VSC .....are safety cars redundant ?

[lebesset]

with the introduction of VSC I believe that the abandonment of safety cars is now possible and desirable

desirable because it would be a much fairer system ....it seems to me to be wrong that any driver should be advantaged or disadvantaged by events that have nothing to do with them , and that certainly happens with the current safety car system

possible because the technology is already in existance .....so a warning appears on the steering wheel telling the driver of the VSC , he/she must slow down and engage a speed limiter pre set for the circuit in the same way as the pit lane speed limiter

everyone is forced to slow as required ; in fact a more sophisticated system could easily be introduced giving variable speed limits so that , for example , the warning light didn't stop until the car was down to the designated speed

[WaikeCU]

Interesting... Actually at the same time when this thread is made I was thinking about the current safety car and medical car:

- Do the produce more CO² than the F1 cars nowadays?
- Do they produce more noise than the F1 cars nowadays?
- Do they have worse fuel mileage than F1 cars nowadays?

If so, why not deploy for example the SLS AMG Electric drive as a safety car for next season?
Hybrid is the talk nowadays and even so in F1, so when the F1 cars tend to be more green, then surely the safety car and medical car should be too?

[rohit1594]

I think we still need the safety car on track to provide that odd drama where it can turn the race on its head. Safety car is the biggest X-factor on tracks like Monaco, Montreal, Singapore. Taking the threat of the Safety Car out of the equation would rob these races some of their character, I feel. Plus, the moment when the race leader starts to bunch up the pack before the restart is almost as exciting as the start itself!

As far as having an advantage or a disadvantage is concerned, it is no more unfair to the driver than say, having a mechanical failure or a bad pitstop... That's racing!

[lebesset]

I think we still need the safety car on track to provide that odd drama where it can turn the race on its head. Safety car is the biggest X-factor on tracks like Monaco, Montreal, Singapore. Taking the threat of the Safety Car out of the equation would rob these races some of their character, I feel. Plus, the moment when the race leader starts to bunch up the pack before the restart is almost as exciting as the start itself!

As far as having an advantage or a disadvantage is concerned, it is no more unfair to the driver than say, having a mechanical failure or a bad pitstop... That's racing!

I don't agree with any of that
so a safety car to spice up the racing ? F1 is not nascar , safety car to put on adverts and disguise the fact that driving around in circles is boring , why not reverse grids ?
and how is a failure by the team unfair to that team ?

[MOWOG]

It may be that a physical safety car on track is an anachronism. Certainly the technology exists to electronically limit the speed of the cars by race control. There could be a short delay accompanied by a warning signal to the driver before engine power is reduced.

What needs to be imposed is an absolute ban on overtaking or racing to the saftey car, which may have been a factor in the Juled Bianchi tragedy. When race control throws the switch, that's it. Racing stops and everyone holds their position. To take away the random advantage that comes when the leader is just past the pit entrance when the safety period begins, prohibit anyone coming into the pits until the leader comes around to the pit entrance again.

The bunching up of the cars and the excitement of the restart would still add interest to the race. It seems unfair to me that a driver who has done everything right and finds himself in the lead should suddenly find himself moved back in the field through no fault of his own or his team.

I like lebesset's idea. =D>

[Tim.Wright]

You still need a safety car in my opinion as there are lots of cases where you need some decision making done by the driver e.g.

• Taking paths to avoid debris, marshalls (which could be different every lap around)
• Divert the drivers through shortcuts or the pitlane if the track is blocked
• Stopping the whole field for a few seconds if required (e.g. to let a doctor or other critical service cross the track)
• Assessing the weather conditions (The driver's feedback can't be trusted as they all have their own agendas)
• To report other debris, problems, track damage (which can be seen better from a road car)
• To vary the speed after the field has bunched up (i.e. slow in the danger area, faster for the rest of the track to keep the tyre temps up)

Basically anything that requires some decision making can't be handled by a virtual safety car (for the moment anyway).

[notsofast]

Isn't the main purpose of the safety car to bunch up the field so that the track workers get about 30 seconds each lap to clear the debris? Don't get me wrong, I strongly dislike bunching up the field, but how else can men with brooms do their job?

I do believe that the safety car should not be deployed in cases where we don't need men with brooms. If the issue is simply that cars should slow down, well for that we can have the VSC or we can use the rev limiter and there may be other options that don't bunch up the field.

[Ciro Pabón]

Well, I'm in favor of new things so, yes, lebesset (hi, leb!), good thinking.

However, Tim.Wrigh (hi, Tim!) and notsofast have valid arguments.

I say that they have to be solved before safety cars disappear.

Moreover, I've always thought that safety cars are unsafe.

They are usually cars that are not designed for racing, so their drivers have to race as madmen to achieve a speed that is moderate for racing cars.

Attention, Race Director, attention... do you copy? We need a second safety car for the first safety car!


At 0:25 into the previous video you can watch a world record on ¨how to add ignominy to injury¨ when the safety car take out the car in first place.

Famous and extremely well documented pace car crash at Indy 500 in 1971... it crashed into the photographers stand


The face of the driver of the safety car sums up the words ¨Earth, swallow me!¨

However, we cannot discount the inexhaustible ability of human beings to find new ways to make mistakes: if virtual safety cars are implemented, they will cause new kind of errors that we cannot predict.

The guys in F1 are a tremendous source of untested ideas that somehow have to be implemented without any testing, just based on theoretical principles.

That goes against most engineering principles I' ve learned during my life.

I wonder why new technologies cannot be tested in less demanding series before being deployed in F1. What´s GP2 for? For F1 retired drivers only, I guess...

[Moose]

Interesting... Actually at the same time when this thread is made I was thinking about the current safety car and medical car:

- Do the produce more CO² than the F1 cars nowadays?
- Do they produce more noise than the F1 cars nowadays?
- Do they have worse fuel mileage than F1 cars nowadays?

If so, why not deploy for example the SLS AMG Electric drive as a safety car for next season?
Hybrid is the talk nowadays and even so in F1, so when the F1 cars tend to be more green, then surely the safety car and medical car should be too?

Nice idea, I'd love to see a Tesla Model S-D as the safety car.

[pob]

The virtual safety car rules are idiotic: when Charlie wants to end the virtual safety car, there's a random time between 10 to 15 seconds and it's lifted and everywhere goes 'green'. This is so which driver is disadvantaged (e.g. by being on the middle of the straight) is random. Why not instead just lift the speed restrictions but keep out the yellows everywhere for 10 seconds so no driver is disadvantaged?

[Moose]

The virtual safety car rules are idiotic: when Charlie wants to end the virtual safety car, there's a random time between 10 to 15 seconds and it's lifted and everywhere goes 'green'. This is so which driver is disadvantaged (e.g. by being on the middle of the straight) is random. Why not instead just lift the speed restrictions but keep out the yellows everywhere for 10 seconds so no driver is disadvantaged?

Because yellows everywhere are meant to be speed restrictions, doing this would only communicate "you don't need to slow for yellows".

[DAMNINice]

VSC is the dumbest idea ever...
When your steering wheel shows you that you are "green" (which means "slower as you could be without a penatly") every driver will begin driving faster .. And he doesen't care if its in the dangerous zone or not.

The VSC should simply be a limiter (best case: countdown , (every driver has a big display, nowadays) 3...2...1 ... Limiter) electronically controlled by the race control (race control can activate and deactivate the limiter + the limit speed .. 120 in the dry, 80 in the wet f.e. )

[ian_s]

any kind of automatic system is just an accident waiting to happen. if you suddenly lose all power at full racing speed through a flat-out corner, that will instantly pitch the car into a spin with no hope of controlling it. i can just imagine the carnage if that happened as a car goes through the monaco tunnel

[Moose]

Yep, taking control out of the driver's hands is absolutely insane. Any system that does that is going to cause more accidents than it prevents.