Here's his 3rd start onboard ... poor start + the other aforementioned factors
What the hell?? Why did it slow down so much after leaving Vettel's slipstream? Did he have an issue with the engine??
Thanks for cleaning out Hollus !
Agreed ^^^Big Tea wrote: βMon Sep 14, 2020 7:58 pmHollus, Thank you for your effort on our behalf. I have no excuses except that this is such an absorbing site I get dragged along despite saying to myself I will not.
Your efforts are appreciated, and apologies from myself, and I am sure on behalf of others.
Edit, PS this is not an arse kiss, We still need a big stick waved
Are there no "spotters" employed in F1 teams? I thought there is at least a few people who follows the critical camera angles or standing on pitwall at race starts/restarts and can warn the driver if there is a stalled car/or anything dangerous on the grid...and making sure the driver is aware the cars in his blindspot. I can hear those kind of spotter-driver communications constantly in Indycar, and not only on ovals. Is it maybe some stupid rule again that forbids this in F1?
I don't think a spotter would have helped in that restart incident. On restarts like these, the only way a driver won't get left behind when the front runners punch it is to watch the car in front of them and anticipate/go as soon as the car ahead goes. If you relied on a spotter, you add the reaction time of the spotter, to the delay it'll take them to actually talk to you then your reaction time over that... You'll get rear-ended instead.kalinka wrote: βTue Sep 15, 2020 7:46 amAre there no "spotters" employed in F1 teams? I thought there is at least a few people who follows the critical camera angles or standing on pitwall at race starts/restarts and can warn the driver if there is a stalled car/or anything dangerous on the grid...and making sure the driver is aware the cars in his blindspot. I can hear those kind of spotter-driver communications constantly in Indycar, and not only on ovals. Is it maybe some stupid rule again that forbids this in F1?
I don't think that was the main contributor to the accident though. IMO the main issue was that the new SC rules say you cannot pass until you cross the start/finish line instead of the previous SC line. This means that on a circuit where the tow from the straights is substantial (like this), the leaders will likely bunch everyone up all the way until just before the line.kalinka wrote: βTue Sep 15, 2020 8:14 amIf not a spotter, then his race engineer should have at least warned him to close that gap, way before anything happened. Also, I don't know why would they(drivers) have to rely on the SC lights on the track . Drivers well behind the leader should be regularly warned for SC coming in as soon as team becomes aware.
I'm aware of Russel's reason why he wanted to do that, but that can be avoided. There are system for this in other series ( Indycar ), where the restart is not automatic, and can be cancelled if the cars are not lined up correctly for the restart. It was a failure to enable racing only from the start/finish line, but not tweaking anything to support that.e30ernest wrote: βTue Sep 15, 2020 8:23 amI don't think that was the main contributor to the accident though. IMO the main issue was that the new SC rules say you cannot pass until you cross the start/finish line instead of the previous SC line. This means that on a circuit where the tow from the straights is substantial (like this), the leaders will likely bunch everyone up all the way until just before the line.kalinka wrote: βTue Sep 15, 2020 8:14 amIf not a spotter, then his race engineer should have at least warned him to close that gap, way before anything happened. Also, I don't know why would they(drivers) have to rely on the SC lights on the track . Drivers well behind the leader should be regularly warned for SC coming in as soon as team becomes aware.
The cars behind could not see the front runners, they can only see 1-2 cars ahead with the halo and how low they sit. So they are reliant on seeing the reactions of the cars directly ahead to react on whether to go or not.
Russel had a big gap in front either because he wanted to get a good run up to the cars ahead (by anticipating the go), space to warm his tires further, or space to cool down his engine. When he closed in on that gap for the restart, everyone behind him thought that the race was on again. The cars directly behind Russel were able to slow back down (Magnussen). However the cars behind that didn't have enough time to react so they piled on.
It is a simple thing in many racing series...pack comes together to the last corner, lead car crosses the line, lights go green, racing starts.The way they did it in F1 with a quarter of a lap time for the lead car to disappear is completely uncommon.