What is wrong with the safety car rule?

[myurr]

The problem for Alonso was surely that the pits were open to following drivers. If they had been closed for all he had had no problem.

But that wouldn't have been a problem had he been released by the safety car. He would have been circulating at the same delta times as all the other cars instead of the slower pace dictated by the safety car itself. Surely it's far simpler to judge whether the car behind the safety car is the race leader or not, than to judge whether some level of damage to a car constitutes a justifiable pit stop or not?

[WhiteBlue]

The problem for Alonso was surely that the pits were open to following drivers. If they had been closed for all he had had no problem.

But that wouldn't have been a problem had he been released by the safety car. He would have been circulating at the same delta times as all the other cars instead of the slower pace dictated by the safety car itself. Surely it's far simpler to judge whether the car behind the safety car is the race leader or not, than to judge whether some level of damage to a car constitutes a justifiable pit stop or not?

No. If the pits are closed and no free pit stops occur al drivers slow down to save fuel and you have no problem any more. Checking for damage is simple and the problem usually doesn't occur.

[myurr]

No. If the pits are closed and no free pit stops occur al drivers slow down to save fuel and you have no problem any more. Checking for damage is simple and the problem usually doesn't occur.

Sorry but going to have to disagree. Damage is not always simple and there will still be winners and losers. What if a driver has a scuffed rim - could fail at any time as we have seen many times in the past, but they get a free tyre stop if they replace it. Or as in Valencia Hamilton pitted to replace his damaged front wing and got a free tyre stop out of it? Or does he need to pit twice, once under the safety car for the nose, once for his tyres after the safety car is released!? If so then surely this would encourage drivers to stay out with damaged cars, understeering around the track even at safety car speeds, just because they don't want to have to pit twice. You still have a lottery despite your intention of avoiding one, you just change the way the luck of the draw is decided.

If all drivers are driving to their delta time and the leader is picked up by the SC at the end of the pits then there can be no large advantage gained or lost and there's no reason for subjective damage checks. The only reason Alonso lost out so badly was because the safety car held him unnecessarily. If he'd been released then at most he would have lost a few seconds to Hamilton and would have likely kept his place.

Edit: In fact thinking more about your ruling, you are actively encouraging those drivers with damaged cars to race back to the pits as fast as they can in order to have their cars fixed, as they're the only ones who can gain an advantage through pitting. Are you really sure that is a good idea?

[WhiteBlue]

I feel that these concerns are more theoretical than practical. The majority of free pit stops doesn't involve damage. If there is a minor number of cars that fall foul of the rules by entering the pits with damage during the closure the rule can invoke a penalty for that. Damaged car usually means bad luck anyway. If you manage to have damage that cannot remain unattended for some slow safety car laps you can as well accept the bad luck of a pit penalty. It will discourage the profiteers that do not have real damage. At least that would not be as distortive as the current rule.

I think that this whole delta business is unrealistic. If most drivers violate the rule there must be something wrong with it.

[ISLAMATRON]

Close the pits, end of dicussion, with stacked pits in F1 the team driver right behind(like Massa yesterday) incurs a double penalty.

Soon as the SC is put out pits should be closed, anyone already in the pit lane can complete their stop no problem, otherwise pits stay closed until the SC comes off the track, nobody is allowed to follow the SC into the pits.

If someone needs to pit for damage they go to the back of the line, end of story.

Green flag stops are more exciting exciting anyway.

The Delta is BS.

As soon as the SC sign is put out everyone should have to engage the pit speed limiter

[WhiteBlue]

As soon as the SC sign is put out everyone should have to engage the pit speed limiter

All good points. But I don't agree with that last point. If the free pit stops are prohibited drivers will automatically reduce the pace to save fuel. Let them proceed behind the safety car at the SC speed. They will have less issues with cold tyres that way. If you let them go at 60 or 80 kmh your tyre temp will go down a lot more.

[ESPImperium]

Personally i think we should go back to 2008 regs, if a driver pits for damage or tyres, he gets held at the end of the pits for one whole lap and goes a lap down. If refueling ever comes back, this would be the penalty of refueling when the pit lane is closed.

As for the likes of a SC limit, good idea, but flawed.

The delta thing is BS, but the delta should be such that the lap time should be at least 50 seconds slower than the pole time. If a driver fails to do this, simple and honest black flag.

One thing id like to see back, and i know it will F people off, but lets get the re start in race order, P1 to P24 please, not P1-P20-P21-P2 etc..., wave the slower cars thrugh please, yes a race restart will take longer, but if its done after the start finish line of the first lap under SC conditions it can be done quick enough.

One other thing id like to see is a line where the leading driver must start back to race pace from, roughly 150m from the SC line at the pit lane entry, this way a driver cannot back the pack up.

We need a clear and consice set of rules for saftey cars, the current rules are as clear as mud.

[autogyro]

+1
Lets not forget for one second that the primary purpose of the SC is to slow and control the cars to prevent a dangerous situation getting worse.

[mep]

During that time no refueling or tire changes are allowed. Generally no major changes on the cars are allowed except of parts damaged during accidents.

It may have escaped your attention that re fueling is banned as of 2010. Therefore opening the pit lane during SC makes no sense but gives unnecessary complications.

You might not believe it but after watching 8 grand prix this year and following this forum very carefully I already did notice that there is no refueling anymore.
Nevertheless I wrote the rules in this way because I am forward looking and don't want to create a loophole when refueling might be allowed again in the future. [-(

It seems like you missed the fact that teams still have to use two different kinds of tires and therefore need to pit. You could bring a rule now who says that drivers are allowed to use only one single tire during the race like 2005 and by this you can close the pits.
But hey then it’s totally useless to close pits because there is nothing left you are allowed to there. We saw such kind of rules (closed pits, no tire change allowed) already and as expected they failed terrible. We can be lucky that the current rules are not the best but quite ok.

[Paul]

...

As soon as the SC sign is put out everyone should have to engage the pit speed limiter

Problem with speed limiting is that everyone will still be racing. They will be hugging the inside line in corners to shave meters and get closer to the car in front, and also not lifting through the scene of the accident where it really is crucial to slow down for the sake of safety of everyone around them.

[WhiteBlue]

During that time no refueling or tire changes are allowed. Generally no major changes on the cars are allowed except of parts damaged during accidents.

It may have escaped your attention that re fueling is banned as of 2010. Therefore opening the pit lane during SC makes no sense but gives unnecessary complications.

It seems like you missed the fact that teams still have to use two different kinds of tires and therefore need to pit. You could bring a rule now who says that drivers are allowed to use only one single tire during the race like 2005 and by this you can close the pits.
But hey then it’s totally useless to close pits because there is nothing left you are allowed to there. We saw such kind of rules (closed pits, no tire change allowed) already and as expected they failed terrible. We can be lucky that the current rules are not the best but quite ok.

I believe that you have not thought this through. Of course teams need to pit at some time to make a tyre change but this isn't as rigid a requirement as pitting for refueling. Without refueling in time a car stops and the race is over. If you carry the tyres through a safety car phase nothing really happens unless the race ends under SC and you have never had a change before. It is highly unlikely that this will ever happen and if it does a penalty in this unlikely case is something a team needs to figure into its strategy.

So you see, there really is no reason to provide any "free" pitstops that potentially create a huge distortion of the racing order based on luck. The only reason to keep "free" pit stops is the drama that the lottery creates and that would be very unsporting. It would give rise to clever rule bending as seen by Hamilton and the demonstrations of hate and desperations that we saw from Alonso and Ferrari.

[Just_a_fan]

What I don't understand is why people want to change the rules all of the time. It's just knee-jerk rubbish that one might expect from a politician.

There's nothing intrinsically wrong with the rules as they are now. Sometimes a driver will get lucky, sometimes he'll be unlucky. You know what? That's how life works; hey, live with it!

[WhiteBlue]

What I don't understand is why people want to change the rules all of the time.

Not all the time but when it becomes clear that they were made for a fundamentally different type of race and do not fit the current format. The SC rule was made for sprint races with refueling. We have a potential non stop format now which is only interrupted by the artificial tyre change rule.

There's nothing intrinsically wrong with the rules as they are now.

There is. Read the complaints about the Valencia race and you will find what is wrong. In a race with two or three refueling stops a "free" lottery stop going wrong was already bad news but with the current format your race is ruined beyond remedy if the only stop is messed up. The impact is so drastic that you are invited to break the safety car rule because the mandatory drive through may carry a lesser position penalty.

On top you have the moronic delta speed rule that imposes residual lap times at arbitrary points during a SC lap. Drivers can be 50 m away from the SCL#1 and they get a residual lap time they must obey. They have practically no time to realize something came up on the dash display, figure out what they have to do and push the brakes full power to comply. It happened to Robert Kubica this race and he was penalized 5s for something he could not comply with. Even Charlie Whiting agreed with that.

[u401768]

i think the safetycar rule should be updated, and also take away the free pit stop, but leave the options open. to this end i think the following would be a good start point:-

a) Safety car picks up the leader everyone else goes through and goes to the delta till leader is picked up)
b) The pits should be open at all times during this period.
c) IF the team change tyres, nose cone etc – they must do a drive through after the safetycar has gone in, and with in 3 laps of this happening.
Note – the would be able to declare a wet race, as currently done so, which would negate the drive through if it throws it down with rain.

This would let nose cones etc be changed, but then if you have a driver who wants to make stay out, they still get the advantage of doing so – but means there are no free stops for anyone else

It’s a nice easy option – and leaves a lot of space for creativity, and no one can say they are running out of fuel etc!!

[myurr]

Yes the current implementation of the delta time is moronic and should be updated. There's no reason it could not be adjusted so that on the first lap it takes into account current track position, and also it should show a +/- adjustment on the entire lap based on current position compared to the required delta at that point. This would aid drivers maintain a sensible pace around the entire lap.

u401768's post also highlights another issue that White Blue hasn't considered with shutting the pit lane - rain. If the weather conditions change significantly enough whilst the SC is deployed then teams must be able to pit. This reintroduces your hated element of random luck and the problems with stacking.

u401768's solution may work, but the more I think about it the more scatter gun it becomes and it becomes much more dependent on luck (mainly due to variations in strategy and who does what). I need to think more about the possible scenarios.