IMSA You can’t get excited about a race with these safety car and stoppage rules

[kobefly]

It amazes me how people get excited about a race with such rules. The way Safety Cars procedures make sure anyone 1, 2, or 5 laps behind the leader is put back on the lead lap after 1, 2, or 5 SC. Basically, any car without huge issues will be there at the end of the race, ready to fight for the win. 23 hours of nothing and a 1-hour Sprint.

[Hawkwood]

Originally Posted by kobefly

23 hours of nothing and a 1-hour Sprint.

It's only the last lap of any race that's actually important, so why not just have every race as a one-lap sprint.
Takes away all the 'nothing' that would normally precede the last lap, and then we can all get on with our day.

[jimclark]

Originally Posted by Hawkwood

It's only the last lap of any race that's actually important, so why not just have every race as a one-lap sprint.
Takes away all the 'nothing' that would normally precede the last lap, and then we can all get on with our day.

Agreed to a point, but you're also missing a couple.

"Sprint" races need to be more than one lap as there needs to be time for the field to shuffle itself to the actual finishing order.

"Endurance racing", which (Daytona 24, for instance) was originated to determine not only who was fastest, but, also, who could endure. I used to love true endurance racing, when it was indeed who could design the fastest car that could endure whatever time/distance was necessary (which was what any form of auto racing was about, for that matter).

Now, in any form of auto racing, there are so many gimmicks to keep the fields artificially close for two reasons, neither having to do with the roots of the "sport" (now just a show.....an infomercial, so to speak).
There are so many regulations for the vehicles that they smother potential innovation in hope that the vehicles will be as close in performance as possible.
Also the "sporting" regs. are merely orchestration for the same, "better" (closer, in reality) racing.

The above, all to attract the lesser attention spanned/uninitiated "fan" to the show; satisfying sanctioning bodies pocketbooks and the sponsors' desire/need for more eyeballs/ears on their rolling billboards for as long as possible.

The REAL sport of auto racing is gone I'm afraid.

[kobefly]

Originally Posted by kobefly

It amazes me how people get excited about a race with such rules. The way Safety Cars procedures make sure anyone 1, 2, or 5 laps behind the leader is put back on the lead lap after 1, 2, or 5 SC. Basically, any car without huge issues will be there at the end of the race, ready to fight for the win. 23 hours of nothing and a 1-hour Sprint.

Did someone create a topic out of this comment that I am pretty sure I posted under "IMSA Race 2022 Daytona 24 Race Thread"?

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by kobefly

Did someone create a topic out of this comment that I am pretty sure I posted under "IMSA Race 2022 Daytona 24 Race Thread"?

Yes.

Originally Posted by Adam43

A point came up about the influence of cautions on IMSA races. These have been moved to a new thread to allow comprehensive discussion on that with out it getting in the way of the specifics here.

https://tentenths.com/forum/showthread.php?t=156878

Thanks all.

[kobefly]

Originally Posted by crmalcolm

Yes.

I missed that and I was a little bit confused about it. Thank you!

[Akrapovic]

I think Ganassi would disagree about "23 Hours of nothing"

[ascarracinguk]

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

I think Ganassi would disagree about "23 Hours of nothing"

same with corvette, United Autosport, BMW.....make no mistake, its still an endurance race.

[kobefly]

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

I think Ganassi would disagree about "23 Hours of nothing"

"23 hours in which you just need to stay alive, no matter how slow you are or if you need to take 2, 3 or 5 laps to repair something" would be a more accurate headline. I just made it concise.

During those 23 hours, we saw cars like #60 (winner at the end of the race) dropping one lap and #10 (second) dropping two. Both of them had to make no effort to catch the lead lap back again.
Also, we saw some drivers pushing to the limit, showing great overtaking skills, and taking more risks to open gaps that meant absolutely nothing.

You could start the race 10 laps down, or be 5 laps down halfway through the race and, if you run the remainder of the time free of big issues and without making any heroic effort and you have the exact same chances of winning the race that those in the lead. You could also roll 2 seconds off the pace for the first half of the race and have those same chances of winning too.

Where is the value of delivering reliable and fast performance through a 24 hours period there?

[joeb]

Originally Posted by kobefly

Where is the value of delivering reliable and fast performance through a 24 hours period there?

I would say, that you can't guarantee there will be cautions, or adequate periods of them to get laps back.

I don't think anybody would say IMSA has the best safety car procedures, and nobody will say they like them, but you have to keep in mind how we got here.

I can't recall all the details, somebody else please fill in if you do, but prior safety car regulations had an issue with class separation, and depending on your exact track position and when the safety car was deployed.

It was a regular occurrence to have a class leading car gain a lap on the rest of its competitors simply by where they were on track. This ruined many a race in the eyes of the teams and fans alike. So the current scheme was developed with input from the teams to make the procedure more fair.

There are probably ways to improve the system, but some of the things used around the world, like Code 60, have been said to be not possible in the US due to insurance regulations.

Some of the advantages of the current system include less messy restarts (I know it doesn't seem like that, but it's true). By allowing the faster cars to the front and separating the classes, you don't have a situation where the green is waved and a prototype is trying to cut through gt and lmp3 traffic that are in their own race. Having a car dart through like that on restarts caused problems with the old IMSA system.

[ascarracinguk]

Originally Posted by joeb

I would say, that you can't guarantee there will be cautions, or adequate periods of them to get laps back.

I don't think anybody would say IMSA has the best safety car procedures, and nobody will say they like them, but you have to keep in mind how we got here.

I can't recall all the details, somebody else please fill in if you do, but prior safety car regulations had an issue with class separation, and depending on your exact track position and when the safety car was deployed.

It was a regular occurrence to have a class leading car gain a lap on the rest of its competitors simply by where they were on track. This ruined many a race in the eyes of the teams and fans alike. So the current scheme was developed with input from the teams to make the procedure more fair.

There are probably ways to improve the system, but some of the things used around the world, like Code 60, have been said to be not possible in the US due to insurance regulations.

Some of the advantages of the current system include less messy restarts (I know it doesn't seem like that, but it's true). By allowing the faster cars to the front and separating the classes, you don't have a situation where the green is waved and a prototype is trying to cut through gt and lmp3 traffic that are in their own race. Having a car dart through like that on restarts caused problems with the old IMSA system.

Indeed, this is a far better system than say at le mans, where you can either be lucky or unlucky to pick up a different safety car so a 10 second lead could all of a sudden be 3 minutes.


I agree that IMSAs safety car procedure eliminates some of the endurance aspect by allowing cars to get their laps back, but it also eliminates a lot of other issues too.

tbh, its the least of all the evils, provides exciting races.

And as noted above, theres not the garentee of safety cars....they ran the entire Roar 2 hour race without one....

[joeb]

Originally Posted by ascarracinguk

tbh, its the least of all the evils, provides exciting races.

And as noted above, theres not the garentee of safety cars....they ran the entire Roar 2 hour race without one....

I have to agree with you on the least of all evils comment.

And a few years ago there was a Daytona race with hardly any caution, can't remember if it was the year with a small grid or the one before that.

[kobefly]

I will just wait for Daytona 2023 and come here to see who is willing to bet 100 USD that there are not going to be Safety Car periods. I will bet my house on my side.

A team could literally be off the pace by two seconds a lap for half of the race (or probably more) while saving tires, fuel, engine, the risk of overtaking in difficult parts of the track, etc... and still have its race chances intact.

To me, at least, that makes following the first 20 hours of the race totally dull, just waiting to see if someone brakes the car or crashes.

[canaglia]

Originally Posted by kobefly

It amazes me how people get excited about a race with such rules. The way Safety Cars procedures make sure anyone 1, 2, or 5 laps behind the leader is put back on the lead lap after 1, 2, or 5 SC. Basically, any car without huge issues will be there at the end of the race, ready to fight for the win. 23 hours of nothing and a 1-hour Sprint.

I admit to don't know how procedures changed but even a decade ago in ALMS and in general in most of north america motorsport series SC periods are longer because cars are allowed to unlap to place right behind the car they were following no matter how big gap was before SC.
It's quite common to see daytona 24H finish with so small gaps between running for victory cars, nothing strange at all.

[ascarracinguk]

personally dont see an issue with the rules.

Its a good balance between endurance racing and keeping the race entertaining...it also removed any issues of being fair/ not fair with pitstops etc

bare in mind too that until the safety car with an hour ago, we had a full 6ish hours of green running...4 grand prix lengths.

[traygerr]

Originally Posted by ascarracinguk

personally dont see an issue with the rules.

Its a good balance between endurance racing and keeping the race entertaining...it also removed any issues of being fair/ not fair with pitstops etc

bare in mind too that until the safety car with an hour ago, we had a full 6ish hours of green running...4 grand prix lengths.

We also had a bad nearly 4 hours of yellow, slow, everybody catch up strolling

[Simmi]

I appreciate the different flavours I guess. I'm certainly glad this ruleset doesn't apply to Le Mans. I guess I like how Le Mans feels more like an organic journey that evolves rather than a series of sprints. That said LM also has its own issues.

Watching Daytona I find it hard to stay super invested in the mid-section for reasons listed above. But then when the final hour hits you're glad you've got some battles and close racing. It's apples and oranges - I think there's room for both approaches.

[ascarracinguk]

Originally Posted by Simmi

I appreciate the different flavours I guess. I'm certainly glad this ruleset doesn't apply to Le Mans. I guess I like how Le Mans feels more like an organic journey that evolves rather than a series of sprints. That said LM also has its own issues.

Watching Daytona I find it hard to stay super invested in the mid-section for reasons listed above. But then when the final hour hits you're glad you've got some battles and close racing. It's apples and oranges - I think there's room for both approaches.

Completely agree with this. I think you have to look at it in the context of the whole championship too, IMSA races as a whole are much shorter so they are very much sprint races, WEC as a whole have longer races….

….just a different ethos and great that we can have both.

[Adam43]

Let’s start with the ideal. We don’t have cautions and the race pans out with no influence from them. That would be great.

What about safety?

And back in the day we had something closer to the “ideal”, but how? Broken cars would be left by the side of tracks. Marshals would clear up on a hot track with, at best, maybe a local yellow. etc…

I really don’t want that. And here is our first choice. What approach do we take to safety?

Of all the options we’ve gone relatively conservative here. Note I don’t say too conservative, just of the all the choices from full risk to no risk we are on the conservative side. I certainly would not disagree with that approach to safety. The compromise here does not involve VSC (or similar) for IMSA. There will be knock ons to insurance and viability of the future of the series.

Then we have fairness.

How do we treat the pit stops and the wave rounds?

To try and minimise the impact of luckily stopping at the right time, or the chaos of diving in to the pits (another safety consideration), the pits are closed and then opened for each kind of car. I can’t think of a better way. It will still favor some over others, but this reduces the impact and likelihood of that.

Then there is the wave-round. You have a choice to let the procedure, like at Le Mans, cause a big gap in positions, suddenly making it a full lap difference (or 1/3 lap at Le Mans) depending where the leaders are and the timing of the caution. Or you wave round and people can gain chunks of time.

Which is fairer? Here the choice is to minimise the chance of losing out rather than minimising the chance of gain? Would it be fairer the other way round, well that is just a point of view.

I wouldn’t have wave rounds, but when I think about it my reasoning is no better than the opposite. I’d like to try and maintain gaps people had built up, but it isn’t great at that. It would at least leave cars between you and the leader and mean you still have to overtake. As everyone will probably stop this mixes this up anyway and my argument isn’t as good. It would remove some time faffing around behind the car and mean we get back to green quicker, which would be nice. But thinking about the whole of getting everyone bunched up, pits closed and opening, it isn’t that important.

I have my views on which is fairer, but it isn’t simple. Neither approach is by any means perfect.

What about the show?

Is it for the show that this is chosen? I don’t know. There are reasons to have this situation anyway. A few years ago I would say that there was more influence of the show (I’d love to see some stats on number and length of caution periods over the years). I feel that has eased in the current mini-era in which we are in.

I’m not going to claim that they is none of this, but the driving forces behind why IMSA has the approach above is, in my view, clearly more of the other reasons above. I was say their priorities are safety, fairness, and then show.

Conclusion
IMSA have chosen a level of safety. Inherently this introduces a compromise with how the race is run and the impact on the sporting fairness. To solve this you can go one of two ways, a solution that is more likely to unfairly penalise a competitor, or one that is unfairly benefit a competitor. They’ve gone with later. And finally, we know this effects the “show”, but that impact is less than it was.

And one final point. You don’t often get a winner that doesn’t deserve it. Or, at least, not for the reasons above. We already have a lot of randomness in Motorsport; weather, punctures, illness, caught up in someone else’s accident, etc… You adapt and play the cards that are dealt.

[kobefly]

Originally Posted by Adam43

To solve this you can go one of two ways, a solution that is more likely to unfairly penalise a competitor, or one that is unfairly benefit a competitor. They’ve gone with later.

You put it in great words, there is the key!

Benefiting over penalizing competitors sounds nice BUT when you say "a competitor" you mean "a competitor that is running behind another competitor". This means that this system is likely to detriment those competitors running ahead of other competitors.

I would rather benefit the competitor that, at any point of the race, has done well enough to be in front. There is merit involved in holding the lead.

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by kobefly

You put it in great words, there is the key!

Benefiting over penalizing competitors sounds nice BUT when you say "a competitor" you mean "a competitor that is running behind another competitor". This means that this system is likely to detriment those competitors running ahead of other competitors.

I would rather benefit the competitor that, at any point of the race, has done well enough to be in front. There is merit involved in holding the lead.

I can see the logic in your view. You are saying that the procedure should be drafted in such a way that benefits the driver(s) ahead.

I guess that could be seen as 'track position is key'.

There is another way to see that approach though. If you approach the race from a competitive angle where track position is the priority, then you are reducing the likelihood of close competition.

It would be the inverse of the first 20 hours being a waste of time. You are saying that once a car has a clear lead, then a FCY would only exaggerate that. So in consideration of the value of racing, we would end up in a situation where the last 20 hours of the race are meaningless.

[kobefly]

Originally Posted by crmalcolm

You are saying that once a car has a clear lead, then a FCY would only exaggerate that.

I am not. When SC comes out time difference for all cars in the same lap gets erased. That still benefits those behind. However, by not letting them go by after everyone pitted and still holding the pack under SC you are not giving away laps.
The only risk, that does running behind would be facing, is to lose a lap if the yellow flag came out at a bad moment of the pit strategy for them (which, yes, can be unfair, but I would rather be unfair with those that did not do merit to be in front).

[Adam43]

Originally Posted by kobefly

I am not. When SC comes out time difference for all cars in the same lap gets erased. That still benefits those behind. However, by not letting them go by after everyone pitted and still holding the pack under SC you are not giving away laps.
The only risk, that does running behind would be facing, is to lose a lap if the yellow flag came out at a bad moment of the pit strategy for them (which, yes, can be unfair, but I would rather be unfair with those that did not do merit to be in front).

I think this is not making that much difference to what we have. We still have everyone who is on the same lap as the driver ahead unfairly gains, as you say. This effects more cars more often, albeit to an individual lesser extent, but overall I suspect much more impactful on the race result. Certainly was this year.

And it does mean that it becomes even harder to get a lap back. If you lose a lap you have until the next yellow to get it back, otherwise you have to start all over again. Even if you had a 0.5s a lap advantage you would need a green period of 3.5 hours to get the lap back.

[joeb]

I agree with much of what you said Adam, and I'm trying to think of other methods that would be fair and safe, but really scratching my head.

Code 60 is brought up often, but when you have track vehicles out there it can be problematic if there aren't gaps in traffic. Trying to get a big truck, or snatch tractor across the track and back to its parking spot could be a dangerous situation for the equipment, and race, drivers.

I am hoping somebody comes up with a better solution in the future, but for now we have to deal with the fact that safety cars under multi-class racing structures are complex to operate!

[Speed-King]

What was wrong with the procedure adopted by ALMS in the last few years of its existence, i.e.the safety car picking up the first class leader that passes pit exit after the double yellow comes out? That effectively eliminates the possibility of (class) leaders gaining a lap on the field and is still rather straight forward and can be executed rather quickly.