Phil wrote: ↑21 Sep 2017, 13:55
As you say, the TCAS has precedent over anything else, but on this occasion, the pilot clearly didn't follow it.
Actually I learned the TCAS from this and the Flight 1907 from Brazil. In the case of the collision over Switzerland, air authorities had not yet issued directives regarding what takes precedence over what (ground vs TCAS); only after that accident the TCAS was declared as having priority over anything else.
Phil wrote: ↑21 Sep 2017, 13:55
what happened at Singapore (which I assume prompted this topic in the first place)
True. That, and spa 2012 (Grosjean vs Hamilton vs Alonso), Japan 2012 (Kimi vs Alonso), and some other crashes/contacts that I can't name just right now. We were robbed of an even better showdown in 2012 for example.
Phil wrote: ↑21 Sep 2017, 13:55
Vettel, it seemed, was going to chop to the left no matter what. Some would refer to this being a bullying tactic: "I am going to chop off your path - if you fail to back out, we will both crash". The whole point of such a maneuver is to force the other car at a disadvantageous position to yield.
True. This is just poor driving in regards to risk vs reward. What remains to be seen is tho, would he have given up on squeezing Max if he had a way of telling there was another car on the far inside ?
Phil wrote: ↑21 Sep 2017, 13:55
I am fairly confident that even if Vettel had the mental awareness or a tool such a system like the TCAS to see Kimi coming up from the inside, he still would have attempted to close the door.
Oh I wouldn't be so sure about that. Vettel might be aggressive, but he's not an idiot.
I'd also go on to say that the feasibility of such a system like the TCAS for F1 would be an impossibility. Why? Because the system is primitive. It can not know who is in the right or wrong etc. The cars and drivers are also too erratic. At speeds of 200kmh+ you are traveling at 55+ meters per second. Every two tenths, a meter. Sudden direction changes have a huge bearing on where your car will be half a second later on a track that is so narrow that it barely fits 4 cars side-by-side (best case).
Phil wrote: ↑21 Sep 2017, 13:55
Even if we have very simple proximity warning sensors or something; either they'd be so sensitive that they'd already be warning a driver if a car is sufficiently far away, or it only starts warning when it's too late. It just can't work. And why should it? The TCAS (in aerospace) is designed as a system that communicates with the TCAS of another plane, sorting out who is to do what. It just ain't possible in motorsport, not as long as these things happen within split seconds at high speeds on a very narrow track and every millimeter can determine the outcome between hero and fail.
I beg to differ. Maybe I should do an annotated video analysis to determine how much time the drivers had in order to react and prevent contact in some of the cases I had mentioned. The auto spotter in iracing works fairly well. Of course one of the the reasons it's incorporated into the game is the fact that side by side racing on a pc is difficult even with a triple monitor setup.
Post Singapore, there was some discussion on the Channel 5 (4?) broadcast with some people from Nascar that perhaps F1 should look into the idea of using spotters for drivers. But what may work on an oval, would probably not work on a normal F1 track and certainly not at the start where everything is rather unpredictable.
Phil wrote: ↑21 Sep 2017, 13:55
F1 is good as it is. The drivers have side-mirrors that give them a reasonable understanding on what is happening around them. Generally, I'd say the car doing a direction change has some responsibility to know if a car is along-side (or partially) and under no circumstances should crowd that car off the track. There are a few exceptions to this rule, namely corner exit because a driver may already be committed to a certain entry/exit speed and his trajectory given by those factors. This makes him more or less a "by-passenger", even in the event that an overtaking driver attempts to put his car in the closing space on corner exit. I'd also explicitly point out that in any circumstance, usually the car behind has a certain responsibility as a result of better coverage. You can't expect the car slightly ahead to have a perfect awareness of what is happening behind him. It's easier for the car behind to see what is happening before putting himself at risk. This however, as mentioned above, does not allow the "leading car" to do any kind of maneuver, especially when doing direction changes.
While I generally agree to your comments regarding overtaking and who should do what, I must add that for a sport that claims to be the pinnacle of motorsport technology I find it quite odd the only means of spatial awareness are mirrors, which have been proven to be deficient in that respect.
Phil wrote: ↑21 Sep 2017, 13:55
But apart from that?
What more do you want to do? Micro managing every part of the sport will only lead to dull and predictable races.
Provide the drivers with extra awareness, so we get not stupid easily avoidable crashes but good, enjoyable, fair racing.
