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powderjunkie · 02-02-2022, 11:20 AM

Further to the structural changes needed in race management, I think they should evaluate the deployment of the safety car. It works very well for incidents in the first 1/3 to half of the grand prix, but I'm not sure it is at all effective once the field is fully spread with lapped cars and many drivers looking to take advantage of cheap pitstops (further exacerbating field spread). It can take a long time to compile the train behind the SC, meanwhile you have several cars going near race pace to catch up (I imagine drivers are now given a similar delta to VSC, but it doesn't make the track particularly safe for the marshals to do their work)

Abu Dhabi 2021:

0:00 = Latifi crash
1:10 - HAM catches SC
4:20 - A train of 9 cars behind the SC, with 5 other cars about a half-lap away
6:34 - 13 cars in the train, Gasly still a few turns behind
7:17 - Full 14 car train
9:30 - Unlapping of cars; racing resuming shortly

So it took 4-7 minutes to achieve a fairly safe working environment for the marshals, and around 10-13 mins before we were ready to go racing again (under less urgent circumstances there would have been 1 more lap under SC).

A red flag would take about the same amount of time: ~2 mins for everyone to return to pits; ~5 mins to clear incident (perhaps even less on a red track); 5 min restart warning; 2-3 mins reformation lap.

Obviously this leads to the existing issues around tire changes under red flag, etc. but any of these systems ends up helping/hurting different drivers, but that's inherent to racing and it all tends to even out over the course of a season.

It seems like there could me some algorithm that measures field spread/lapped cars/probable pit stops and identifies that a red flag will be more efficient than a Safety Car. It's probably easier to just do an analysis of the last few years and determine that general point in the race - probably about 50% race distance; though in a 60 lap race if you had a safety car on lap 20-24 and then another incident on lap 35 the safety car would still work fine. Team strategists are always working on what to do in the event of SC or VSC; if they know the criteria they can plan accordingly.

02-02-2022, 11:20 AM	#2
powderjunkie Franchise Player Join Date: Dec 2011 Exp:	Further to the structural changes needed in race management, I think they should evaluate the deployment of the safety car. It works very well for incidents in the first 1/3 to half of the grand prix, but I'm not sure it is at all effective once the field is fully spread with lapped cars and many drivers looking to take advantage of cheap pitstops (further exacerbating field spread). It can take a long time to compile the train behind the SC, meanwhile you have several cars going near race pace to catch up (I imagine drivers are now given a similar delta to VSC, but it doesn't make the track particularly safe for the marshals to do their work) Abu Dhabi 2021: 0:00 = Latifi crash 1:10 - HAM catches SC 4:20 - A train of 9 cars behind the SC, with 5 other cars about a half-lap away 6:34 - 13 cars in the train, Gasly still a few turns behind 7:17 - Full 14 car train 9:30 - Unlapping of cars; racing resuming shortly So it took 4-7 minutes to achieve a fairly safe working environment for the marshals, and around 10-13 mins before we were ready to go racing again (under less urgent circumstances there would have been 1 more lap under SC). A red flag would take about the same amount of time: ~2 mins for everyone to return to pits; ~5 mins to clear incident (perhaps even less on a red track); 5 min restart warning; 2-3 mins reformation lap. Obviously this leads to the existing issues around tire changes under red flag, etc. but any of these systems ends up helping/hurting different drivers, but that's inherent to racing and it all tends to even out over the course of a season. It seems like there could me some algorithm that measures field spread/lapped cars/probable pit stops and identifies that a red flag will be more efficient than a Safety Car. It's probably easier to just do an analysis of the last few years and determine that general point in the race - probably about 50% race distance; though in a 60 lap race if you had a safety car on lap 20-24 and then another incident on lap 35 the safety car would still work fine. Team strategists are always working on what to do in the event of SC or VSC; if they know the criteria they can plan accordingly.