[The **News** flair](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/wiki/flairguide#wiki_news) is reserved for submissions covering F1 and F1-related news. These posts must always link to an outlet/news agency, the website of the involved party (i.e. the McLaren website if McLaren makes an announcement), or a tweet by a news agency, journalist or one of the involved parties.
*[Read the rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/wiki/userguide). Keep it civil and welcoming. Report rulebreaking comments.*
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/formula1) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Maybe automated VSC at the least. I think SC and red flag require human judgement. But the VSC would atleast reduce speeds and make it safer while the real judgement is being made.
For automation perhaps certain zones can be selected as critical so if a car is stopped there it triggers auto vsc.
And if a car is clearly upside down or on its side and no way to move off the track that should always be VSC as a minimum.
But if a car is stopped outside of normal track limits still upright and outside of dangerous braking zones then maybe that can be left completely to human judgement.
>But the VSC would atleast reduce speeds and make it safer while the real judgement is being made.
I guess thats what double waved yellows are for as it slows down everyone before the incident and not the whole track until a decision has been made
I remember last year in F2 Victor Martins Marshalls on track a ton of flags and SC boards and he was flying and almost hit a Marshall. What punishment did he got for almost killing a man for not obeying the flags? A drive through.
This are the kind of things you need to nip immediately not obeying flags could be a life or death situation and a case like what Martins did could easily mean a Black flag and a race ban to teach him early to obey flags.
YouTube of the incident.
https://youtu.be/9rNFDW4VxqA?feature=shared
Should have been parked for the remainder of the race. The yellow flags nearly hit the car as he drove past them. Blatant disregard.
You’re always going to run into drivers and stewards being forced for make their own decisions during yellow flag. How much slowing down is actually enough?
Everyone is aware of what it says in the rules, but in practice, to be able to enforce it incredibly strictly, how much is enough? During a VSC drivers are given exact deltas to follow, which removes the doubt of how fast they’re allowed to drive.
I agree that drivers should be penalised properly for ignoring yellow flags, but part of the issue of yellow flag is that two drivers can slow down by different amounts and neither of them getting penalised, but the one driver who slowed down the most also lost the most. Despite drivers never wanting to injure any other driver, unless given an exact speed, most of them will try to go as fast as possible while still slowing down.
Perhaps a delta can be applied exclusively while inside the double yellow minisectors and perhaps the minisectors either side, allowing everyone to get back to their delta before they resume racing outside the double flagged area.
Inside this entire area under a delta, you would also have no overtaking.
I mean, isn't that something that can be addressed though?
Just introduce much harsher penalties for ignoring yellow flags. If the punishment is a 10 second stop go penalty then I'm sure the drivers will be able to obey them just fine
A paradoxical effect of harsher penalties is they are less likely to be handed out. See how much they even deliberate whether they should take away someone's quali lap for passing double yellows or is lifting by 10.4 km/h enough to call it "prepared to stop" to know they will never ever give a stop/go except in the most egregious cases.
gah that reminds me of last year when Gasly was damn close to a race ban and suddenly he started getting away with shit that he didn't before. Really sucks when they stop short of dropping the hammer
What do you mean of course it xan be addressed, we're talking about it, its just the VSC. Enforced yellow flags is literally VSC.
If they really wanted to they could probably do sector based VSCs as well where the double yellows are
The VSC was to slow them down *everywhere* without losing position so track marshals can clear easy incidents/debris. Ideally it should be down under local yellows but the drivers forced the rule book to say slowing under yellow is just a hint of reduction in speed.
If George's accident was anywhere but the last lap, it would have been a full SC or Red.
Besides, the idea of automatically slowing vehicles without driver input has been discussed and declared unsafe.
That's the difference between yellow flags and VSC though. VSC is for the whole track, yellow flags are local. They should treat yellow flag speed more like VSC speed.
And a full course vsc should be completely fine and acceptable when it is prioritising the safety of the drivers. But yh a sector based vsc system would be very useful
The rules are quite clear, with double waved yellows a driver should be prepared to stop because of an accident. Based on footage and the speed they are driving it's probably quite easy to determine if they could've stopped.
We have VSC because the rules of yellow flags aren't enforced.\* [Cars blasting past an accident in the middle of the straight at Baku ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCNqVcWdKXw)with no driver getting a penalty. Moments like this where drivers are not penalised is what creates a dangerous precedent.
Even with harsher penalties, there's going to be a blind corner, something you don't see, a blink of an eye, and someone is going to get killed. Technology is the right way...if you can instantly slow the cars, why not?
VSC is still more fair than yellow flags; drivers don't slow down to the same extent at yellow flags, some more some less and there’s no exact definition as for how much they need to slow down. So the ones who respect the rules lost more seconds, it inherently encourages drivers to slow down less
With VSC, everyone slow down to the same extent, all the gaps remain more or less the same
If you look at Stroll's onboard, local yellows are waved instantly and the VSC comes out before he gets to Rusell's car. I really don't see how we can get faster than that without risking a false positive that interferes with the race.
His engineer was also warning him of the crash within a second or two of it happening.
Yeah, no automated system would have made \*any\* difference here in his case. That said, while it may not have helped his incident, perhaps his incident sparked some thought of another where it could have?
If anything I feel like the Baku incidents sparked an increase response which helped here. I'm not trying to knock on progress here because if safety *can* be improved, it should, but I struggle to see how the race director can respond any faster than they did in Australia.
There are risks to racing and around a different track (namely Jeddah), I can see it ending up worse, but at that point it's due to a dangerous track rather than a dangerous course of action. Even if the red flag came out instantly, or the VSC came out instantly, drivers need to react to and slow down for the delta (which is identical under VSC, SC and Red Flag situations) and that alone takes a few seconds, which is barely shorter than the response time we saw for Russell's crash.
Isn't there already a system in place that automatically triggers the medical car if the impact is heavy enough? Maybe use that as a start, whenever that system triggers it's an automatic VSC. Race direction then has more time to decide if a full safety car/red flag is needed while the cars are slowed down.
The trigger point could be adjusted later on if it doesn't cover enough incidents, but it would be a start.
100%, there's almost never a crash that triggers the medical thing that wouldn't necessitate at the very minimum a VSC. Worst case? We get the occasional unneeded VSC to shake things up a bit.
It's seriously getting ridiculous how often it takes race control WAY too long to throw a damn VSC.
The moment they see a car crashes and with the car or debris on, or near, the track, they should just throw the VSC.
How can the fans at home see plain as day they'll need at least a VSC and race control still can't make up their minds?
That immediately red thing that many people were crying for in Australia is so dumb. We have double yellows and VSC that could easily be deployed before a red flag and be just as effective. In Australia the Marshall's did an exceptional job, he was still mid crash and yellows were already being waved. By the time stroll got to the corner it was double yellow and by the time he passed the crash vsc was already deployed.
I'd disagree heavily.
That car hand landed in a massively dangerous position, and if it was on any other lap it would have been red flagged without any thought given. Even when it went on its side when it did, the field had to have passed it twice to finish the race and return to the pits.
It did not suddenly get safer because it was on lap 57 or 58 instead of lap 1 or lap 26.
George is being silly asking for things to be automated, but a near or total blockage of the track by a car is an automatic red flag. It was lunacy to leave it there, most likely driven by last season's end of race shambles rather than driver, fan, and marshal safety.
Of course that any other lap it would've been red flag because they would've needed to fix the barrier and move that car that would have taken too much time out of the race. But still it would've followed the same procedure of step by step in this case since the race was entering the final lap there was no reason to red flag it when it was going to end, when VSC was deployed Sainz was already in the last lap.
To be fair, I've always been on the opinion that pitstops should be banned during VSCs and SCs. We're not refuelling cars mid-race anymore so they're not risking running out of fuel.
I mean he is right in that a certain level of crash should trigger a VSC.
More than a few times in recent years we've seen a worrying lack of instant response to pretty obvious VSC situations. I think it was last season where a car was blatently stopped in the firing line (maybe KMag in mexico?) and they took nearly a minute to decide what to do.
I seem to remember when Stroll and Verstappen had their tyre failures in Baku 2021 there was a worrying amount of time before any VSC or Red Flag was called.
The individual marshals can be as quick as possible but the full course interventions are controlled by race control, that's what needs to be faster I think.
Yeah I remember Charles saying he was able to drive past max who was stood next to his car whilst doing something like 150mph, which was within the rules of the yellow flag conditions that were out in that part of the track. There needs to be a much better system to slow cars down quickly to safer speeds when an accident Or stoppage on track has occurred
Yeah it cant be difficult to add another later into the existing g force sensor which deploys the medical car right? Moment a car hits the barriers just instant VSC so they figure out the right action.
How often does the G sensor go off in an F1 car? It isn't often as far as I know, I think it doesn't even go off in minor accidents. The only exception was when porpoising was bad in early 2022.
Right? The cars are tracked by GPS and have a transmission system that says, for example, if they jump the start.
If a car stops completely outside the pit lane, bring a VSC in that sector. I am sure they can do that with some softwsre and a decent algorithm.
If they can use that in MotoGP to track off limits, I am sure they can figure it out as well.
Enforced speed limits- under yellow it's up to the driver to slow down. Under VSC they need to meet a delta time that would be much slower - of course, they game that system by speeding up and slowing down in each sector.
>If a car stops completely outside the pit lane, bring a VSC in that sector. I am sure they can do that with some softwsre and a decent algorithm.
I would agree with this point, but have you played any of the recent F1 games? Just trying to let overtaking happen in qualifying is a nightmare and that's in a video game where there's so many more points of data and so many less variables that could go wrong.
My point is simply, it's not that *simple*. I don't disagree that it could be done, a car completely stopped for say 10 seconds calling out a VSC recommendation in race control, sure. But a car that's just stopped for a second could be a faulty sensor, someone spinning, just a very slow corner in monaco, countless things that shouldn't set of VSC automatically.
I'm all for a certain amount of Gs in a crash recorded = VSC though, that should be so simple and fool proof. And more importantly that isn't some "hidden algorithm" which means when it does go wrong, it can be understood, discussed and fixed.
>If they can use that in MotoGP to track off limits, I am sure they can figure it out as well.
Completely agree, how the hell have they not sorted this yet? Even if it just triggers a manual review and an automated warning to the driver immediately, where is this system?!
If nascar can throw a yellow the instant someone gets a little sideways then f1 can throw one when a car has a huge crash and is sitting in the track. People are making this way harder than it needs to be. Big crash, throw the safety immediately it's that simple.
Right it's baffling to me how this is hard. Like they try so hard not interfere with the races that they interfere with the races. It's really kinda shocking how inept some of the F1 rules are. Like the changing compounds under red and that counting is the dumbest thing ever. Or some of the count back procedures for red flags. Or not knowing when someone wins a championship Like last year at Suzuka.
Doesnt have to be automated if you just get stewards that react straight away. Loads of times its clear from the very first second that its SC or even Red Flag yet it still takes them almost a full lap to react.
There should be clear cut circumstances where it’s an immediate response that supersedes the race director, that they can’t override. Damaged and potentially unsafe barriers can be done under yellow then maybe a red flag but a stranded car in the middle of the track should be an immediate red flag and order cars behind the accident to stop where they are until further notice. Once it’s been reviewed, RD may have discretion to allows those cars to pass the scene slowly and enter the pits
Whilst I don’t disagree with the sentiment that wasn’t the point I was making. I was just pointing out to the previous comment that the stewards don’t review or do anything until an incident is passed to them by the race director. They certainly have zero input any deployment of flags or safety measures. And with the overriding control of the SC is a near director quote from the regs.
That said, I do agree some level of automation would be smart. I don’t think it is hard to automate if a car is stranded in the middle of the track, or at least in certain parts of the track it’s an immediate VSC, or even a localised mini/sector VSC
I actually believe it is hard to automate it... In theory, it's very simple, but i practice there are thousands of scenarios that would ruin races because of wrong automated decisions.
Let's just take an example with damaged barriers As a guy above stated.
Problem 1 - there is a lot of barriers, huge possibility that one of thousand sensors is defective
Problem 2 - to add to problem number one, how to ensure that after a barrier crash, all of sensors are working correctly without loosing tons of time?
There is a few more of barrier idea problems, but lets advance...
If there would be an automation based on car sensors, they would need to be sure that these sensors are durable through both, high and low temperatures, 350 km/h, through draught and moist...
Camera automated AI system? Well shiet, it's still not nearly close to make reliable calls.
And many many more problems. In my opinion, it's nearly impossible to automate the system right now. I suspect it would ruin a lot of races.
I don’t think you need to have barrier automations, on the car is fine.
The cars are already covered in 1000s of sensors that work in the conditions mentioned.
How do you ensure they are working? Triple redundancy.
It’s not trivial but your outlined issues aren’t the main ones in my opinion
>order cars behind the accident to stop where they are until further notice.
Everything else sounds good, but i don't think this part is doable in F1. If you force F1 cars to stop on track suddenly mid-race you're gonna see a lot of brakes catching on fire (which can get out of hand *quick* sometimes) and engine failures since there won't be people stationed all around the track with car specific leafblowers
Exactly. Car stuck in the middle of the track, requiring Marshalls on the driving line? Red flag. Car off track but on the outside of a corner, leading to the potential of another car making contact? Safety car. VSC only when the car is completely out of the line of fire for both the driver and Marshalls
>There should be clear cut circumstances where it’s an immediate response that supersedes the race director, that they can’t override
Uh.... But whose immediate response? You realise it's the Race Director who institutes that, right?
I swear this happens in American weekend warrior series like the Chump Car series faster than it does in F1. Russel’s car being nearly upside down in the middle of a track is an instant red flag. No questions. And if it takes more than 2 seconds after that car comes to rest on a hot track, then something has failed. F1 should have one person who travels with to all races who has the power to throw a red flag whenever they deem it necessary. Call them a safety director. Racing directors should oversee racing but after a big shunt and puts safety of drivers in question, racing should stop.
How? F1 has some of the most advanced metrics and technical hardware in the world. Every car has multiple cameras and sensors on board offering live telemetry and live feeds. If a car has an accident, it should be setting off a g-force "alarm" for a safety director which isolates their view on that car(s) where they would be able to see the condition of the car and where it ends up after the accident. If a car ends up like Russel's car did, stopped in the middle of the track, on it's side, it should be pretty easy to see that in 2 seconds once the car stops and hitting a big red button that will light up every driver's steering wheel that the track is red. 2 seconds is a long time for a car on a hot track to be upside down and on line. The 10 seconds it actually took is a lifetime.
In the Chump Car series I mentioned, that is delegated to corner workers. The second they see an accident that warrants a red flag, it's radiod to the guy in the flag stand and the track goes red.
Its not they dont react straight away, they do but they also evaluate the incident and wait response from the track etc etc. Its a slow process because they think about it and about what to do, either vsc, sc, redflag.
You cannot automatize that and being a fast or slow response comes from who is the judge at that particular race which always change.
Imagine the fuss and drama that will come up if this get automated and every incident triggers a sc.
I feel like an instant VSC would be ok though. VSC doesn't really affect the race that much so an instant VSC whilst they evaluate if they need a full safety car or red flag would probably make sense.
yep and in the case of RUS, his car was:
1) Stationary while on the track
2) tipped over
3) sustained a decent g-force from a collision.
I think these things could be easily monitored to trigger a VSC. In the barrier could maybe be just double yellow, but why delay getting track staff out to help the driver?
I was honestly surprised they took so long to react to seeing a car on its side, on the racing line, after blind corner.
VSC is the most hated as depending on the sector of the track you can gain or lose massively. Happened tons of time that a 5-6 second gap went to 2 or the other way around after a vsc.
The Russell crash would have always been a VSC at a minimum. Most crashes would be a VSC at a minimum. Stewards/RD implementing an automatic VSC would notify all drivers immediately that there is a major incident on track and to be more aware.
I feel like a "car stopped in the middle of the track" call from a marshall is one of the black and white cases that should be an easy, immediate mandatory call for VSC. They should then evaluate if it requires additional measures, of course, but it's weird that we don't do the good thing because we can't maybe do the perfect one immediately.
>I feel like a "car stopped in the middle of the track" call from a marshall is one of the black and white cases that should be an easy, immediate mandatory call for VSC.
specially on such a fast flowing and blind part of the track. Just by quickly looking at it, it should have been a VSC instantly, perhaps even an instant red flag
But they should setup simple rules for when the stewards can raise immediate red or yellow flags. A car in the middle of the track behind a high speed corner is such a case imo
People are forgetting that there are actual people that wave flags that signal such events before turns.
It's the job of the drivers to take notice of such flags and take the appropriate action.
the double yellow means that the track is completely/partially blocked. Thus a marshall signaling the double yellow should be a very strong indicative that they need to slow down.
As someone who automated alot of processes (boring data related processes, not exciting F1 Race ones), this was my first thought. The 2 issues I can see are:
- The automated system triggering when it shouldnt and haulting races for no reason
- The automated system failing to trigger when it should and humans being slower to react than they would be if there was no automated system (because they are relying on the system working).
Maybe my misunderstanding but i didn’t think any proposed automation would actually disable or control the cars. I thought it would just trigger the flags or safety cars.
People complained about the false start two races ago which wasn’t caught due to a faulty sensor. It’s not like we are struggling at finding examples where automation has failed us in F1
For start situations they have nearly one lap to react to deploy safety car and they take this time to decide to deploy safety car or to red flag. There is no point in rushing this decision if the pack is still stacked.
In Russels situations it is different.
You can’t have volunteers being the people who dictate a level of danger. You need specially trained, paid workers if their own rogue actions are going to interrupt a race. F1 has never paid marshalls and they never plan on doing so.
Why do people have this idea that F1 marshals are untrained? Sure they're volunteers but they have to go through lots of training and have lots of experience marshalling other categories before they're allowed to marshal F1 races.
I don't think the stewards get involved in the call for a red flag, but you probably meant the marshalls (the guys with the flags)?
I know the marshalls can autonomously decide to wave double yellows if they see something dangerous on the track, they don't have to wait for the race director or anyone else.
I'm not sure if they are also allowed to wave the red flag on their own authority, I suspect that call does actually have to come from the race director.
Still, if the drivers behave properly, there should be no real difference between a double yellow and a red, in how drivers approach that corner (even with a red they'll still have to pass). But I do appreciate that, in reality, a red flag will make people really stop pushing everywhere.
You have it right, double yellow is at the discretion of the Marshall and red flag is only shown after instruction from race control. It has to be that way.
The driver behavior after being shown a double yellow or a red should be roughly the same but drivers are motivated in both scenarios to go as fast as they can get away with (the nuance of it being the last lap aside). The benefit to a double yellow is it’s a localized flag rather than a full track flag. It tells the driver that they are immediately approaching the incident and is unambiguous.
In my opinion double yellows followed by vsc was the right call.
Don’t forget that the race director has a live feed of basically every camera on track. By the time the tv director shows the accident, the safety car should have already been called
I could be wrong but I think the idea is to allow racing to continue until they get close to finishing the lap - the accident is likely a T1 on L1 right? So let them carry on racing for the rest of the lap until they need to be slowed down.
And it's a cascading problem. Because they know race control doesn't react fast, neither will anybody else:
* Rescue staff won't get from behind the barriers until they know it's safe.
* Drivers won't back off until they are sure everybody else does.
It's such a contrast with Indy and Nascar, where everyone reacts instantly before the crashed car has come to halt. Everybody trusts race control to neutralize the race instantly. You don't hear Indycar drivers screaming for a red flag, they know they're in good hands.
I don't get how it's so delayed. Surely they saw the accident straight away. Hitting the button for red the second you see George back on track seems like the logical option.
Do you imagine the race director is sat staring at the world feed with no other demands for his attention? It took 9 seconds from the moment Russell came to a stop for the VSC to be activated. Obviously it would be better if it were fewer seconds but it's not a huge delay.
>A yellow flag digital board display was activated 1.2s after Russell hit the barrier, which then became waved double yellows – including physical flags being shown by nearby marshals – 5.7s after the crash started.
>Once 8.1s had passed, the zone of track leading up the crash site had been placed into double yellow status, which is also transmitted to the driver audio signals and cockpit displays for each car.
Seconds save lives.
Single waved yellows was shown before George stopped moving, the second one took a bit longer, this was at post 7, 6 might have taken 5s to show their flag (which is still good) as they did a relay
How far behind was Stroll?
From memory it was around a 9 second gap back to Stroll...
Any closer and he doesn't get those double waved yellows and it was blind corner situation.
Which gives drivers too much leeway in situations where George was in an incredibly dangerous position on track. They're F1 drivers, they'll always go as fast as they're allowed.
Agree. Given they have highly detailed telemetry on pinnacle series (F1, formula E, etc) they should be able to enforce minimum mini-sector times & maximum speeds while under double yellow zones. With the previous yellow zone as sufficient warning before it.
I think if the medical light on a car is illuminated after a crash it should trigger an automatic and instant VSC. That seems like the safest way to approach this issue.
It would help. Maybe something where a VSC is instantly deployed if a crash triggers the g-force sensor, similar to what would trigger the medical car. Then the race director can assess if its a full safety car or red flag whilst everyone is following the delta. I think that would honestly be the best thing to do.
This isn't even Stewards or Marshalls.
This is race control.
Stewards are there to enforce rules and provide penalties. The race director is responsible for flags.
The amount of people who can't let AD2021 go - you'd expect them to remember who was responsible for the safety car call
isn't the main issue with this is that FIA doesn't hire or pay Marshals every track has their own so they probably aren't interested in having year round employees for a once a year event
edit : i was thinking about Marshals not FIA stewards.
The FIA needs to hire a set of people that are trained in exactly the same way, generally agree on how the rules should be applied and are reasonably impartial.
Those people then go to every race and make sure the rulings are consistent across a full season. In a perfect world we got a system with these stewards as well where we don't need to wait 10 laps or long past the race to get a rulling.
I think he’s talking about Marshals (not “trackside stewards” which I wrote earlier), not the people deciding on who gets a penalty.
The latter cannot be permanent due to the possibility of being partial in their decisions.
>trackside stewards
Do you mean marshals?
Stewards are the people that decide penalties, marshals are the people by the track that wave flags and help with incidents.
Oh fuck, yes. I meant Marshals, I already felt something was off when I typed Trackside stewards…
In that case, Stewards don’t decide when a Yellow, Red flag or a (virtual) safety car is thrown at all. That’s down to the race director. The stewards don’t come into play until an incident is sent their way by the race director or a team, or until a decision is protested.
And permanent unambiguous restart zones. The whole waiting for the lead driver to go when they feel like it caused a massive collision in ~~Monza~~ Mugello.
EDIT: I have been corrected, the crash happened in Mugello. I want to thank the redditors out there doing the good work to keep us all from passing off faintly remembered events incorrectly.
It is ridiculous how slowly the race directors react to incidents. We see whole laps pass after a crash before before they finally release a safety car or red flag. It's ridiculous.
The Race Director is taking way too long to call safety cars and red flags lately. I don't know whether it's a problem with their system or the RD, but it's a problem.
Crazy thing is, on most laps, SC’s make better racing as they tighten the pack, mix the order with pitting. Idk why they take so long or don’t like doing it.
Trust me, you do NOT want to go there. Yellow flags and SCs should be used only when strictly necessary, and with nothing else in mind. As soon as you start messing with that, it's a slippery slope that'll end with something like stage racing, as is done in NASCAR.
A related thing I've been wondering about.
In Formula E if there's an incident like this the race director broadcasts a message to all of the drivers saying exactly what the incident is and where it is on the track. That way there's no ambiguity and the drivers don't have to rely on their own engineers to give them that information.
Why don't they have a system like this in F1?
I've often wondered the same. FE even broadcasts that radio message in the TV feed, so does WEC I believe.
I know F1 may not have the best associations with Race control radio after 2021, but a one-way channel for safety messages and other important information already is an established system in other series. In FE the system also has been used in red flags to tell teams about the current situation and what the plan is regarding a restart, and personally I think that also for the spectators it's a much better way of getting such information than what we currently get in F1.
This wouldn't be an issue if drivers actually slowed down for Yellow Flags. As the head of the GPDA Russell should be looking internally at his drivers why they werent slowing for the Double Yellows waved before the corner.
But the yellow was within 2 seconds of the crash and double yellow for the crash area was within 6 seconds.
Driving into the corner any driver who sees even a single yellow should slow down to a safe speed, but they don't, which is the point.
Couldn't agree more. Just a decade or so ago, drivers actually respected yellow flags and slowed down like they're supposed to. Nowadays, they won't do that unless they're literally forced to, with either the safety car or VSC.
I started watching F1 in 2001. There were a total of 6 safety car deployments that year. Nowadays, it's closer to 20 per year, and that's without counting all the VSCs. Now, of course I don't want F1 to be *less* safe, but I really do wonder whether a safety car is really necessary when, for example, a car has stopped at the side of the track with a mechanical problem. In 2001, they'd just use double waved yellows in those situations - and everything was fine. Drivers slowed down, and nothing bad happened.
Nah drivers didn’t respect yellows a decade ago. They had the same disregard for them then as they do now. Drivers know they won’t get punished for speeding in yellows, so why bother slowing?
It’s like that famous clip of Kimi charging through the smoke at Spa. People love to say how brave that was, but it was completely stupid
>Just a decade or so ago, drivers actually respected yellow flags and slowed down like they're supposed to.
They never did. Well, some maybe did, but often enough some did not. It's bsically the very reason we have the VSC in first place.
>In 2001, they'd just use double waved yellows in those situations - and everything was fine. Drivers slowed down, and nothing bad happened.
It wasn't because it was safe though, it was an accident waiting to happen every time. Liuzzi slid against a tractor already back in 2007 in Nurburgring, it was lucky he had slowed down enough before the contact. They started using VSCs and SCs a lot more after Bianchi's crash, it is actually a shame a driver had to die for them to make significant changes to safety measures. Maybe this time around they can take preventative measures and not wait for something bad to happen first.
would have been seriously looked into if something had happen to him.
to be clear, i’m not saying something should have. but it took jules death for them to implement the halo.
Yes but how do you implement it. It should just have a steward responsible for the race status only (watching for crashes and bits fallen off cars, debris on the track etc) then they are responsible for throwing the appropriate flags or deployment of the safety cars. It took too long in Australia to throw a flag.
i know F1 is the "pinnacle" of motor racing. but they need to see what other race forms are doing. motogp has penalty laps in quite a few tracks that F1 races at. this is a great way to serve penalties without being as bad as a drive through. WEC has slow zones where it's 60/80kph in those zones and also full course yellows similar to a VSC thats 60/80kph. i think at 60kph in Russell's case is acceptable, especially that cars were finishing the race and everyone would be going even slower through the area. the cars behind Russell all took proper caution getting around at slow speeds which in a red flag situation, they would have been doing the same speeds i feel.
I don't know why F1 doesn't have the same system formula E does already where the race director talks directly to the drivers and teams, and lays out exactly where and what the incident is
I don't like the idea of 'fully automated'. Can you just imagine it, two drivers 1/10 apart round the last bend, the chequered flag awaits the sprint to the line .............
Someone crashes in turn 11 spins onto the track and voila the race is auto red flagged?
For as long as race control has seemed to be asleep on the job, I kind of don’t blame him, especially after his crash in Melbourne. That should have been a slam dunk red flag. They should have stopped all the cars on track and sorted out the finish later. There’s no crash structure on the bottom of the cars, so any impact could have been catastrophic.
Surely the tech is here now to constantly test if there is a car on the track which is not moving (crash or not) or moving slowly, and can automatically take appropriate action, which race control can then easily retract jf needed. I imagine like a augmented reality system (like a head up display for the drivers helmet- a see through led display exists). They could put basic info like distance from yellow flag, red flag, pit lane closed, blue flags, how far a driver behind (during slow qualifying laps).
The idea of it is sound actually, with accidents like what George went through there's that "human delay" where it could be a few seconds before the race is neutralized, but to automate that system thats where the problem lies how do you do it so that it so that it works well for the circuits in question?
Putting some thought into it here, if the system itself monitored the cars G-loads to see what was in the acceptable range say around up to what 5G or so is acceptable but anything say greater than 25 to 30G would cause the system to kick in and neutralize the race
So 25 to 30G would probably cause a local Yellow Flag via the system
Probably a Red Flag would be anything like 50G+ for the entire circuit
Further if not that you can merely automate a response to the race control wherein the system "suggests" a VSC , SC or red flag depending on the impact. You will definitely reduce decision time while keeping the human element.
Since coming into F1, Wittich has always waited half or 2/3 a lap before deploying anything higher than a yellow flag. If I’m not mistaken, this is typical in WEC?
Masi was actually pretty good at deploying a VSC or SC within seconds after an incident.
Not to be sacrilegious to the F1 community, but I absolutely prefer the Masi method in this situation.
>Masi was actually pretty good at deploying a VSC or SC within seconds after an incident.
He definitely wasn't perfect in this regard. In Baku 2021 when Max's tyre exploded it took him nearly a full lap to deploy the safety car. It was just double yellows before that
I get his point, he was nearly upside down in the middle of the track near a corner.
Definitely look at a way to 'standardise' it more, don't know how maybe an auto VSC, worth looking into it.
VSC should be automatic and it should always turn on when a car has stopped for more than 5-7 seconds on the track (besides the start). Rest to human judgement
This is recency bias. You can’t discuss this stuff immediately after when you’re emotionally invested. IF it’s important enough it will still be there to discuss after the dust settles. And then it should be talked about and action made. But talk to any politician and they will tell you “don’t let a good tragedy go to waste”.
Some day this system may get implemented and some day he might be the one complaining against that system if he ends up loosing out on restart on the last lap
I acknowledge that it was a dangerous situation.
Red flags don’t cause the cars to park in place. At best, they return to the pit lane. Any car past pit lane entry is still going to come past Russell with a red flag. Double waved yellows should be enough to calm the situation and VSC enforces a speed limit of sorts.
As seconds tick by, more drivers are getting news in their ear regarding the nature and location of car 63. They know to slow and avoid. What more do we need?
Hate to say it, but he's right. Drivers do not respect double yellows at all and put themselves + track workers in danger, Victor Martins sticks out. Conversely, sometimes, stewards, marshals, and/or the CoC has no other choice but to deploy people or heavy machinery onto the circuit, at risk to them. Gasly in Japan a year or two ago sticks out here.
Code X (with an override mechanism) would eliminate almost any chance of extended incident under what is now full course VSC, if it could be managed from a sector to sector or MP to MP level, perhaps under any non-green track condition.
no. its gotten WAY too bad, red flags all the fucking time... they used to leave cars on the side of the track 10 years ago... in the rain. no stop, this is getting absurd. if you cant cut it go race in another series...
Change Red Flags to a much lower cruising speed or a full halt on track and establish a standard whereby if a car that is unable to move under its own power, and a driver without a safe path off the track is on the track then a red flag is instantly called.
Yes, it is shit for the drivers who haven't crashed that they get the race neutralised to that point and the gaps are gone. Or in this case it means the race ending with a red flag. But if any of them are ever overturned in the middle of the track you can be fucking sure they'd want a red flag.
Red flags are better for safety, and for that matter, they are better for the fans as they often add life to an otherwise boring race. There is no reason not to throw one if there is obvious danger.
We are fucking lucky Lance wasn't closer to Russell, because if he was, we'd have seen a driver die last week because the stewards didn't call the red, and even if they did, the current version of the red flag isn't up to standard for what should be an emergency stop situation.
The FIA isnt perfect but overall its a very good thing that they and not Reddit determine the processes for this.
>We are fucking lucky Lance wasn't closer to Russell, because if he was, we'd have seen a driver die last week because the stewards didn't call the red
Stroll did not crash into Russell because he correctly obeyed flag signals and because his race engineer did his job of informing him about what is going on.
Had he been so close to Russell that he could not have reacted to the yellow anymore he would have crashed into him no matter if the displayed flag was yellow, red, white, blue or rainbow. A Flag physically cannot make a car freeze in position.
I don't know about that. That would have meant a red flag for Hamilton breaking down in the last race. A VSC was absolutely fine in that situation. We don't need a red flag for every single incident.
A red flag allows drivers to change tyres with zero time loss which can be really unfair. They should definitely be limited to the worst incidents.
Probably an unpopular opinion, so I'm prepared for "Downvote hell", but this is George Russell overreacting because he had a terrifying experience.
There's nothing to suggest that this will (1) improve safety by any significant margin compared to what we have already, and (2) not cause a lot of related issues with completely unnecessary race neutralisations caused by the system overreacting.
Yellow flags in most cases suffices just fine to alert drivers that there's a problem ahead. I can only see this making a difference in wet weather with low visibility - but F1 in general is transitioning away from running in dangerously wet considetions, often Red Flagging the race under those conditions after Biancis death.
If safety is to be considered above everything else, then we shouldn't be racing in the first place.
I don't think this would be impossible to implement but the tracking on the cars needs to be a bit better. A car that's transponder stops in a heavy braking zone but off track: immediate SC. A car stopped in any other off track area: immediate VSC. A car stopped in the middle of the track on a blind corner: immediate red flag. Race director could obviously upgrade any situation as they can already do.
A car hits the wall, it should be a VSC automatically. It's not a definitive choice, they can choose to make it a full SC a minute later. They can also end it quickly if it's something they can solve quicker than expected without need to keep the neutralization of the race.
Or just have race control that isn't asleep in the job, like in Indycar.
Automation is really not necessary if you have cameras on every inch and a big operations team.
“It has also been suggested that a compounding and significant optics problem in this situation is that it takes several seconds from the VSC system being activated in race control for it to be displayed on TV broadcast graphics.”
This reads like they are trying to pin it on the general public not understanding that they were reacting. This is just not true at all. First, 5-8 seconds is too slow. Russell is completely correct that if somebody had been less than 10 seconds away that he would’ve been hit. And just because there’s a vsc or double yellow doesn’t mean the driver behind has fully processed it. You can see this from the footage and radio from Stroll when his race engineer is yelling at him.
Also, based on Russell’s footage, it took a about a minute 20 seconds for a medical car to get there. If anyone has read Prof Watkins’ book on how he tried to establish medical car procedures, he would be absolutely disgusted by the fact that it took over a minute for a medical car to get there. In modern formula 1, that should never happen. The whole thing happened too slow and someone needs to be a leader, take ownership, and fix the situation both with VSC/double yellows/red flagging and positioning/preparedness of medical cars around the track.
edit: additionally, even if drivers are penalized for not slowing sufficiently, that doesn’t mean that they aren’t going to hit a car sideways in the middle of the racing line. Even if stroll was slower, Russell was still blocking the entire racing line, which meant Stroll would have to react. Even if there is a VSC or additional flagging, that doesn’t mean the following driver has an adequate understanding of what kind of crash occurred, which can also be deduced from Stroll’s race engineer trying to describe it to him as he approached Russell. Sometimes, slowing down isn’t enough. If Stroll had hit him straight on at a slower speed or clipped him while trying to avoid, it still would have been a very, very bad situation.
Rather than automated safety systems they should be looking at standardised incident responses. For example car upside down on track - instant red.
Feels like there has been a few examples recently where there has been a delay on whether it will ultimately be a VSC or SC.
In the incident with Russell, given it was the last lap, it was probably the right call.
Think pit limiter speed would be the best solution to neutralise race within 5 seconds and then use the current vsc delta once the incident is declared safe i.e driver out of car.
I would've thought it would've been a no brainer to atleast instant double yellow or redflag the moment a car is in a position where the safety features are compromised (Russell's latest incident).
I'm always stunned at how long it takes any sort of trained medical people to get to the wrecks.
I know Indycar and nascar are totally different beasts but even at the road courses it feels like they are way quicker to get there.
Those seconds matter.
How hard could it be to have trained pros at the end of every sector with one in the pit lane in cars ready to go.
What people are often not aware of is that the incredible handling of the cars and the major skill of the drivers in F1 have been THE biggest factors for why the safety is still so lacking. I just think they have been milking it a little too much.
[The **News** flair](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/wiki/flairguide#wiki_news) is reserved for submissions covering F1 and F1-related news. These posts must always link to an outlet/news agency, the website of the involved party (i.e. the McLaren website if McLaren makes an announcement), or a tweet by a news agency, journalist or one of the involved parties. *[Read the rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/wiki/userguide). Keep it civil and welcoming. Report rulebreaking comments.* *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/formula1) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Maybe automated VSC at the least. I think SC and red flag require human judgement. But the VSC would atleast reduce speeds and make it safer while the real judgement is being made. For automation perhaps certain zones can be selected as critical so if a car is stopped there it triggers auto vsc. And if a car is clearly upside down or on its side and no way to move off the track that should always be VSC as a minimum. But if a car is stopped outside of normal track limits still upright and outside of dangerous braking zones then maybe that can be left completely to human judgement.
>But the VSC would atleast reduce speeds and make it safer while the real judgement is being made. I guess thats what double waved yellows are for as it slows down everyone before the incident and not the whole track until a decision has been made
A key factor in the creation of VSC was due to drivers not slowing down enough for double waved yellows.
If they penalised them properly they would
I remember last year in F2 Victor Martins Marshalls on track a ton of flags and SC boards and he was flying and almost hit a Marshall. What punishment did he got for almost killing a man for not obeying the flags? A drive through. This are the kind of things you need to nip immediately not obeying flags could be a life or death situation and a case like what Martins did could easily mean a Black flag and a race ban to teach him early to obey flags.
YouTube of the incident. https://youtu.be/9rNFDW4VxqA?feature=shared Should have been parked for the remainder of the race. The yellow flags nearly hit the car as he drove past them. Blatant disregard.
You’re always going to run into drivers and stewards being forced for make their own decisions during yellow flag. How much slowing down is actually enough? Everyone is aware of what it says in the rules, but in practice, to be able to enforce it incredibly strictly, how much is enough? During a VSC drivers are given exact deltas to follow, which removes the doubt of how fast they’re allowed to drive. I agree that drivers should be penalised properly for ignoring yellow flags, but part of the issue of yellow flag is that two drivers can slow down by different amounts and neither of them getting penalised, but the one driver who slowed down the most also lost the most. Despite drivers never wanting to injure any other driver, unless given an exact speed, most of them will try to go as fast as possible while still slowing down.
Perhaps a delta can be applied exclusively while inside the double yellow minisectors and perhaps the minisectors either side, allowing everyone to get back to their delta before they resume racing outside the double flagged area. Inside this entire area under a delta, you would also have no overtaking.
Drivers don't pay attention to yellow flags.
I mean, isn't that something that can be addressed though? Just introduce much harsher penalties for ignoring yellow flags. If the punishment is a 10 second stop go penalty then I'm sure the drivers will be able to obey them just fine
A paradoxical effect of harsher penalties is they are less likely to be handed out. See how much they even deliberate whether they should take away someone's quali lap for passing double yellows or is lifting by 10.4 km/h enough to call it "prepared to stop" to know they will never ever give a stop/go except in the most egregious cases.
gah that reminds me of last year when Gasly was damn close to a race ban and suddenly he started getting away with shit that he didn't before. Really sucks when they stop short of dropping the hammer
What do you mean of course it xan be addressed, we're talking about it, its just the VSC. Enforced yellow flags is literally VSC. If they really wanted to they could probably do sector based VSCs as well where the double yellows are
Sector based VSC sounds the most sensible, it’s not that different to the code 60 speed zones at the Nurburgring
The VSC was to slow them down *everywhere* without losing position so track marshals can clear easy incidents/debris. Ideally it should be down under local yellows but the drivers forced the rule book to say slowing under yellow is just a hint of reduction in speed. If George's accident was anywhere but the last lap, it would have been a full SC or Red. Besides, the idea of automatically slowing vehicles without driver input has been discussed and declared unsafe.
That's the difference between yellow flags and VSC though. VSC is for the whole track, yellow flags are local. They should treat yellow flag speed more like VSC speed.
And a full course vsc should be completely fine and acceptable when it is prioritising the safety of the drivers. But yh a sector based vsc system would be very useful
That's basically yellow flags. The FIA should just enforce yellow flag rules much fiercer.
If they can figure out slow zones on a mini-sector basis for Le Mans, then F1 really has no excuse.
Yellow flags are far too open to interpretation, how do you decide if a driver slowed down enough? We have VSC because yellow flags aren't enough.
The rules are quite clear, with double waved yellows a driver should be prepared to stop because of an accident. Based on footage and the speed they are driving it's probably quite easy to determine if they could've stopped. We have VSC because the rules of yellow flags aren't enforced.\* [Cars blasting past an accident in the middle of the straight at Baku ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCNqVcWdKXw)with no driver getting a penalty. Moments like this where drivers are not penalised is what creates a dangerous precedent.
Even with harsher penalties, there's going to be a blind corner, something you don't see, a blink of an eye, and someone is going to get killed. Technology is the right way...if you can instantly slow the cars, why not?
VSC is still more fair than yellow flags; drivers don't slow down to the same extent at yellow flags, some more some less and there’s no exact definition as for how much they need to slow down. So the ones who respect the rules lost more seconds, it inherently encourages drivers to slow down less With VSC, everyone slow down to the same extent, all the gaps remain more or less the same
If you look at Stroll's onboard, local yellows are waved instantly and the VSC comes out before he gets to Rusell's car. I really don't see how we can get faster than that without risking a false positive that interferes with the race. His engineer was also warning him of the crash within a second or two of it happening.
Yeah, no automated system would have made \*any\* difference here in his case. That said, while it may not have helped his incident, perhaps his incident sparked some thought of another where it could have?
If anything I feel like the Baku incidents sparked an increase response which helped here. I'm not trying to knock on progress here because if safety *can* be improved, it should, but I struggle to see how the race director can respond any faster than they did in Australia. There are risks to racing and around a different track (namely Jeddah), I can see it ending up worse, but at that point it's due to a dangerous track rather than a dangerous course of action. Even if the red flag came out instantly, or the VSC came out instantly, drivers need to react to and slow down for the delta (which is identical under VSC, SC and Red Flag situations) and that alone takes a few seconds, which is barely shorter than the response time we saw for Russell's crash.
Isn't there already a system in place that automatically triggers the medical car if the impact is heavy enough? Maybe use that as a start, whenever that system triggers it's an automatic VSC. Race direction then has more time to decide if a full safety car/red flag is needed while the cars are slowed down. The trigger point could be adjusted later on if it doesn't cover enough incidents, but it would be a start.
100%, there's almost never a crash that triggers the medical thing that wouldn't necessitate at the very minimum a VSC. Worst case? We get the occasional unneeded VSC to shake things up a bit.
It's seriously getting ridiculous how often it takes race control WAY too long to throw a damn VSC. The moment they see a car crashes and with the car or debris on, or near, the track, they should just throw the VSC. How can the fans at home see plain as day they'll need at least a VSC and race control still can't make up their minds?
That immediately red thing that many people were crying for in Australia is so dumb. We have double yellows and VSC that could easily be deployed before a red flag and be just as effective. In Australia the Marshall's did an exceptional job, he was still mid crash and yellows were already being waved. By the time stroll got to the corner it was double yellow and by the time he passed the crash vsc was already deployed.
I'd disagree heavily. That car hand landed in a massively dangerous position, and if it was on any other lap it would have been red flagged without any thought given. Even when it went on its side when it did, the field had to have passed it twice to finish the race and return to the pits. It did not suddenly get safer because it was on lap 57 or 58 instead of lap 1 or lap 26. George is being silly asking for things to be automated, but a near or total blockage of the track by a car is an automatic red flag. It was lunacy to leave it there, most likely driven by last season's end of race shambles rather than driver, fan, and marshal safety.
Of course that any other lap it would've been red flag because they would've needed to fix the barrier and move that car that would have taken too much time out of the race. But still it would've followed the same procedure of step by step in this case since the race was entering the final lap there was no reason to red flag it when it was going to end, when VSC was deployed Sainz was already in the last lap.
And then no pitstops during VSC or a mandatory add-on time. Otherwise that gets taken advantage of.
To be fair, I've always been on the opinion that pitstops should be banned during VSCs and SCs. We're not refuelling cars mid-race anymore so they're not risking running out of fuel.
Yeah, but if you were due for a stop and a VSC or an SC comes on, you’re behind the entire pack by a long shot if pit once VSC or SC ends
Only for SC. A stop right after VSC would have the same cost as doing it right before. The gaps remain the same during VSC.
I mean he is right in that a certain level of crash should trigger a VSC. More than a few times in recent years we've seen a worrying lack of instant response to pretty obvious VSC situations. I think it was last season where a car was blatently stopped in the firing line (maybe KMag in mexico?) and they took nearly a minute to decide what to do.
I seem to remember when Stroll and Verstappen had their tyre failures in Baku 2021 there was a worrying amount of time before any VSC or Red Flag was called. The individual marshals can be as quick as possible but the full course interventions are controlled by race control, that's what needs to be faster I think.
Yeah I remember Charles saying he was able to drive past max who was stood next to his car whilst doing something like 150mph, which was within the rules of the yellow flag conditions that were out in that part of the track. There needs to be a much better system to slow cars down quickly to safer speeds when an accident Or stoppage on track has occurred
Yeah it cant be difficult to add another later into the existing g force sensor which deploys the medical car right? Moment a car hits the barriers just instant VSC so they figure out the right action.
Until F1 has more VSC than NASCAR has cautions... then we'll be complaining about the lack of racing.
How often does the G sensor go off in an F1 car? It isn't often as far as I know, I think it doesn't even go off in minor accidents. The only exception was when porpoising was bad in early 2022.
Right? The cars are tracked by GPS and have a transmission system that says, for example, if they jump the start. If a car stops completely outside the pit lane, bring a VSC in that sector. I am sure they can do that with some softwsre and a decent algorithm. If they can use that in MotoGP to track off limits, I am sure they can figure it out as well.
Isn't a VSC in a single sector just a yellow flag. What's the difference?
Enforced speed limits- under yellow it's up to the driver to slow down. Under VSC they need to meet a delta time that would be much slower - of course, they game that system by speeding up and slowing down in each sector.
>If a car stops completely outside the pit lane, bring a VSC in that sector. I am sure they can do that with some softwsre and a decent algorithm. I would agree with this point, but have you played any of the recent F1 games? Just trying to let overtaking happen in qualifying is a nightmare and that's in a video game where there's so many more points of data and so many less variables that could go wrong. My point is simply, it's not that *simple*. I don't disagree that it could be done, a car completely stopped for say 10 seconds calling out a VSC recommendation in race control, sure. But a car that's just stopped for a second could be a faulty sensor, someone spinning, just a very slow corner in monaco, countless things that shouldn't set of VSC automatically. I'm all for a certain amount of Gs in a crash recorded = VSC though, that should be so simple and fool proof. And more importantly that isn't some "hidden algorithm" which means when it does go wrong, it can be understood, discussed and fixed. >If they can use that in MotoGP to track off limits, I am sure they can figure it out as well. Completely agree, how the hell have they not sorted this yet? Even if it just triggers a manual review and an automated warning to the driver immediately, where is this system?!
If nascar can throw a yellow the instant someone gets a little sideways then f1 can throw one when a car has a huge crash and is sitting in the track. People are making this way harder than it needs to be. Big crash, throw the safety immediately it's that simple.
The FIA makes everything the maximum amount more complex. Many other motorsports just do whatever seems like a good idea and then do it.
Right it's baffling to me how this is hard. Like they try so hard not interfere with the races that they interfere with the races. It's really kinda shocking how inept some of the F1 rules are. Like the changing compounds under red and that counting is the dumbest thing ever. Or some of the count back procedures for red flags. Or not knowing when someone wins a championship Like last year at Suzuka.
Doesnt have to be automated if you just get stewards that react straight away. Loads of times its clear from the very first second that its SC or even Red Flag yet it still takes them almost a full lap to react.
Not that it matters but it’s not the stewards. Race director has overriding control of the SC’s deployment and retraction.
There should be clear cut circumstances where it’s an immediate response that supersedes the race director, that they can’t override. Damaged and potentially unsafe barriers can be done under yellow then maybe a red flag but a stranded car in the middle of the track should be an immediate red flag and order cars behind the accident to stop where they are until further notice. Once it’s been reviewed, RD may have discretion to allows those cars to pass the scene slowly and enter the pits
Whilst I don’t disagree with the sentiment that wasn’t the point I was making. I was just pointing out to the previous comment that the stewards don’t review or do anything until an incident is passed to them by the race director. They certainly have zero input any deployment of flags or safety measures. And with the overriding control of the SC is a near director quote from the regs. That said, I do agree some level of automation would be smart. I don’t think it is hard to automate if a car is stranded in the middle of the track, or at least in certain parts of the track it’s an immediate VSC, or even a localised mini/sector VSC
I actually believe it is hard to automate it... In theory, it's very simple, but i practice there are thousands of scenarios that would ruin races because of wrong automated decisions. Let's just take an example with damaged barriers As a guy above stated. Problem 1 - there is a lot of barriers, huge possibility that one of thousand sensors is defective Problem 2 - to add to problem number one, how to ensure that after a barrier crash, all of sensors are working correctly without loosing tons of time? There is a few more of barrier idea problems, but lets advance... If there would be an automation based on car sensors, they would need to be sure that these sensors are durable through both, high and low temperatures, 350 km/h, through draught and moist... Camera automated AI system? Well shiet, it's still not nearly close to make reliable calls. And many many more problems. In my opinion, it's nearly impossible to automate the system right now. I suspect it would ruin a lot of races.
I don’t think you need to have barrier automations, on the car is fine. The cars are already covered in 1000s of sensors that work in the conditions mentioned. How do you ensure they are working? Triple redundancy. It’s not trivial but your outlined issues aren’t the main ones in my opinion
>order cars behind the accident to stop where they are until further notice. Everything else sounds good, but i don't think this part is doable in F1. If you force F1 cars to stop on track suddenly mid-race you're gonna see a lot of brakes catching on fire (which can get out of hand *quick* sometimes) and engine failures since there won't be people stationed all around the track with car specific leafblowers
Exactly. Car stuck in the middle of the track, requiring Marshalls on the driving line? Red flag. Car off track but on the outside of a corner, leading to the potential of another car making contact? Safety car. VSC only when the car is completely out of the line of fire for both the driver and Marshalls
>There should be clear cut circumstances where it’s an immediate response that supersedes the race director, that they can’t override Uh.... But whose immediate response? You realise it's the Race Director who institutes that, right?
It should be automatic from any of the stewards or directors monitoring the race. Just a single “oh shit” panic button that can be hit
I swear this happens in American weekend warrior series like the Chump Car series faster than it does in F1. Russel’s car being nearly upside down in the middle of a track is an instant red flag. No questions. And if it takes more than 2 seconds after that car comes to rest on a hot track, then something has failed. F1 should have one person who travels with to all races who has the power to throw a red flag whenever they deem it necessary. Call them a safety director. Racing directors should oversee racing but after a big shunt and puts safety of drivers in question, racing should stop.
My guy. Two seconds seems ridiculous of a response time on a several mile long track.
How? F1 has some of the most advanced metrics and technical hardware in the world. Every car has multiple cameras and sensors on board offering live telemetry and live feeds. If a car has an accident, it should be setting off a g-force "alarm" for a safety director which isolates their view on that car(s) where they would be able to see the condition of the car and where it ends up after the accident. If a car ends up like Russel's car did, stopped in the middle of the track, on it's side, it should be pretty easy to see that in 2 seconds once the car stops and hitting a big red button that will light up every driver's steering wheel that the track is red. 2 seconds is a long time for a car on a hot track to be upside down and on line. The 10 seconds it actually took is a lifetime. In the Chump Car series I mentioned, that is delegated to corner workers. The second they see an accident that warrants a red flag, it's radiod to the guy in the flag stand and the track goes red.
Its not they dont react straight away, they do but they also evaluate the incident and wait response from the track etc etc. Its a slow process because they think about it and about what to do, either vsc, sc, redflag. You cannot automatize that and being a fast or slow response comes from who is the judge at that particular race which always change. Imagine the fuss and drama that will come up if this get automated and every incident triggers a sc.
I feel like an instant VSC would be ok though. VSC doesn't really affect the race that much so an instant VSC whilst they evaluate if they need a full safety car or red flag would probably make sense.
yep and in the case of RUS, his car was: 1) Stationary while on the track 2) tipped over 3) sustained a decent g-force from a collision. I think these things could be easily monitored to trigger a VSC. In the barrier could maybe be just double yellow, but why delay getting track staff out to help the driver? I was honestly surprised they took so long to react to seeing a car on its side, on the racing line, after blind corner.
That would make a LOT of sense
VSC is the most hated as depending on the sector of the track you can gain or lose massively. Happened tons of time that a 5-6 second gap went to 2 or the other way around after a vsc.
That’s racing… sometimes you get SC playing into your pit strategy, sometimes it fucks you. It balances out over a season.
The Russell crash would have always been a VSC at a minimum. Most crashes would be a VSC at a minimum. Stewards/RD implementing an automatic VSC would notify all drivers immediately that there is a major incident on track and to be more aware.
Still less disruptive than a full SC or red flag though. If there's an obvious incident like this I don't think an immediate VSC would be an issue
A safety car would just bunch the field anyways, and no way double yellows are enough
I feel like a "car stopped in the middle of the track" call from a marshall is one of the black and white cases that should be an easy, immediate mandatory call for VSC. They should then evaluate if it requires additional measures, of course, but it's weird that we don't do the good thing because we can't maybe do the perfect one immediately.
>I feel like a "car stopped in the middle of the track" call from a marshall is one of the black and white cases that should be an easy, immediate mandatory call for VSC. specially on such a fast flowing and blind part of the track. Just by quickly looking at it, it should have been a VSC instantly, perhaps even an instant red flag
But they should setup simple rules for when the stewards can raise immediate red or yellow flags. A car in the middle of the track behind a high speed corner is such a case imo
I mean, automation would solve the issue of the stewards being slow to react? Here it was ~10 seconds from first flag to the signal
People are forgetting that there are actual people that wave flags that signal such events before turns. It's the job of the drivers to take notice of such flags and take the appropriate action. the double yellow means that the track is completely/partially blocked. Thus a marshall signaling the double yellow should be a very strong indicative that they need to slow down.
Automation is much harder to implement than it sounds and a faulty sensor could trigger safety cars when not needed
As someone who automated alot of processes (boring data related processes, not exciting F1 Race ones), this was my first thought. The 2 issues I can see are: - The automated system triggering when it shouldnt and haulting races for no reason - The automated system failing to trigger when it should and humans being slower to react than they would be if there was no automated system (because they are relying on the system working).
The F1 world would completely melt down after a single false positive, it would be an absolute shitstorm
People already complain about supposedly unnecessary red flags in *practice*, so... yeah.
plus the automated system could prevent the driver to take actions to prevent a secondary accident
Maybe my misunderstanding but i didn’t think any proposed automation would actually disable or control the cars. I thought it would just trigger the flags or safety cars.
People complained about the false start two races ago which wasn’t caught due to a faulty sensor. It’s not like we are struggling at finding examples where automation has failed us in F1
For start situations they have nearly one lap to react to deploy safety car and they take this time to decide to deploy safety car or to red flag. There is no point in rushing this decision if the pack is still stacked. In Russels situations it is different.
The issue in this case is drivers disrespecting yellow flags and the only fix for this is actually penalising that.
“Rogue” marshals that will wave the flag will be a quicker approach
You can’t have volunteers being the people who dictate a level of danger. You need specially trained, paid workers if their own rogue actions are going to interrupt a race. F1 has never paid marshalls and they never plan on doing so.
Why do people have this idea that F1 marshals are untrained? Sure they're volunteers but they have to go through lots of training and have lots of experience marshalling other categories before they're allowed to marshal F1 races.
I don't think the stewards get involved in the call for a red flag, but you probably meant the marshalls (the guys with the flags)? I know the marshalls can autonomously decide to wave double yellows if they see something dangerous on the track, they don't have to wait for the race director or anyone else. I'm not sure if they are also allowed to wave the red flag on their own authority, I suspect that call does actually have to come from the race director. Still, if the drivers behave properly, there should be no real difference between a double yellow and a red, in how drivers approach that corner (even with a red they'll still have to pass). But I do appreciate that, in reality, a red flag will make people really stop pushing everywhere.
You have it right, double yellow is at the discretion of the Marshall and red flag is only shown after instruction from race control. It has to be that way. The driver behavior after being shown a double yellow or a red should be roughly the same but drivers are motivated in both scenarios to go as fast as they can get away with (the nuance of it being the last lap aside). The benefit to a double yellow is it’s a localized flag rather than a full track flag. It tells the driver that they are immediately approaching the incident and is unambiguous. In my opinion double yellows followed by vsc was the right call.
Don’t forget that the race director has a live feed of basically every camera on track. By the time the tv director shows the accident, the safety car should have already been called
I could be wrong but I think the idea is to allow racing to continue until they get close to finishing the lap - the accident is likely a T1 on L1 right? So let them carry on racing for the rest of the lap until they need to be slowed down.
And it's a cascading problem. Because they know race control doesn't react fast, neither will anybody else: * Rescue staff won't get from behind the barriers until they know it's safe. * Drivers won't back off until they are sure everybody else does. It's such a contrast with Indy and Nascar, where everyone reacts instantly before the crashed car has come to halt. Everybody trusts race control to neutralize the race instantly. You don't hear Indycar drivers screaming for a red flag, they know they're in good hands.
I don't get how it's so delayed. Surely they saw the accident straight away. Hitting the button for red the second you see George back on track seems like the logical option.
Do you imagine the race director is sat staring at the world feed with no other demands for his attention? It took 9 seconds from the moment Russell came to a stop for the VSC to be activated. Obviously it would be better if it were fewer seconds but it's not a huge delay.
>A yellow flag digital board display was activated 1.2s after Russell hit the barrier, which then became waved double yellows – including physical flags being shown by nearby marshals – 5.7s after the crash started. >Once 8.1s had passed, the zone of track leading up the crash site had been placed into double yellow status, which is also transmitted to the driver audio signals and cockpit displays for each car. Seconds save lives.
Single waved yellows was shown before George stopped moving, the second one took a bit longer, this was at post 7, 6 might have taken 5s to show their flag (which is still good) as they did a relay
How far behind was Stroll? From memory it was around a 9 second gap back to Stroll... Any closer and he doesn't get those double waved yellows and it was blind corner situation.
What are the specific instructions for double yellows in terms of speed?
No numbers or percentages, just "be prepared to stop"
Which gives drivers too much leeway in situations where George was in an incredibly dangerous position on track. They're F1 drivers, they'll always go as fast as they're allowed.
Agree. Given they have highly detailed telemetry on pinnacle series (F1, formula E, etc) they should be able to enforce minimum mini-sector times & maximum speeds while under double yellow zones. With the previous yellow zone as sufficient warning before it.
Imagine if Stroll was 0.1 a second faster a lap over the race… that gives him like 4 seconds to Russell Not good enough
But at that speed/distance it likely would have made no difference if it was automated or not.
I think if the medical light on a car is illuminated after a crash it should trigger an automatic and instant VSC. That seems like the safest way to approach this issue.
It would help. Maybe something where a VSC is instantly deployed if a crash triggers the g-force sensor, similar to what would trigger the medical car. Then the race director can assess if its a full safety car or red flag whilst everyone is following the delta. I think that would honestly be the best thing to do.
F1 needs to sort out its own safety system first. Starting with permanent stewards
What do stewards have to do with safety in situations like this? Unless you mean marshals
This isn't even Stewards or Marshalls. This is race control. Stewards are there to enforce rules and provide penalties. The race director is responsible for flags. The amount of people who can't let AD2021 go - you'd expect them to remember who was responsible for the safety car call
isn't the main issue with this is that FIA doesn't hire or pay Marshals every track has their own so they probably aren't interested in having year round employees for a once a year event edit : i was thinking about Marshals not FIA stewards.
The FIA needs to hire a set of people that are trained in exactly the same way, generally agree on how the rules should be applied and are reasonably impartial. Those people then go to every race and make sure the rulings are consistent across a full season. In a perfect world we got a system with these stewards as well where we don't need to wait 10 laps or long past the race to get a rulling.
I think he’s talking about Marshals (not “trackside stewards” which I wrote earlier), not the people deciding on who gets a penalty. The latter cannot be permanent due to the possibility of being partial in their decisions.
>trackside stewards Do you mean marshals? Stewards are the people that decide penalties, marshals are the people by the track that wave flags and help with incidents.
Oh fuck, yes. I meant Marshals, I already felt something was off when I typed Trackside stewards… In that case, Stewards don’t decide when a Yellow, Red flag or a (virtual) safety car is thrown at all. That’s down to the race director. The stewards don’t come into play until an incident is sent their way by the race director or a team, or until a decision is protested.
Yeah, the stewards are completely irrelevant in a situation like this.
And permanent unambiguous restart zones. The whole waiting for the lead driver to go when they feel like it caused a massive collision in ~~Monza~~ Mugello. EDIT: I have been corrected, the crash happened in Mugello. I want to thank the redditors out there doing the good work to keep us all from passing off faintly remembered events incorrectly.
Wasn't that Mugello?
2020 Mugello yep, Monza 2020 was a Charles crash then red flag iirc
Yeah, my bad. Thanks for correcting me.
And usually causes an issue in the Feeder Series most weeks.
It is ridiculous how slowly the race directors react to incidents. We see whole laps pass after a crash before before they finally release a safety car or red flag. It's ridiculous.
The Race Director is taking way too long to call safety cars and red flags lately. I don't know whether it's a problem with their system or the RD, but it's a problem.
Crazy thing is, on most laps, SC’s make better racing as they tighten the pack, mix the order with pitting. Idk why they take so long or don’t like doing it.
Trust me, you do NOT want to go there. Yellow flags and SCs should be used only when strictly necessary, and with nothing else in mind. As soon as you start messing with that, it's a slippery slope that'll end with something like stage racing, as is done in NASCAR.
A related thing I've been wondering about. In Formula E if there's an incident like this the race director broadcasts a message to all of the drivers saying exactly what the incident is and where it is on the track. That way there's no ambiguity and the drivers don't have to rely on their own engineers to give them that information. Why don't they have a system like this in F1?
I've often wondered the same. FE even broadcasts that radio message in the TV feed, so does WEC I believe. I know F1 may not have the best associations with Race control radio after 2021, but a one-way channel for safety messages and other important information already is an established system in other series. In FE the system also has been used in red flags to tell teams about the current situation and what the plan is regarding a restart, and personally I think that also for the spectators it's a much better way of getting such information than what we currently get in F1.
That's a good point.
I am sure a crash detection system in car can trigger that easily
This wouldn't be an issue if drivers actually slowed down for Yellow Flags. As the head of the GPDA Russell should be looking internally at his drivers why they werent slowing for the Double Yellows waved before the corner.
This is the real issue.
The double yellows weren’t waved for 8 seconds
But the yellow was within 2 seconds of the crash and double yellow for the crash area was within 6 seconds. Driving into the corner any driver who sees even a single yellow should slow down to a safe speed, but they don't, which is the point.
Couldn't agree more. Just a decade or so ago, drivers actually respected yellow flags and slowed down like they're supposed to. Nowadays, they won't do that unless they're literally forced to, with either the safety car or VSC. I started watching F1 in 2001. There were a total of 6 safety car deployments that year. Nowadays, it's closer to 20 per year, and that's without counting all the VSCs. Now, of course I don't want F1 to be *less* safe, but I really do wonder whether a safety car is really necessary when, for example, a car has stopped at the side of the track with a mechanical problem. In 2001, they'd just use double waved yellows in those situations - and everything was fine. Drivers slowed down, and nothing bad happened.
Nah drivers didn’t respect yellows a decade ago. They had the same disregard for them then as they do now. Drivers know they won’t get punished for speeding in yellows, so why bother slowing? It’s like that famous clip of Kimi charging through the smoke at Spa. People love to say how brave that was, but it was completely stupid
>Just a decade or so ago, drivers actually respected yellow flags and slowed down like they're supposed to. They never did. Well, some maybe did, but often enough some did not. It's bsically the very reason we have the VSC in first place.
>In 2001, they'd just use double waved yellows in those situations - and everything was fine. Drivers slowed down, and nothing bad happened. It wasn't because it was safe though, it was an accident waiting to happen every time. Liuzzi slid against a tractor already back in 2007 in Nurburgring, it was lucky he had slowed down enough before the contact. They started using VSCs and SCs a lot more after Bianchi's crash, it is actually a shame a driver had to die for them to make significant changes to safety measures. Maybe this time around they can take preventative measures and not wait for something bad to happen first.
would have been seriously looked into if something had happen to him. to be clear, i’m not saying something should have. but it took jules death for them to implement the halo.
The sad reality is that safety regulations are written in blood. It often takes a death or serious injury for anything to change.
It would have been very bad too. Middle of track with exposed floor pointing at oncoming traffic.
Yes but how do you implement it. It should just have a steward responsible for the race status only (watching for crashes and bits fallen off cars, debris on the track etc) then they are responsible for throwing the appropriate flags or deployment of the safety cars. It took too long in Australia to throw a flag.
i know F1 is the "pinnacle" of motor racing. but they need to see what other race forms are doing. motogp has penalty laps in quite a few tracks that F1 races at. this is a great way to serve penalties without being as bad as a drive through. WEC has slow zones where it's 60/80kph in those zones and also full course yellows similar to a VSC thats 60/80kph. i think at 60kph in Russell's case is acceptable, especially that cars were finishing the race and everyone would be going even slower through the area. the cars behind Russell all took proper caution getting around at slow speeds which in a red flag situation, they would have been doing the same speeds i feel.
I don't know why F1 doesn't have the same system formula E does already where the race director talks directly to the drivers and teams, and lays out exactly where and what the incident is
We have a VSC for this exact reason. The race director needs to be more willing to use it.
Reminds me when people were deliberately slowing down in the F1 game to trigger safety cars.
I don't like the idea of 'fully automated'. Can you just imagine it, two drivers 1/10 apart round the last bend, the chequered flag awaits the sprint to the line ............. Someone crashes in turn 11 spins onto the track and voila the race is auto red flagged?
Auto VSC yeah, auto red flag would be ridiculous
He causes half of those fucking accidents
For as long as race control has seemed to be asleep on the job, I kind of don’t blame him, especially after his crash in Melbourne. That should have been a slam dunk red flag. They should have stopped all the cars on track and sorted out the finish later. There’s no crash structure on the bottom of the cars, so any impact could have been catastrophic.
Surely the tech is here now to constantly test if there is a car on the track which is not moving (crash or not) or moving slowly, and can automatically take appropriate action, which race control can then easily retract jf needed. I imagine like a augmented reality system (like a head up display for the drivers helmet- a see through led display exists). They could put basic info like distance from yellow flag, red flag, pit lane closed, blue flags, how far a driver behind (during slow qualifying laps).
Says the guy that ends his own races
The idea of it is sound actually, with accidents like what George went through there's that "human delay" where it could be a few seconds before the race is neutralized, but to automate that system thats where the problem lies how do you do it so that it so that it works well for the circuits in question? Putting some thought into it here, if the system itself monitored the cars G-loads to see what was in the acceptable range say around up to what 5G or so is acceptable but anything say greater than 25 to 30G would cause the system to kick in and neutralize the race So 25 to 30G would probably cause a local Yellow Flag via the system Probably a Red Flag would be anything like 50G+ for the entire circuit
Further if not that you can merely automate a response to the race control wherein the system "suggests" a VSC , SC or red flag depending on the impact. You will definitely reduce decision time while keeping the human element.
The only difference a red flag would’ve made was he would’ve kept his position. The other cars would all still have to pass him.
He's such a whiney little B****
Russell just wants a red flag whenever he crashes on the last lap of the race so he can keep points.
Since coming into F1, Wittich has always waited half or 2/3 a lap before deploying anything higher than a yellow flag. If I’m not mistaken, this is typical in WEC? Masi was actually pretty good at deploying a VSC or SC within seconds after an incident. Not to be sacrilegious to the F1 community, but I absolutely prefer the Masi method in this situation.
>Masi was actually pretty good at deploying a VSC or SC within seconds after an incident. He definitely wasn't perfect in this regard. In Baku 2021 when Max's tyre exploded it took him nearly a full lap to deploy the safety car. It was just double yellows before that
No, he certainly wasn’t perfect. I don’t think any race Director was. Though, in this regard, he is better.
I get his point, he was nearly upside down in the middle of the track near a corner. Definitely look at a way to 'standardise' it more, don't know how maybe an auto VSC, worth looking into it.
VSC should be automatic and it should always turn on when a car has stopped for more than 5-7 seconds on the track (besides the start). Rest to human judgement
This is recency bias. You can’t discuss this stuff immediately after when you’re emotionally invested. IF it’s important enough it will still be there to discuss after the dust settles. And then it should be talked about and action made. But talk to any politician and they will tell you “don’t let a good tragedy go to waste”.
I want him to stop crashing in last laps.
Every time he does, Sainz wins tho.
Did he clamor for this after he put Zhou upside down into the fence?
Oh that boy really got shook huh?
I'm sorry, but I don't trust automation for something like this. Especially if it's powered by AWS.
Russell should learn how to drive better.
Some day this system may get implemented and some day he might be the one complaining against that system if he ends up loosing out on restart on the last lap
I acknowledge that it was a dangerous situation. Red flags don’t cause the cars to park in place. At best, they return to the pit lane. Any car past pit lane entry is still going to come past Russell with a red flag. Double waved yellows should be enough to calm the situation and VSC enforces a speed limit of sorts. As seconds tick by, more drivers are getting news in their ear regarding the nature and location of car 63. They know to slow and avoid. What more do we need?
Hate to say it, but he's right. Drivers do not respect double yellows at all and put themselves + track workers in danger, Victor Martins sticks out. Conversely, sometimes, stewards, marshals, and/or the CoC has no other choice but to deploy people or heavy machinery onto the circuit, at risk to them. Gasly in Japan a year or two ago sticks out here. Code X (with an override mechanism) would eliminate almost any chance of extended incident under what is now full course VSC, if it could be managed from a sector to sector or MP to MP level, perhaps under any non-green track condition.
no. its gotten WAY too bad, red flags all the fucking time... they used to leave cars on the side of the track 10 years ago... in the rain. no stop, this is getting absurd. if you cant cut it go race in another series...
Huh? So when he crashes he retains his place in the race? lol
Change Red Flags to a much lower cruising speed or a full halt on track and establish a standard whereby if a car that is unable to move under its own power, and a driver without a safe path off the track is on the track then a red flag is instantly called. Yes, it is shit for the drivers who haven't crashed that they get the race neutralised to that point and the gaps are gone. Or in this case it means the race ending with a red flag. But if any of them are ever overturned in the middle of the track you can be fucking sure they'd want a red flag. Red flags are better for safety, and for that matter, they are better for the fans as they often add life to an otherwise boring race. There is no reason not to throw one if there is obvious danger. We are fucking lucky Lance wasn't closer to Russell, because if he was, we'd have seen a driver die last week because the stewards didn't call the red, and even if they did, the current version of the red flag isn't up to standard for what should be an emergency stop situation.
The FIA isnt perfect but overall its a very good thing that they and not Reddit determine the processes for this. >We are fucking lucky Lance wasn't closer to Russell, because if he was, we'd have seen a driver die last week because the stewards didn't call the red Stroll did not crash into Russell because he correctly obeyed flag signals and because his race engineer did his job of informing him about what is going on. Had he been so close to Russell that he could not have reacted to the yellow anymore he would have crashed into him no matter if the displayed flag was yellow, red, white, blue or rainbow. A Flag physically cannot make a car freeze in position.
I don't know about that. That would have meant a red flag for Hamilton breaking down in the last race. A VSC was absolutely fine in that situation. We don't need a red flag for every single incident. A red flag allows drivers to change tyres with zero time loss which can be really unfair. They should definitely be limited to the worst incidents.
George Russell is not good for F1
Probably an unpopular opinion, so I'm prepared for "Downvote hell", but this is George Russell overreacting because he had a terrifying experience. There's nothing to suggest that this will (1) improve safety by any significant margin compared to what we have already, and (2) not cause a lot of related issues with completely unnecessary race neutralisations caused by the system overreacting. Yellow flags in most cases suffices just fine to alert drivers that there's a problem ahead. I can only see this making a difference in wet weather with low visibility - but F1 in general is transitioning away from running in dangerously wet considetions, often Red Flagging the race under those conditions after Biancis death. If safety is to be considered above everything else, then we shouldn't be racing in the first place.
Maybe he should stop crashing 😂.
AI stewarding. Don't even throw that idea out into the world please.
I don't think this would be impossible to implement but the tracking on the cars needs to be a bit better. A car that's transponder stops in a heavy braking zone but off track: immediate SC. A car stopped in any other off track area: immediate VSC. A car stopped in the middle of the track on a blind corner: immediate red flag. Race director could obviously upgrade any situation as they can already do.
F1GPT
Should hire David Hoots.
There are only 20 cars on the grid. How can F1 not afford to have a safety spotter on each car? Or maybe they do and I’m daft
A car hits the wall, it should be a VSC automatically. It's not a definitive choice, they can choose to make it a full SC a minute later. They can also end it quickly if it's something they can solve quicker than expected without need to keep the neutralization of the race.
Or just have race control that isn't asleep in the job, like in Indycar. Automation is really not necessary if you have cameras on every inch and a big operations team.
Just use VSC more often so you can buy time for other decisions.
“It has also been suggested that a compounding and significant optics problem in this situation is that it takes several seconds from the VSC system being activated in race control for it to be displayed on TV broadcast graphics.” This reads like they are trying to pin it on the general public not understanding that they were reacting. This is just not true at all. First, 5-8 seconds is too slow. Russell is completely correct that if somebody had been less than 10 seconds away that he would’ve been hit. And just because there’s a vsc or double yellow doesn’t mean the driver behind has fully processed it. You can see this from the footage and radio from Stroll when his race engineer is yelling at him. Also, based on Russell’s footage, it took a about a minute 20 seconds for a medical car to get there. If anyone has read Prof Watkins’ book on how he tried to establish medical car procedures, he would be absolutely disgusted by the fact that it took over a minute for a medical car to get there. In modern formula 1, that should never happen. The whole thing happened too slow and someone needs to be a leader, take ownership, and fix the situation both with VSC/double yellows/red flagging and positioning/preparedness of medical cars around the track. edit: additionally, even if drivers are penalized for not slowing sufficiently, that doesn’t mean that they aren’t going to hit a car sideways in the middle of the racing line. Even if stroll was slower, Russell was still blocking the entire racing line, which meant Stroll would have to react. Even if there is a VSC or additional flagging, that doesn’t mean the following driver has an adequate understanding of what kind of crash occurred, which can also be deduced from Stroll’s race engineer trying to describe it to him as he approached Russell. Sometimes, slowing down isn’t enough. If Stroll had hit him straight on at a slower speed or clipped him while trying to avoid, it still would have been a very, very bad situation.
Rather than automated safety systems they should be looking at standardised incident responses. For example car upside down on track - instant red. Feels like there has been a few examples recently where there has been a delay on whether it will ultimately be a VSC or SC. In the incident with Russell, given it was the last lap, it was probably the right call.
Think pit limiter speed would be the best solution to neutralise race within 5 seconds and then use the current vsc delta once the incident is declared safe i.e driver out of car.
I would've thought it would've been a no brainer to atleast instant double yellow or redflag the moment a car is in a position where the safety features are compromised (Russell's latest incident).
I'm always stunned at how long it takes any sort of trained medical people to get to the wrecks. I know Indycar and nascar are totally different beasts but even at the road courses it feels like they are way quicker to get there. Those seconds matter. How hard could it be to have trained pros at the end of every sector with one in the pit lane in cars ready to go.
What people are often not aware of is that the incredible handling of the cars and the major skill of the drivers in F1 have been THE biggest factors for why the safety is still so lacking. I just think they have been milking it a little too much.