Formula 1 2014: Round 15 - Japanese Grand Prix (NO FOOTAGE OF THE CRASH ALLOWED)

AMKC

SnowDrifts wrote: »

I would hate to see the safety car being brought out every time a car needs to be collected. It's not just a matter of having it out for one lap... it first has to pick up the leaders... then the whole rigmarole of letting the back markers through.

Rather focus on ensuring drivers obey double yellows and slow down like they are supposed to.

I don,t think they would need to bring out the safety car every time a crashed car or one that had gone of the track and got stuck in say a gravel pit. I think in the dry as long as the drivers obey the yellow flags and the car is not in the way or in a dangerous spot then then there should be no need.
But if it was like in Japan at a corner like that and very wet then yes I think the safety car should be out as it should have been out that day as soon as Sutils car went off the track.

Mech1

why not scrap the safety car, Full course yellow instead, Leaders car gets progressivly limited or restricts pace to maybe 80 MPH no overtaking, pits open for 2 min after declaration, green given by cockpit light to all drivers at the same time on a random part of track no radio guidance?

Full course yellow could be for 10 seconds or 10 min depending on situ.

mickdw

Mech1 wrote: »

why not scrap the safety car, Full course yellow instead, Leaders car gets progressivly limited or restricts pace to maybe 80 MPH no overtaking, pits open for 2 min after declaration, green given by cockpit light to all drivers at the same time on a random part of track no radio guidance?

Full course yellow could be for 10 seconds or 10 min depending on situ.

I Don't think depending on the drivers to adequately slow down is really good enough.
Give a racing driver an opportunity to close the gap to the car in front and he will push the limits of what is safe and what is allowed.
Sadly, I think We will see more of this driving to delta times which I don't like but it would guarantee that the cars slow anyway.

_rebelkid

bbability

I don't think anyone is suggesting that a Safety car should be deployed every time a car skids off. It should be deployed when a JCB is within the track boundaries to remove a vehicle. In this case I don't think it would have mattered. Let's hope he pulls through. It was an awful smash. Let's see what comes out of the investigation.

Scotty #

Ultimately, F1 is all about technology. It would be very easy to have a system where by a signal is sent to the car as it passes a yellow flag point, automatically engaging some kind of power restriction on the car, similar to the pit lane limiter but not as harsh obviously. When it passes the green flag point the restriction is automatically lifted again.

Leaving it to drivers to voluntarily slow down doesn't work. If it did we wouldn't need safety cars.

mickdw

Was just looking at the crash corner on street view. Very little runoff area there. After looking at it, it was absolute madness having marshals there is wet conditions.
Well into the exit stage of the corner too. Must be as the drivers put some power in that they were getting caught out.

Vegeta

Scotty # wrote: »

Ultimately, F1 is all about technology. It would be very easy to have a system where by a signal is sent to the car as it passes a yellow flag point, automatically engaging some kind of power restriction on the car, similar to the pit lane limiter but not as harsh obviously. When it passes the green flag point the restriction is automatically lifted again.

Leaving it to drivers to voluntarily slow down doesn't work. If it did we wouldn't need safety cars.

I think the image you posted earlier with the track sections shown in green and yellow is the reason this would not work. As you said, having to lift off in a high speed corner is likely to have contributed to this crash.

Sterling Archer

Personally I believe in Code 60, although 60km/h is possible too slow for f1 maybe use 60mph instead and just like currently where the track is divided into sections, a section would have yellow flags displayed first (that section the determined as being a yellow section),
then into double yellows and then into a code 60 section if the situation necessitates it (car in an in accessible location, track vehicles needed etc.)
Then imply a zero tolerance for drivers who break the code 60 (although it'll just be a switch on the steering wheel) with drive through & stop go penalties.

Drivers will quickly start obeying a code 60, rather than risk loosing 25+ seconds just the gain a few seconds

Green - Racing
Yellow - incident
Double Yellow - car in possibly dangerous position
Code 60 - Recover vehicles on track/ exposed marshals etc
Safety car - everything else

mickdw

Shane_ef wrote: »

Personally I believe in Code 60, although 60km/h is possible too slow for f1 maybe use 60mph instead and just like currently where the track is divided into sections, a section would have yellow flags displayed first (that section the determined as being a yellow section),
then into double yellows and then into a code 60 section if the situation necessitates it (car in an in accessible location, track vehicles needed etc.)
Then imply a zero tolerance for drivers who break the code 60 (although it'll just be a switch on the steering wheel) with drive through & stop go penalties.

Drivers will quickly start obeying a code 60, rather than risk loosing 25+ seconds just the gain a few seconds

Green - Racing
Yellow - incident
Double Yellow - car in possibly dangerous position
Code 60 - Recover vehicles on track/ exposed marshals etc
Safety car - everything else

I like it.
To be honest, my opinion is that a driver who would not try gain an advantage at the current yellow flag situation is not really a racing driver so you have to take it out of their hands.
Having said that, it's surely aquaplaning situations that are the most dangerous.

pegasus1

OSI wrote: »

They can't even get DRS to work properly, and the pit lane limiter is manual.

But they get fined if they go over...give a speed gun to every marshall section..

losthorizon

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/116271

Here is a summary of the crash findings

bbability

Press conference held this afternoon in relation to the crash in Japan with Jules. Bianchi. They showed the CCTV footage from Suzuka of the crash which seemed to have caught a few reporters out from Ted Kravtizs reaction on the F1 Show. They were not allowed to record any footage while it was shown to the press. It seems lots of drivers ignored the yellow flags and didn't slow down.

losthorizon

bbability wrote: »

Press conference held this afternoon in relation to the crash in Japan with Jules. Bianchi. They showed the CCTV footage from Suzuka of the crash which seemed to have caught a few reporters out from Ted Kravtizs reaction on the F1 Show. They were not allowed to record any footage while it was shown to the press. It seems lots of drivers ignored the yellow flags and didn't slow down.

In fairness, any ignoring of yellow flags should incur a penalty. The question has to be asked why were no penalties given? Has the same occurred in other races?

Rucking_Fetard

Why do people have to die for them to make the changes people have been saying are (and obviously were) needed for years?

Zcott

Rucking_Fetard wrote: »

Why do people have to die for them to make the changes people have been saying are (and obviously were) needed for years?

Because in 64 years of modern F1 I don't remember this happening. Accidents will happen.

Rucking_Fetard

Zcott wrote: »

Because in 64 years of modern F1 I don't remember this happening. Accidents will happen.

So you're saying they couldn't be arsed because it hadn't happened yet.

There's no point in knee-jerks but the issue of not slowing down for yellows is quite old at this stage. There must be some stupid agreement on electronics that won't let them enforce it properly.

Could the CCTV have been much worse than the fan videos that are up?

Zcott

Rucking_Fetard wrote: »

So you're saying they couldn't be arsed because it hadn't happened yet.

No. A serious accident could occur if a driver hit a bird with his helmet at 200mph but the chances of that happening are slim and no precautions have been taken to eradicate all birds from a racetrack. Same with this accident: no one expected it to happen because it hasn't happened before, so precautions to avoid it were unnecessary.

greedygoblin

Zcott wrote: »

No. A serious accident could occur if a driver hit a bird with his helmet at 200mph but the chances of that happening are slim and no precautions have been taken to eradicate all birds from a racetrack. Same with this accident: no one expected it to happen because it hasn't happened before, so precautions to avoid it were unnecessary.

I disagree. The danger was obvious considering some of the near misses from past seasons. Some people were relatively vocal about the dangers of cars going around at full speed while recovery vehicles were on the track. Precautions were very much needed but were not taken.

counterlock

greedygoblin wrote: »

Precautions were very much needed but were not taken.

Precautions were taken, double waved yellow should be enough for the drivers to realise that there is a dangerous situation in track. There should be severe punishment for speeding under yellows but that's a different point altogether. The responsibility lies with the drivers

greedygoblin

counterlock wrote: »

Precautions were taken, double waved yellow should be enough for the drivers to realise that there is a dangerous situation in track. There should be severe punishment for speeding under yellows but that's a different point altogether. The responsibility lies with the drivers

Indeed you are correct but I would argue double waved yellows is not sufficient. Drivers will always try to eke out the maximum advantage possible over their rivals. Which usually means they only lift off marginally. That responsibility imo should be removed from the drivers. Give them set speed limits for zones where yellow flag conditions are in effect. At the moment the amount by which a driver should slow down is very much open to interpretation. This clearly needs to change.

wobbles

With drivers now driving to deltas, why cant these be used to fix problem of not slowing under yellows. The reason drivers dont slow down is because they dont want to loose time. A point on the track should be chosen, and when a yellow is waved, the time between each car should be calculated and a delta time for each driver calculated that will maintain that distance. We then have a countdown over radio (or beeps like the gear change beep) that allows them to restart racing exactly as they would behind safety car except at whatever part of the track they are on at the time of restart

Sure you will loose a complete lap because of single yellow flag, but we dont have to worry about unlapping cars behind safety car and cars can begin racing at the same point they left off. Anyone found to be not meeting there delta time will be very clear and punishable accordingly

pegasus1

I would think they will operate something similar to the pitlane speed limit and that a yellow light will flash at the back instead of the red one..driver controled limiter button operated from steering wheel..

acquiescefc

counterlock wrote: »

Precautions were taken, double waved yellow should be enough for the drivers to realise that there is a dangerous situation in track. There should be severe punishment for speeding under yellows but that's a different point altogether. The responsibility lies with the drivers

^^^This totally.

Its like jumping an amber/red light, youll probably get away with it but theres a big chance you wont.

The drivers are meant to lift due to the danger, i dont think Jules did, or at least not enough. As others have always done but unluckily the conditions were bad enough for him to lose it in the most unfortunate situation.

If theres a big chunk of metal on track you should properly slow down, not just do a slightly less better lap time. But theyre racing drivers, thats what they do and they know the risk they're taking.

The weather didnt suddenly become torrential, it did start to rain but was nothing like at the start of the race(yes i was there) and they were on inters and not wets. The light was a lot worse though, i think this was just a tragedy of circumstances. Hope he pulls through, hope the FIA make some sensible changes to effectively stop drivers from pushing too much in situations like this.