What is wrong with the safety car rule?

[747heavy]

Thanks for the update, it´s well possible
Typical German
allways a little bit over the top with there technology =D>

Would still think, that it would be easier to measure the torque in the wheelgun.
I could see that they maybe measure a pessure spike in the wheelgun, when the wheelnut stops
turning.
But this is pure speculation on my side, I don´t know for sure, but I take my hat off and be impressed, if they measure "on board" (inside the car)

[marcush.]

+1 747h

to me it seems very important to make systems failsafe you could use a lot of available information to make the car die in the matter of seconds.just think about the significant cross weights you will get as soon as the car starts to lose a wheel.. but that is safety not really solving the issue itself.

but of course the main goal has to be :avoid the thing to happen .countermeasures in terms of not releasing the car without properly torqued nut is only second best .
the true countermeasurte is :
avoiding the the wheelgun to be operative without the nut in the socket as a first step,wich is in my view a solvable item.
Next step is the socket only able to release the nut when tightened to the correct torque...

Of course the true question was :is a wheelnut the correct means of attaching the wheel as quickly and savely as possible ?

What about a bajonett type fixation ,going with a hydraulic clamping triggered by the mechanical motion ,perhaps? (like a hydraulic vise) ,you would build the force by a say quarter turn into a locked position .No separate parts (Nut) to get lost,no thread that can jam ,the system is visibly in a locked position and could even be designed to self ratchet into the locked position without being able to overtorque itself.
Get rid of the problem ,not make headstands to optimise something that is not really made for the job .

[mep]

We should not have to see pits stops in the first place. They are artificially forced on the drivers. Take a way the bullshit rule and the safety car will become completely uncontroversial. Why can people not see that?

Assumption, because they want the chaos and the lottery for entertainment purposes.

Why do you always argue for boring things?
It is racing man.
There must be some action.
There must be lottery and especially big drama.
It must be entertaining. It was never meant to be fair.
Thats why it's called motorsport.

[komninosm]

We should not have to see pits stops in the first place. They are artificially forced on the drivers. Take a way the bullshit rule and the safety car will become completely uncontroversial. Why can people not see that?

Assumption, because they want the chaos and the lottery for entertainment purposes.

Why do you always argue for boring things?
It is racing man.
There must be some action.
There must be lottery and especially big drama.
It must be entertaining. It was never meant to be fair.
Thats why it's called motorsport.

I dislike the rule that you have to use both compounds too.
I think what we need is slower hard tires and faster soft tires so the driver can choose to go all race on 1 or 2 hards or mix in a few softs and still be able to go faster enough that he makes up for the lost time in pits.
Also people would pit if they flat spot their tires or something and change strategy. But making them use both types is stupid, especially since hard tires are not much slower than soft ones like they used to in the 90s.

[FW17]

The current safety car rule makes a race a lottery as a NASCAR race. The rules of safety car is more in tune with BE requirement for entertaining show rather than pure racing.

It has also simplified.

In the 90's (like suzuka 94) when the race was stopped and restarted the time difference before the stoppage was added to the chequred flag result. I feel this is a more fair way of doing things rather than present lottery system.

[raymondu999]

I thought they did a staggered restart no? If the time difference was added then potentially the 1st on the road might not be 1st in the race. For example Vettel had a 20s lead over Button before the SC last race. If Button then finished the race 10s before Vettel, that would mean Vettel won by 10s?

[beelsebob]

I thought they did a staggered restart no? If the time difference was added then potentially the 1st on the road might not be 1st in the race. For example Vettel had a 20s lead over Button before the SC last race. If Button then finished the race 10s before Vettel, that would mean Vettel won by 10s?

It doesn't work as a rule anyway. Example scenario:

30 laps from the end, car A is leading by 20 seconds but is nursing a minor problem, the SC comes out.
car B closes up the gap.
After a further 28 laps, car B gets past car A, but cannot in 2 remaining laps open out 20 seconds.

What could conceivably have happened instead (if the SC hadn't been involved) is that car B would spend 28 laps closing down 20 seconds, and then immediately pass car A.

[FW17]

I thought they did a staggered restart no? If the time difference was added then potentially the 1st on the road might not be 1st in the race. For example Vettel had a 20s lead over Button before the SC last race. If Button then finished the race 10s before Vettel, that would mean Vettel won by 10s?

It doesn't work as a rule anyway. Example scenario:

30 laps from the end, car A is leading by 20 seconds but is nursing a minor problem, the SC comes out.
car B closes up the gap.
After a further 28 laps, car B gets past car A, but cannot in 2 remaining laps open out 20 seconds.

What could conceivably have happened instead (if the SC hadn't been involved) is that car B would spend 28 laps closing down 20 seconds, and then immediately pass car A.

But wouldn't have closed on the 20 seconds had it not been for the safety car.

[beelsebob]

But wouldn't have closed on the 20 seconds had it not been for the safety car.

Huh? "car B would spend 28 laps closing down 20 seconds, and then immediately pass car A."

The point being that car A has a problem that's slowly getting worse, B is able to pass easily near the end, but not easily immediately. Under that rule, he would be considered to not be fast enough and not win. Without the safety car occuring at all, he would win.

[strad]

there should be no safety car.

[raymondu999]

How do you propose to slow the field down enough to allow Marshalls onto the track though?

[feni_remmen]

there should be no safety car.

I think this discussion has been had before. It seems that with the current implementation of the SC, it would be fairer to just make all the cars activate an 80kph speed limiter at the end of their next braking zone and force all the cars to drive with the limiter engaged until the track is cleared. We discussed this a while back and someone made the valid point, that when all the cars are bunched up behind the SC it gives the marshals a few minutes to clear the track before the cars come back around... It seems to me the way the sectors are speed limited now, the cars aren't bunching up very quickly so this isn't happening. I would be more than happy to go back to the days of no safety cars, unless it's really critical, but the reality is, only the guys in front hate the safety car. The general public seem to like it (or at least not see it as unfair), and it's only the fanatical fans who think it makes a farce of GP's.

[raymondu999]

i agree a limiter would be a much fairer way. For example if someone is ahead with a 30s lead (on merit) then that wouldn't be wiped out because of a safety car.

Having said that, if that front car is ailing, it allows him to preserve his lead, which would otherwise be eaten up by the 2nd car.

[beelsebob]

i agree a limiter would be a much fairer way. For example if someone is ahead with a 30s lead (on merit) then that wouldn't be wiped out because of a safety car.

Having said that, if that front car is ailing, it allows him to preserve his lead, which would otherwise be eaten up by the 2nd car.

Part of the point of the safety car is to close up the gaps on track. Marshals need all the cars to go past in 20 seconds, and then have a minute of clear track to do the business.

[raymondu999]

True. You can't work well if a car is passing by every 5 seconds.