Another black day for the refuelling rig

[Rob W]

Bernie's take on the situation..

"If I wanted to be a smart-arse, I'd have devised a system so that the light goes green to release the driver at the same time as the coupling hose comes off the car."

Bernie makes a good call...

R

[Ray]

Think about it, it takes very little effort to press a button, but to raise a lollipop needs force - you can't accidentally lift it and release the driver but you can accidentally press a button with a twitch of your finger.

Wrong. It happened to Rubens this season I believe, and it happened to DC in Singapore. The lollipop makes no difference in Rubens case because the fuel hose still got ripped off, the pit members still got knocked down, and the lollipop was broken in half. DCs lollipop man lifted the board early and he damn near tore the whole thing off, granted the lollipop was dropped back down, but the error was still made. Both incidents wereHUMAN ERROR, regardless of lights or lollipop it wasn't the system that failed. Why does everyone launch a crusade against Ferraris light system saying that a lollipop guy doesn't make the mistakes and that the lollipop doesn't cause as many errors, when it's blantantly false. All cases of pitlane incidents were caused by some pit crew member making an error and releasing them too early. For Gods sake, quit blaming the system for the failure of the people controlling it!

I agree with GTO. The car shouldn't have weight on wheels until the pit service is absolutely complete. The car can't drive off if the wheels aren't touching pavement, and to go even further in preventing this use a clutch 'kill switch' when the fuel hose is attached. I don't really like air jacks all that much, but a benefit is that you have less crew members to run over if something goes wrong.

[nae]

it should be left up to the teams, if they want to have dancing ladyz
or flashing lights or whatever its there call, the mistakes happen becuase
they are trying to make up a second or 2, if they wish to take the risk thats there call

only if the team puts others at risk should anything be mandated

oh and as for the ferrari system 2 fails resulting in penalties in 3 races
is not realy the pinnacle of engineering now, whats that 6 or 9 uses and 3 fails
in total

I am all for it, iron out your problems when there is a championship to be won

[Ian P.]

The references to making refueling similar to NASCAR have some merit but the basic nature of a NASCAR pitstop is centered around a limit of the number of mechanics over the wall. Look at a typical F1 pitstop. The number of mechanics involved is incredible. One to take the wheel nut off, one to hold the new wheel, one to receive the old wheel, all times 4 plus 2 or 3 for the fuel rig, a couple for the jacks, a starter holder, someone to work the lolly-pop and some more to adjust suspension and clean side-pods. I have counted 22 involved on some stops. NASCAR allows 5 I believe, one to fuel, one to catch the overflow, one on the jack and two wheel-changers.
In the NASCAR situation (and CART as well) the teams go to great lengths to move activities outside the restricted area. The windshield washer is behind the wall and the guy that hands the drink to the driver has a 10 foot pole.
I would be all for limiting the number of mechanics working an F1 refueling or tire stop. We would see some innovation from the teams and some interesting developments.
Like it or not, I wager there are a bunch of teams that are working on a similar light system to what Ferrari has.
This is F1. The pinnacle of motorsport and if it is worth a couple of tenths per stop it will be used. Yes, it can undoubtedly be improved but the basic nature is that it "should" be more reliable and less error prone than a single person controlling a Lolly-Pop. If you were a team manager, you would say ...."Just do-it".
Along with the Fuel Hose Switch, I bet Ferrari is also working on an Adrian Sutil Proximity Switch. Something they also seem to have a need for.

[Saribro]

oh and as for the ferrari system 2 fails resulting in penalties in 3 races is not realy the pinnacle of engineering now, whats that 6 or 9 uses and 3 fails in total

Convenient to forget the rest of the season.

[modbaraban]

I would be all for limiting the number of mechanics working an F1 refueling or tire stop. We would see some innovation from the teams and some interesting developments.

I made this video a few weeks ago, and if you watch the youtube counter you'll see that one mechanic can change a tire within 7 seconds. Imressive.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZ8iPLIW0Vo[/youtube]

A simple rule like no more than two wheels can be serviced simultaneously would make pitsop just a little longer enough to bring more variety in the pitstop strategy as well. It's mostly 2-3 stops now for every car... quali system's to blame as well.

[nae]

oh and as for the ferrari system 2 fails resulting in penalties in 3 races is not realy the pinnacle of engineering now, whats that 6 or 9 uses and 3 fails in total

Convenient to forget the rest of the season.

oh come now they havent been running it all season
and to be frank i dont know when they started so to avoid a mistake i
stuck to the information i know

and in the manor of modern media I choose correct statistics to emphasize the point
I was choosing to make

there is an old adage in mechanics

IF AIN'T BROKE DON'T FIX IT

if you wish to counter my point please do, if my point is wrong feel free to correct it

and as for the NASCAR thing is that not due to them using the invisible flamed
methanol that they restricted the crew numbers?

[nae]

I bet Ferrari is also working on an Adrian Sutil Proximity Switch.

[Ray]

and as for the NASCAR thing is that not due to them using the invisible flamed
methanol that they restricted the crew numbers?

NASCAR has never used methanol. They have always used leaded gasoline, and more recently unleaded gasoline if I'm not mistaken. Of course the octane number is way higher than pump gas. They restrict crew member, to 7, over the wall for safety sake I think, and NASCARs SOP is more with less. I think less crew members is a great idea, less people to get injured and longer stops mean less mistakes. Well in NASCAR that's true anyway. But they are down to the 13-14 second range which is mind-blowingly fast!

[nae]

ok fair do's iwas under the wrong impression
is it IRL/ champ cars that ran methanol
not thats its important.

I am skirting round the issue

this whole 'restrict this', 'ban that'
IMHO has no real place in the apparent pinnacle
of motor sport

its not some national series struggling for acceptance

if teams want to take risks to gain tenths then let them
and let them pay the price when they get it wrong

i liked the Ferrari boss / bernie exchange in the media

Ferrari boss, the night race / safety car was a circus
bernie, well if it was a circus thank you for providing the clowns

[guy_smiley]

i agree with everyone that says each and all of these incidents were human error, not the fault of the lighting system. whether its a man with a lollipop or a man with a button, they (or the drivers) are the ones that make the error.
if the system failed, it would be the mechanic hitting the button and the light not changing, or the hose coming out and the light not changing. i think that's the fundamental difference here, and i dont think anyone has pointed that out.
and as for the people who mentioned jacks or leaving the wheels up until the fuel hose is out, this is what the BMW pit crew does (i dont think anyone has mentioned that either).

Bernie's take on the situation..

"If I wanted to be a smart-arse, I'd have devised a system so that the light goes green to release the driver at the same time as the coupling hose comes off the car."

Bernie makes a good call...

R

i could be wrong, but i think the system does activate the light when the coupling comes off the car, but for reasons like traffic, there is also this overriding button that a mechanic presses/releases. now, this is speculation, but for instance kimis problem, the light would have gone green as soon as the hose was out, but he left early: his human error. and in massas case, there was so much going on in the pit lane that the mechanic pressed/released the button prematurely thus turning the light green: the mechanics human error. i think if we go back and watch aaalllll the races in which it worked perfectly 4 or 6 times each race, we'd find that it does go green as soon as the hose comes out...

[myurr]

i could be wrong, but i think the system does activate the light when the coupling comes off the car, but for reasons like traffic, there is also this overriding button that a mechanic presses/releases. now, this is speculation, but for instance kimis problem, the light would have gone green as soon as the hose was out, but he left early: his human error. and in massas case, there was so much going on in the pit lane that the mechanic pressed/released the button prematurely thus turning the light green: the mechanics human error. i think if we go back and watch aaalllll the races in which it worked perfectly 4 or 6 times each race, we'd find that it does go green as soon as the hose comes out...

My understanding was that it works like this:

Each wheel mechanic has a button that they press to indicate they have completed their job.
The fuel hose mechanic has a button that he presses to indicate that the hose is clear.
There is a master override button on the pit wall (I'm guessing the location) which is used to hold the car whilst there is traffic.

If all the jobs are indicated as complete and the override is off, the light goes green.

In Singapore Ferrari decided to just use the override switch - ie. a single button on the pit wall telling the driver to stop or go, with the system not using the job completion confirmation buttons.

My theory as to what happened is that the guy on the pit wall either forgot or didn't know that the system was being used like this, and was only watching the traffic. So when there was a gap in the traffic he released the car, expecting the rest of the system to hold the car were the mechanics still working on it. As the lights were in manual mode, this holding of the car didn't happen, Massa was released, and the rest is history.

[nae]

good theory
except that massa was released into the path of another car
and then got a penalty for it

[myurr]

good theory
except that massa was released into the path of another car
and then got a penalty for it

He would have cleared Sutil had he not been slowed down by the hose - watch it again and he gets a relatively slow getaway, especially when the hose first snaps taught and rips.

[nae]

ah but had he waited till they had actually finished refuelling him then he wouldn't