming the driver can control where the car goes at a time when, by definition (otherwise he'd be on the track), he is not in full control of the vehicle.

Yes if he´s understeering he can easily steer the car wherever he wants.
If he lost control of the rear there´s nothing in the world that will help you regain control of that, you´re a passenger regardless of what you´re driving on. You do have some slight things you do but largely you won´t change the result much, like Hamilton and Vettel in Hungary, two passengers with a healthy dose of luck to continue in the race.

Your solution revolves around a surface that is grippy in one direction, but is not grippy in another.

Importantly, grippy for slowing down, less grippy for accelerating.

What other ways could this be achieved? Perhaps ripples in the surface so that driving parallel to the track makes the tyres leave the surface and lose grip whilst tangential travel uses the tarmac effectively?

Definitely an interesting idea.