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Originally Posted by FLAMESRULE
FFS. It's so stupid being able to work on the car under Red Flags. Just kills so much strategy opportunity etc. The race is halted...that means no work!!
I will die on this hill.
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The challenge is that usually when a red flag is thrown all of the drivers have driven through a bunch of debris at least once.
There's no great answer. I do wonder if there should be a 1 lap countback for these red flag restarts...it's probably another damned if you do/don't, but it sucks to get screwed for pitting under a preceding SC/VSC. There is some logic in it as it works that way for a lap 1 restart, though I don't think we've had many of those since the early 2000s.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger
It would appear the general consensus is that the red flags, all of them, are being lambasted by media/fans but I just don’t see it. I thought they were the correct decision.
Do these people not remember Massa at Hungary? You take an object to the face at 200mph and you’re lucky to survive. That gravel absolutely needed to be cleaned up and doing it in 60s spurts between laps un SC is not effective.
And Mags’ crash, same thing. Unless you effectively end the race by announcing you’ve no intention to restart at all because there’s not enough time to clean up the debris. But then what happens if a car gets a puncture from the debris and loses out because of it? Teams would be just as pissed.
The only argument I agree with is that they should look at whether or not red flag standing starts are safe that far into a race because of how dirty the non racing line gets with marbles from the tires.
Sainz deserved that penalty. Bad luck for him that the pack was bunched up but thems the breaks. They should also review Gasly coming back on track like a maniac without waiting. That’s a good way to get yourself killed.
Too bad about Albon. Not only for him and Williams but also his crash neutralized what might have been a fight between max and Lewis/George. I can’t imagine they keep him behind for long but you never know.
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I still think field spread should be a key factor when deciding SC vs Red Flag. Early in the race the field is bunched very quickly with no unlapping necessary. It's more like cleaning up in 2 minute spurts, as SC laps tend to be like 50% longer. It seemed like they announced the 10 minutes to 1st restart pretty much immediately, so that cleanup was gonna be pretty darn fast either way.
Later on in the race the field tends to be way more spread with some lapped cars, so it take several laps/minutes to create a safe work environment, at which point it would simply be faster to do a red flag.
Great point on the dirty racing line. Drivers also have way less to lose at that point, so everyone from 4th-15th is super aggressive.
I think the silliest thing was the final formation lap restart. The countback implies that the events of the uncompleted sector don't count...except some of them do. It's another damned if do/don't situation, but there is nothing wrong with ending the race early when there will be no chance for any more competitive running.
A bit of a full circle thing - Alonso's 2nd career podium was in Brazil 2003, where Webber had a massive crash, and then Alonso had an even bigger one by running into the debris zone too fast, leading to a red flag and no restart...Controversy whether Fisi or Raikkonen won, but Alonso ended up keeping his 3rd despite crashing out and causing the end of the race.