Do we need the safety car anymore?

[dave kumar]

Under the safety car, the drivers are given target or delta time to maintain. From my understanding the drivers get this information via the digital display on their steering wheel. And if drivers aren't within a certain range of the delta time they are penalised.

Do we actually need a safety car at all with this technology in place. Charlie Whiting can monitor the laptimes of each car so he could set a delta time for the drivers and penalise anybody who exceeds it without the need for a safety car on track.

What is the benefit of removing the safety car?
Well I'm thinking of scenarios where there has been an incident at one point on circuit that the marshals are required to attend to. The rest of the track is clear. Could the drivers be given a delta time - just for the sector that the marshals are working in - that ensures the marshals can do their job safely, and that allows the drivers to race as normal in the other two sectors.

We could create a 'safety car' sector (where the marshals are working) and the rest of the track is operating in normal race conditions. It is an extreme version of yellow flags where instead of showing caution, the cars must maintain a given delta time and not overtake.

Would this make 'safety car' periods less disruptive to the race whilst not putting the marshals at increased risk of injury?

[andrew]

You need something to control the pace. Relying only on delta times will just lead to masses of penalties when the inevitable happens i.e. they all go too fast.

[raymondu999]

I think though it eliminates the somewhat unfair element of eliminating any gaps between the racers.

[Twaddle]

I think though it eliminates the somewhat unfair element of eliminating any gaps between the racers.

The elimination of gaps and creation of a snake behind the safety car is exactly what is needed to allow the marshals to work safely though. A whole bunch of small gaps is inherently dangerous (see the marshal slipping over on the track in front of a car yesterday for example), what's needed is one big gap so that theres a relatively large window in which marshals can safely work on the track.

[ESPImperium]

Teame being teams will always try to optomise things for them, this would lead to what andrew said above, massive ammounts of penalties.

You need something to control the pace.

Leave things as they should be, pace cars are old technology, but technology that still work and works well. If it aint broke???

However i think there should be something to negate the effect of the leader dictating the pace from a restart. Not sure what can be done with that one.

[dave kumar]

Good point about the need to create a snake of cars to give the marshals a big gap in which to safely work. I hadn't thought of that.

But still if the incident only requires the marshals to be on the side of the track - say to recover a car - and not cross the track to recover bits of carbon, then this could be step above waved yellows but below the safety car deployment.

I don't know how many incidents would fall in to this category but it might relieve us of the need for so many safety car periods.

[timbo]

I don't know how many incidents would fall in to this category but it might relieve us of the need for so many safety car periods.

So many?
I don't recall seeing a safety-car this season until Monaco and Canada this year.
And both tracks are narrow with no runoffs and debris usually stay on the racing line.
So I don't see a problem at all.

[hecti]

I was at the race yesterday and the safety car was out way too long. I was so glad they didnt bring it out when Maldonado hit the wall in front of me. Also during the restart after the rain everyone was booing at the safety car, it was hilarious.
They need to let the drivers race sometimes, and the marshals need to work faster.

[bettonracing]

Using current GPS technology I can think of a few ways to eliminate the need for the safety car to maintain pace, but I don't think there's any way to eliminate the need for a reconnaissance vehicle (especially during red flags). It's icing on the cake that the recon vehicle is heavy (read: mass dampened), has various traction control algorithms built in, and has better visibility from the driving position than the cars following it (read: "Follow me because I can see the carbon shards in the road better than You can)...

Regards,

Kurt

P.S. Car collectors around the world will probably ask for Your head on a platter for starting this thread.

[strad]

We have no need for the so called safety car....none

[beelsebob]

I think it's time we added a Danger car to F1 instead.

[DaveKillens]

I'm sure everyone has now viewed McNish's crash at LeMans. The point is that when things go wrong, no one can predict the outcome or consequences.

And when the s--t hits the fan, you need a robust, simple, proven, and flexible method of controlling the resulting chaos and restoring order. And it makes sense to keep things as simple as possible and avoid adding extra layers of complexity to a crisis.

For example, just look at the basic tool for extinguishing fires, the CO2 extinguisher, It's just a gas bottle, a valve opened by a simple handle locked by a pin. Some have a pressure gauge to monitor capacity, but that's all there is to it.

And because it is simple, it is reliable and works.

The safety car is a well proven method for controlling a pack of aggressive drivers, they have no choice but to slow down and follow.

You never know what an accident may bring, the result could be a ruptured fuel cell that drenches spectators, causing them to be in flames, and running all over the place. That's pretty freaky and weird, but you can't rule out this kind of horror scene.

Then all of a sudden, you are relying on some complex electronic signalling system to control the cars? What if the data is incorrect and some driver following his delta comes over a crest to discover three or four marshalls attempting to fight a fire in the middle of the track? I'm not willing to risk other's lives when a simple and effective method now exists.

The safety car goes out, everyone slows down, that's it, control established and maintained.

Now there's an additional benefit from creating a train, and that's the speed of cleanup and restoration. With a train, once it passes everyone involved in the cleanup has a pretty good idea of how much time they have before the train comes around again. That way, a team of four people with push brooms can sweep a decent section of track clean. But if they don't know where or when the next car will come zipping by, it will take much, much longer. In fact, a job that might take 90 seconds with four men may inflate to 30 minutes, and in a shoddy and haphazard manner.

[Ciro Pabón]

Disciplined rows, time to clear the track.

Oh, c'mon, Dave.

Just one word: boring.

I agree heartily with Strad. I know where he is going, we've discussed it many, many times. First, we talk about the boredom permeating F1. Then, naturally, the point of the safety cars pops up by itself.

So, Strad, let's explain our secret idea to the world. It is about time, the patent is only days away.

This is it:

An alternative would be to hire people like the marshal we all saw tumbling in Canada.

Presto! No safety car needed.

You just keep a row of fat marshals standing by at every straight. As soon as the accident happens, the marshals go into the tarmac.

Then, as the first car zips by over the crest of the hill at 320 kph, they tumble in panic, they fall on the track and they cover the carbon fiber shards with their squishy bodies.

First, safety is served.

Secondly, the landscape of squished marshals intermixed with car pieces would increase the level of the spectacle.

Thirdly, in Canada, evidently, the rain would carry away the remains quickly.

I don't know why people fail to see the simpler solutions.

Say no to safety cars! Say yes to squishy marshals!

Now, about the point of used tyres deployed as barriers... have you thought of using standing squishy marshals instead?

They could still use the flags, even when deployed in position and tied (so they won't fall when they see the car coming). We (well, actually it was Strad's idea. In our team, he's the brain, I'm the beauty) have thought of using kevlar ropes, so no squishy marshal (except perhaps the strongest ones) could leave his post unattended.

Isn't that a blend of spectacle and safety everybody can agree on?

Do Strad and myself have to find the solution to everything, people? For the love of Pete...

[Steven]

I am quite convinced we cannot do without a safety car. While the speed limit rule currently in place is effective to prevent drivers to rush to the pitlane, implementing such rule to eliminate the need for an SC would be unclear and too complicated to viewers. The SC procedure is well known and everybody understands why at times it is needed.

However, at Canada especially the SC was abused under the guise of safety. During the race, I noticed that my opinion on that is nearly identical to some of the better known journalists, as well as the public.

First of all, it was stupid to let the race start under the SC. Of course Red Bull were in favour, they were on pole... And even if they really needed to start that way, the SC could easily have left the track after 1 lap.

I agree with SC's because of incidents, but the judgement of race control on rainy situations at this time is simply ridiculous.

[andrew]

I think the the safety car yeasterday was due to the Pirelli wets and intermediates being unknown quantities in that no one really knew how they would perform.

Whilst the safety car periods were annoying (when it wasn't out due to an accident) I understand the reasoning if it was due to the tyres.