Piraxian wrote:Could something like the following possibly work? I'm not a massive fan of safety cars for the record, but thats because they always seem to be out for 2-3 laps longer then required so all cars can un lap themselves. I'm trying to come up with a way to avoid that so a safety car could be out for a minimum of 2 laps if the issue can be resolved quickly and this is about the best i've got so far.
The way I see it is that once there's an accident, you have a much higher risk factor on the track. Take Sutils accident; At the point he crashed, you had a car in the barriers in the run off area of a high speed corner. Imagine if just a few cars later, someone else crashes at the exact same spot and hits that car in the barriers. Hitting a car wreckage at those speeds will be a lot more dangerous than hitting a barrier that is designed to absorb energy in case of an impact.
So, when you have a crash, like Sutils crash, and end up with a dangerous zone, I guess it currently boils down to three choices;
1.)
You either deploy the safety car which will send out a delta time to each and every driver on the track that they will have to follow until the pack line up behind the safety car. This process takes several laps, bunches up the grid, possibly altering the outcome of the race order and in the time it is required to unlap the lapped cars to restore the correct order.
2.)
Add double-waved yellows and clear the accident zone without the deployment of a safety car.
3.)
red-flag the race.
Which one of those 3 options are chosen, I guess, depends on the situation and how race control judges the severity of the accident and its impact. Depending on where the accident took place, I would think that it also depends highly on the duration on how long and how easy (and how safe) it is to clear the accident zone. Every added second that car/wreckage is in the barriers is at an increased risk to any one passing that zone.
In regards to the Bianchi accident; Option 2 was chosen and as soon as Sutil was out of the car, the safety crew started with the clearing of the accident zone. Bianchi was just ahead of Sutil when he crashed and we know that Bianchi crashed in the exact same spot exactly a lap later. From the time deltas everyone was driving and from the video footage we've seen, we can deduct that it took the crew/tractor roughly 2 minutes to reach Sutils car, lift it from the barriers and was on its way off the track when Bianchi crashed into it. I'd say that in roughly 2:30 minutes, the accident zone would have been completely cleared and the yellow-zone would have been lifted completely.
IMO, that is some excellent work with minimal impact on the race. If they had deployed a safety car at that point, I'm fairly confident we would have had various voices conclude that the safety car is overkill and we would have easily lost 3-5 laps. Now, I'm not arguing that safety should be traded for less impact on the race; of course not. Safety comes first. I'm more raising the point what a safety car would have caused and/or avoided in this specific moment. I also wonder, if a safety car had changed the outcome. It most likely would have, because every car would have ended up at a slightly different point on the track, hence, even if Bianchi had still crashed, he most likely would have hit an empty barrier instead. But would the enforced delta time ("safety car on track") have avoided cars going off? From what I understand; standing water and insufficient worn intermediate tyres were just as much cause for Bianchi going off in that corner rather than pure speed alone.
It's an extremely unfortunate incident - a chain reaction if you like. One can argue that perhaps, the exact location of Sutils accident warranted a safety-car - but in doing so, it would have taken longer to clear the accident zone (assuming the crew would have waited until the race is "neutralized" -> all following the safety car) and I wonder if the enforced delta time everyone would be driving would have been sufficiently slow to avoid aquaplaning in the high speed corner of Sutils crash. I'm not sure.
One way or another; Double yellow flags should and must be enforced properly. It clearly states that drivers must lift and be prepared to stop - that to me means that in the zone, they must be prepared to brake at all times and able to stop within the distance that they see. That also implies that with worn tyres or standing water on the track, an even slower track must be chosen. For all they know, there could be debris or other dangerous objects on the road. You just can't rely on race-control to know in every split second what is going on on the track. The crew along the track are the best judge and when they start waving yellows or even double yellows, it signalizes a danger zone ahead, which should be taken seriously.
I'll say it again; Motorsport is dangerous. We have artificial tyres that exploit increased wear to spice up 'the show'. This in itself is a security concern if you look at it. Or that cars are effectively trading off driving around the track under heavy rain on worn intermediates instead of pitting for adequate tyres and falling back ~25seconds. We shouldn't stop at making the sport a safer place, but regardless how far you go; you will never change the fact that driving cars at the absolute limit is dangerous. If you take any of the accidents within the last 10 years where drivers have by miracle walked away with as little as a scratch, the only conclusion would be to stop racing alltogether and/or introduce a series where drivers sit in a simulator and remote control their cars from a safe location. In a sense, we've been very lucky that we haven't had
*more serious accidents in F1 for the last 20 years - but at the same time, should not ignore what has been done to make this as "safe" as it is.
*EDIT; rephrased the sentance to reflect the situation more accurately.
