Track limits, rule enforcements, good sportsmanship etc

[turbof1]

First of all: To everyone that stayed civil in this thread (which is everyone!): =D> =D> =D> Amazingly, this also seems to apply to the race thread

Well, it's nice to see the kids growing up

As mentioned there: in Hamilton's case, the very reason that (in spirit) creates the first corner exception, does not apply. Of all 22 drivers, he was the only one that had a clear track ahead, an unimpeded line and did not need to react to anyone else's movements. OK, that's highly subjective, but the Stewards had available the most lenient penalty imaginable: a 5 second penalty which in practice would be served some 20 laps down the road. Weren't 5 second penalties introduced exactly so that Stewards would have a very minor penalty in their list of choices?

In any case, in case someone here is too young to know how Senna-Toleman's "foam chicanes" work:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZKTSCxGG1g
A 30cm high "foam wall" is probably a perfectly good deterrent (still a wall in human's eyes) that risks only the need to deploy a safety car. Installed far away enough from the apex, it would nicely have forced first Hamilton, then Rosberg and later Verstappen to go around it.
An it is a wonderful place for advertising. What coolest advertising that seeing your logo destroyed into a million pieces in super solow-mo in newsreels all over the world?

I think the decision of the stewards not to punish Hamilton was logical. Not by any means fair, just logical. The directive given to the stewards tells them to close an eye on "first corner incidents". Due to that, it is very difficult to have both consistent decision making and still punishing oblivious errors. On top of that Verstappen and Rosberg on their own made mistakes. Without any previous lap data, it was impossible for the stewards to empirically prove the advantage Hamilton gained, even though obvious from the TV footage. So in that sense it was logical that no action was taken.

If you want less controversy, IMO the sport needs to get less complicated, not more. And by adding more rules, that's exactly what you are doing...

Ben only suggested a much broader spectrum usage of the current rules, meaning you are going from the current situation where the rules are littered by exceptions where penalties do not apply, you'd go to the same rules with few exceptions where the penalties do not apply.

Next to that, you don't always need ruling from stewards to get drivers to adjust their driving. Just make it a big enough disadvantage for drivers to discourage them.




https://gforcef1.wordpress.com/2012/11/ ... f1-tracks/

Paul Ricard features visually distinctive red and blue abrasive run-off zones, which punish mistakes dearly, as well as preventing cars from heavy crashes. In the picture to the right, the blue-striped area will slow the car down moderately, allowing the driver to rejoin the track with little danger. However, small tungsten strips in this section will also damage the user’s tyres as a result, providing a deterrent to leaving the track.

The red-striped areas behind will destroy any set of tyres, providing the maximum level of grip to slow a car before an impact with the barrier. Any F1 car that ran over this section would immediately be forced to pit for a new set of tyres, similar to how gravel traps will ruin the rubber on any set of Pirellis.

Having your tyres ruined to the point of no continueing yet bringing the car to a halt through grip seems to be as punishing as a wall without the safety issues.

[Shrieker]

"He should hand the position back, end of the story" -S. Vettel

The one you never got. Yes, he did gain an advantage by leaving the track, BUT you were never even alongside in the first place.

[dans79]

Well, it's nice to see the kids growing up

Sadly, it seems we still have some passive aggressive children hanging around, just scroll up a little.

[bhall II]

Having your tyres ruined to the point of no continueing yet bringing the car to a halt through grip seems to be as punishing as a wall without the safety issues.

Unfortunately, that stuff only degrades performance if you slide over it; you can drive over it all day.

[turbof1]

Having your tyres ruined to the point of no continueing yet bringing the car to a halt through grip seems to be as punishing as a wall without the safety issues.

Unfortunately, that stuff only degrades performance if you slide over it; you can drive over it all day.

Doesn't sliding always degrade tyre performance? My opinion is that this works even if you drive over it in a normal fashion, albeit I am not able to find a lot of info on it. My take on it, is that it is made highly abrasive where it would do the same degradation of a dozen laps on the normal circuit tarmac, within a few seconds.

[Tim.Wright]

Here's a proposal. It will adequately penalise any drivers who leave the track by smashing their cars to pieces yet is much safer than the armco walls in Monaco, Baku or the concrete walls in Canada.

The idea is to have a train of low (500mm), wheeled skids lined with foam padding on the outside and linked together with a massive kevlar cable to form a wall.

It sits on normal road car tyres so that it will skid along the ground and dissipate energy when it's hit by a car.



A few justifications of the system:

• No more stewards decisions regarding track limits
• Impression of speed is massively increased because the cars are always close to the walls
• The walls can be loaded with broadcasting equipment for better camera angles and microphone placement
• Walls can also contain marshalling lights, extinguishers and first aid equipment
• Tarmac run-off space could be greatly reduced in size to bring the spectators closer to the track

Yea, I get really bored on my days off...

[bhall II]

Doesn't sliding always degrade tyre performance?

The abrasive texture of the strips give runoff areas a bit more stopping power over cars that are out of control, which in turn means runoff areas can be a bit smaller without significantly increasing risks. Under normal circumstances, they're inconsequential.

Ultimately, the efficacy of any solution rests solely with the consistency of its imposition. The value of walls is that they never waver, making judgment calls irrelevant by removing all doubt every time. There's no reason why the regulations can't be just as strict. It's just a matter of actually doing it.

[Edax]

1. Concerning the cutting of turn 1 by Hamilton and Max, it appears s simple solution would stop this madness. A wall. Had a wall been there then you can be damn sure that Lewis wouldn't have braked so late and taken such a large chance. This makes the need for many more fancy rules and arguments for and against a penalty. A wall solves this point blank.
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I'll never forget the sight of Ratzenbergers car sliding back on the asphalt. Helmet bobbing, one leg exposed in a torn open cockpit. Spectacle shouls never come at the price of safety. Walls on a high speed ciruit are just not worth it.

The gravel trap is fine except for two flaws. One is that they leave cars beached necessitating a race interrupt. The other that in some circumstances they allow cars to skid over them uncontrolled and without slowing down.

Just thinking out of the box, maybe we need a weather proof analogy to mayonaise. Mayonaise has the remarkable property that it is shear thinning. Shear thickening or non newtonian liquids have the property that they behave like a solid at high shear forces and as a liquid at low shear forces. you can run over a bath filled corn starch but you'll sink in it walking.

A shear thinning material would do the exact opposite. A fast car sliding out of contol would be caught, but a slow car would be able to drive over it. The only thing is to find a material that fits that description and can be economically applied to a racetrack.

[bhall II]

Another way to look at it...



Competitively, there's no difference between the result of striking a wall and the result of a rule that would disqualify drivers for off-track excursions. No one argues with walls about the non-negotiable consequences they impose. Why should the rules be any different?

I'm not saying all instances of leaving the track warrant disqualification (or anything even remotely that severe). But, in a strange way, it might actually be the most logical solution.

[zac510]

A wall is rubbish for specatators - you can't see the cars.

Judging by the ranting about penalties too many people are too emotionally invested in F1 and too biased to accept that sometimes it's not perfect. All sports have dubious umpiring and player decisions and we just have to accept that's the way the sport is.

[Cold Fussion]

How about that for all off track excursions, you are penalised in time (rounded up to the nearest second) equal to that of the time difference of that "sub sector (or multiple if the infraction spans multiple)" to that on your previous lap. This would mean if a driver goes off track and didn't immediately slow down to compensate for their time gain, they would suffer the consequences. It would also mean drivers would probably slow down themselves to compensate because of the difficulty of serving a 1s time penalty in a pot stop.

The obvious problems with this system are first laps and safety car restarts (though I believe these scenarios should be given more leniency and judged on a case by case basis anyway), and in instances when a driver is forced off the track by another driver.

[bhall II]

Judging by the ranting about penalties too many people are too emotionally invested in F1 and too biased...

Someone proposed mayonnaise as a solution. That can only mean we're doing just fine here.

[Belatti]

Once upon a time, the natural geography of the tracks and bigger kerbs made you loose time and/or break your car, thus drivers payed for off track excursions.

Of course, wrongly placed they can turn into 1994 Barrichello-Imola kind of accidents and no one would want that.

But you see how tracks where in the 80s and early 90s and you could make them safer WITHOUT making them look exactly the same (as now) with the omnipresent FIA norm.

[Stradivarius]

Competitively, there's no difference between the result of striking a wall and the result of a rule that would disqualify drivers for off-track excursions. No one argues with walls about the non-negotiable consequences they impose. Why should the rules be any different?

I agree, which is why I earlier stated that the talk about walls is nonsense. Everyone who say that they want a wall, really want any driver who leaves the track to be out of the race and this can be achieved by simply enforcing the rule of Article 27.4 in the sporting regulations. An immediate drive-through would probably be enough of an incentive to keep the drivers on the track and then exceptions can be made in those cases where the driver is clearly not at fault.

With regards to Hamilton's incident, I notice that some try to argue that he didn't have any choice because he was carrying too much speed and didn't have enough grip, etc. Why should this be relevant? (I am aware that it might be under today's rules and rule enforcement, but I think it shouldn't be. ) Whether he planned this before the race, to make sure he would keep the lead through the first corners, or whether he had no choice and did the only safe thing from the moment he entered the corner with too much speed, the consequence should be the same. He should pay some kind of price for failing to comply with the rules. In the 1995 Athletics World Championship, Gwen Torrence won the 200 m final race by a margin of more than 3 meters, but was disqualified because she had stepped on the whit line separating the lanes. The distance she saved by doing this was a few inches at most, which undoubtably is significantly less than the margin of 3 meters. But there was never any doubt about the disqualification because the rules are very clear. There was no speculation of intent, there was no subjective evaluation of how much was gained and what the consequences were and similar forms of what-ifs. She steped out of her lane and was disqualified. Beautifully simple!

A rule which requires speculation regarding the competitor's intent is a weak rule, simply beacue intent is impossible to prove. Therefore, it is important to ensure that no rule infringement may lead to any possible advantage, regardless of intent. Also, it is important to limit the possible disadvantage for others as much as possible. Verstappen violated the rules to stay ahead of Vettel. He was then able to put Vettel at disadvantage by slowing him down while the other Red Bull driver closed the gap and made an attempt to pass, which actually succeeded in a very unusual way. Ultimately Vettel most likely lost 2 places because of Verstappen's violation of the rules. This should be prevented by imposing penalties that directly affect track position and reducing the response time of the stewards to impose a penalty. There is no reason why a decision can't be made within a few seconds in most cases. It didn't take the Red Bull team long to conclude that Verstappen should give his position to Vettel. A team would never giv such an advice unless they were sure of it. Still, the race officials didn't make a desition until it was too late. They are allowed to be slow and it is accepted, although it leads to unfair situations for the drivers. Why is that?

[zac510]

I look forward to FP2 being delayed while they re-mayonnaise the runoff area!

Anyway my comment was referring to all threads (race threads, etc) not just this one. Worrying about whether the rules are applied perfectly only takes away from your capaability to enjoy the race, in my opinion.