Safety cars and red flags change races, it has happened throughout F1 and throughout this season.
I think we can agree we want to see all the cars racing each other, that is why they added the rule to remove lapped cars between the leaders at safety car restarts, to make it more exciting and interesting.
We want to see 20 cars racing as long as possible. We want mistakes to be punished, we want brave moves to be rewarded. Sometimes you will get lucky, and other times you will be unlucky. As a driver, all you can do is control what your doing, and hope everything balances itself out over the season. I would argue this season it has.
Racing is not like football, where it is only played between two teams. There is ten teams on the track, 20 drivers, and they are all battling each other. Imagine one Ref trying to manage a game of football with 10 teams playing, on the same pitch at the same time. Racing is also a lot more dangerous than football, and so the drivers safety has to be taken in to account. Most of the time when a player is injured in football, they ball goes out of play, the player then gets treated and if its serious, replaced with another player. Most of the time, neither team is impacted as a result of an injury, although sometimes it can lead to a goal. I think of Palace Vs Chelsea a few years ago, or the Liverpool game earlier this season.
If a car crashes in F1, there is a few things that can happen.
Double Waved Yellow Flags are used to cover the initial incident, but not to recover the car, F1 likes to avoid Marshalls on track under Double yellows.
VSC, for when there is a minor incident, not much debris on the track. The ideal solution, gaps remain the same for all the drivers, still the potential for some advantage if you want to pit as drivers going slowly on track, but minimal. You could argue they could close the Pit Lane under VSC as there should not be any debris on the track, and therefore no risk of a puncture
Safety Car, for when there is a bigger accident, they need to create a gap on track for Marshalls and machinery to come on and tidy up. There could be a lot of debris on the track. All the drivers lose any advantage they have, you can pit, and if the other cars have caught up the safety car, chance for an even bigger undercut and advantage at the restart. Lapped cars are let through to allow the drivers racing for position to battle it out. Stopping cars pitting under the Safety Car is dangerous, even if you keep the pit lane closed until all the cars have caught the safety car, if you get a puncture due to debris, that is not fair. Also not fair on the car at the front, as they can not double guess what the cars behind are going to do. Someone is going to lose out, and its not fair. A team at the back of the grid causes the safety car, who you are not in a race with costing you the win, but what can you do. Its part of racing.
Red Flag, for when the track is blocked, or no longer safe. Cars can be fixed and repaired, and tyres changed in the pits. Any advantage you had over the car behind is lost. When the race restarts, it can be a standing start or a rolling start depending on the race director. We have seen in the past where drivers have a big lead, races resume as a rolling start instead of a standing start. Again, as with the safety car, its not fair, its unlucky to lose your advantage this way, but what can be done. It is part of racing.
You could argue that the gaps should be restored after a red flag or safety car, but that is going to be difficult to achieve. Let cars past the safety car with a gap roughly similar to what was there before? How would that even work? Its not possible to get it back to how it was before. With the Red Flag, I quite like the idea, that if you change tyre compound you take a 3 place penalty, if you fix something, you take a 3 place penalty. So if you fix a front wing, and change tyres you lose 6 places. If you keep the same tyre compound, just newer, you don't get any penalty. Again, this favours the cars at the back of the grid more than those at the front, but at least their is some pain for doing it.
I think we would all agree that we like the idea of finishing a race under green flag conditions. How to do that though is tricky. Without refuelling, the Green White Chequered flag used in ovals is going to be difficult to manage. Running out of fuel because you were not expecting it to go GWC would be painful way to lose a race. Throwing a red flag with three laps to go could work, out lap, safety car lap, green lap. Would need to be some rules about no changes to the car in that situation. But that could work, it would be clearly written down, so everyone would know the rules, and it not just something that has been agreed between the teams and race director. All the drivers would have the chance to pit if they wanted to take that gamble. The problem with writing rules down is there is always loop holes or wording which is open to interpretation.
Back to yesterdays race, the first VSC was the correct call, no debris on track, no machinery need to remove the car. Toto calling the race director probably had little influence. Max pitted initially, and there was a gap for Lewis to pit afterwards, without losing track position, Mercedes had the chance to put Lewis on a fresh set of tyres but opted not to. Same with Bottas, kept him out.
The safety car was the right call, car out on track, small amount of Debris. Red Bull again pitted both drivers, and got them on fresh softs. Mercedes played it safe, assumed the track would not be cleared in time, and wanted track position. Both drivers stayed out. So far there is nothing Mercedes fans can complain about, losing his advantage, being on old tyres. All choices by Mercedes and the luck of racing.
The track being cleared and ready for racing is also testament to the great work of the stewards. Getting the track ready to go racing. Again, no one can complain about this, we want to go racing.
This is where things start to become open to interpretation and different fan bases will argue different cases. And this is where the rules need tidying up a little more or changing. Masi did what he thought was best, and got the drivers racing, using his powers as Race Director. If your a Mercedes and Lewis fan, this was the wrong thing to do, and robbed Lewis of victory. If your a Max fan, it was the right thing to do, and he has become the World Champion. As with any decision a referee makes, it does not matter what the correct thing to do was, all that matters is the call that they made, and we have to live with it.
Its a shame it ended this way. If this had been the second or third race of the season, and the season ended with the Brazil race, or Qatar race, we would not be having these discussions.
I really hope Lewis does not retire, I hope Lewis comes back next season, and brings the fight to Max. I hope Russell and Lewis have a few bumps. I hope Ferrari and McLaren are fighting at the front next season.
Would love to see Leclerc win the WDC next season, although Sainz has given him a really run for his money, finishing ahead of him shows how good Sainz is but it would still be good to see Ferrari back on top for a season. Lets have 7 or 8 seasons where different drivers and teams win the Championship.
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