Safety car problem suggestions please

[nae]

fair point on the running under weight

but if they are and then there is a safety car they will be caught out badly

[ISLAMATRON]

Safety car rules in general aim mostly at securing safety, fairness under unsafe conditions comes second. The penalties though are kind of ridiculous. I think someone else suggested this in the past: They can just make one simple rule which will immediately solve the problem. All cars should carry a minimum amount of fuel at all times, ie enough for two laps. They could carry out random checks at the end of a session and penalise anyone who does not conform with the rule, and during the race anyone who takes the risk to use that extra fuel, well he risks running out or being penalised if a safety car comes out and they have to pit. If that happens, I think it would then be fair to give them a drive-through, stop and go, or even to black flag them, as they will know it was their own choice to take the risk. Simple, fair, easy to implement, and cheap! What do you think?

Pretty good partial solution to the problem but they would still need to figure out how to not have all the cars in the pit lane at the same time. that was the main reason for my suggestion of the pit speed limiter for the whole track, that would maintain relative gaps between the cars.

[myurr]

Ban refueling and the problem goes away. Those who were about to come in for new tyres can now choose to struggle on, or take advantage of the fresh rubber. No one will run out of fuel. And the fact that the field is bunched up again is not always an issue - sometimes a dull race can be turned around by that reshuffling of the pack. Do you think Singapore would have been as good a race were it not for the safety car coming out?

[ISLAMATRON]

Ban refueling and the problem goes away. Those who were about to come in for new tyres can now choose to struggle on, or take advantage of the fresh rubber. No one will run out of fuel. And the fact that the field is bunched up again is not always an issue - sometimes a dull race can be turned around by that reshuffling of the pack. Do you think Singapore would have been as good a race were it not for the safety car coming out?

BAnning refueling is also a good option, but it does take away 1 element of strategy that can add intrigue to the f1 race. Plus it would put an incentive on fuel effiency, something the FIA is trying to encourage, this would put even more value to a good KERS system.

[nae]

teams can currently pit for tyres without penalty under the safety car

this is to allow those who may have damaged there tyres in an incident
to change them for safety reasons

[RH1300S]

I think that a speed limiter solution causes an obvious problem in keeping tyres & brakes warm - which, in itself may be more dangerous.

My idea:

Give the teams the OPTION to declare their pitstop laps within a fixed period after qualifying - you can make your normal stop if you have safety car conditions on your declared laps. If you choose not to declare your laps - then the rules apply as now . There is nothing to stop declaring teams changing strategy during the race - as above you can choose to declare the change or not (so you might change strategy and don't tell anyone, but risk being caught by a closed pit lane).

What you cannot do is start the race without declaring and change your mind to declaring during the race.

It would be very simple to automate a system where the teams have a "little black box" - and they enter their wish to declare and enter their fuel laps; a nil entry is deemed to be non-declaring. The race stewards have the data - so when the pit closes, they know that cars x y & z are allowed in on any particular lap.

I think this is a simple solution. We retain the pit-lane closed rule for safety reasons, teams are naturally reticent about declaring strategy - so they have the choice not to if they want. It would be interesting to see how the teams do a risk analysis depending on tracks.

[ISLAMATRON]

I think that a speed limiter solution causes an obvious problem in keeping tyres & brakes warm - which, in itself may be more dangerous.

How much more of a problem than when they are behind the safety car? LAst race, they were going less then 120 KPH behind the safety car, somewhere around 111 kph

[myurr]

How much more of a problem than when they are behind the safety car?

If you are at a fixed speed and swerve across the track or brake to generate heat in the tyres and brakes then you are covering more distance or going more slowly than your competitors and thus lose ground.

[myurr]

BAnning refueling is also a good option, but it does take away 1 element of strategy that can add intrigue to the f1 race. Plus it would put an incentive on fuel effiency, something the FIA is trying to encourage, this would put even more value to a good KERS system.

Whilst it takes away 1 element of strategy (although due to the qualifying system how much mix up of strategy really goes on?) it adds another - the car has to work across the whole weight range of full tanks through to fumes, whilst maintaining a decent balance. You can also have drivers choosing to conserve their tyres, trying to make them last, or go for qualifying style laps and stop more often for fresh tyres.

[RH1300S]

I think that a speed limiter solution causes an obvious problem in keeping tyres & brakes warm - which, in itself may be more dangerous.

How much more of a problem than when they are behind the safety car? LAst race, they were going less then 120 KPH behind the safety car, somewhere around 111 kph

The problem is quite simple (I think).

If you set the speed limiter at the lowest speed on the track (slowest corner) the chances are that the cars won't be able to retain heat - first, because they will be travelling slowly & second (as pointed out) - the more you brake and weave to retain heat, the more spread out you become.

If you set the speed limiter at a higher speed (lets say 120kph for example) - what happens if the accident scene is at the site of a 100kph corner? The drivers will naturally try and negotiate that corner as fast as they can (i.e. at racing speed) - so cars will try and run near the limit at the site of the greatest danger to the marshalls and at the same time be running very slowly elsewhere.

Also - the "problem" between (say) 60kph limit & 120kph limit is that there is actually big difference the the emount of energy the drivers can put into the brakes & tyres. So a speed limiter is likely to cause additional risk rather than control risk.