Dangerous racetracks

[NaBUru38]

Nascar Mexico Series in León: first crash, second crash

In the first crash, the car doesn't brake and goes straight off. It doesn't crash particularly hard against the tyre barriers, but it jumps over them and runs over two people.

In the second crash, the car leaves the track very fast. Again, it crashes straight into the tyre barriers, and jumps over them. This time, it lands between two big trees.

FIA World Touring Car Championship at Vila Real: crash

The car doesn't break and goes straight off the escape zone. It misses the hard wall, continues going straight and crashes into a fire van.

- o -

You may say "it's Mexicans" like "it's aliens". But those Nascar cars are very powerful and fast, and they have a Nascar logo on them. That León racetrack is not fit.

But the Vila Real track is worse. Not just that the escape zone wasn't fully surrounded by walls. It's a FIA World Championship! They should set the example, and that corner is less safe than any at my local Piriápolis street circuit.

Those crashes weren't deadly by miracle. Safety standards were blatantly ignored.

[wolfhound]

Originally Posted by NaBUru38

Nascar Mexico Series in León: first crash, second crash




FIA World Touring Car Championship at Vila Real: crash

The car doesn't break and goes straight off the escape zone. It misses the hard wall, continues going straight and crashes into a fire van.



But the Vila Real track is worse. Not just that the escape zone wasn't fully surrounded by walls. It's a FIA World Championship! They should set the example, and that corner is less safe than any at my local Piriápolis street circuit.

Those crashes weren't deadly by miracle. Safety standards were blatantly ignored.

The FIA is investigating, saying that the circuit was not in the spec on the circuit license but after the incident all was put right.

[NaBUru38]

https://www.fiawtcc.com/world-premie...ker-lap-is-go/

Originally Posted by FIA

Vila Real’s ‘joker’ lap route is located at the final corner, Turn 26, with the full approval of the FIA Safety Department and local authorities

Of course we never compromise on safety so we have worked very closely with our colleagues at the FIA and with the authorities in Vila Real to put in place a route that matches our requirements but also conforms to all the rigorous safety standards

So the circuit safety was approved by FIA weeks before the race.

[NaBUru38]

Formula 4 at Oschersleben: an assistance SUV crosses the track.

https://twitter.com/GirlsLikeRacing/...00143994634240

[Alfaholic]

Originally Posted by NaBUru38

Formula 4 at Oschersleben: an assistance SUV crosses the track.

https://twitter.com/GirlsLikeRacing/...00143994634240

This was under red flag conditions at the time - she was going way too fast. Have a look in the single seater section.

[pimmy]

GP3 at the weekend saw a car make a simple mistake and run wide. If they were racing at a proper circuit, he'd have gone through the grass & gravel, lost time and continued. But because they were racing at a grade 1 piece of crap, the car was launched by a ridiculous kerb and we had a driver out of the race with back pain.

[leonidas]

The bizarre thing about the Coronel crash was that there were people standing on the outside of a bend just a few yards away, protected only by a very flimsy temporary fence.

And this is a showpiece FIA event! Makes some of the idiocy seen at Rally Poland look very tame.

[Akrapovic]

Originally Posted by leonidas

The bizarre thing about the Coronel crash was that there were people standing on the outside of a bend just a few yards away, protected only by a very flimsy temporary fence.

And this is a showpiece FIA event! Makes some of the idiocy seen at Rally Poland look very tame.

Indeed. If Coronel had hit the blocks, there's a chance he'd have been spat out towards those people. He's actually lucky he hit the fire van.

[GORDON STREETER]

Originally Posted by Alfaholic

This was under red flag conditions at the time - she was going way too fast. Have a look in the single seater section.

By the looks of it another car came through at speed after she was slowing in the kitty litter !

[chernaudi]

I in general am not in favor of a lot of the paved run off areas for Grade 1 tracks as they do encourage track limits abuse, and the FIA often have to make IMO half-hearted measures to discourage it and have each incident judged by imperfect humans who have to judge things on a case by case basis.

I know that grass when it's wet offers no traction and virtually no braking resistance. But paved run off encourages track limits abuse unless something is done to discourage it. I'm almost in favor of temporary "moats" filled with gravel, grass or other low traction materials that can be cleaned out and covered with concrete patches or astroterf for say a bike race or other event.

I think that track limits violations should be self-policing and self-administering of punishments (lost time/track position), but the solutions shouldn't require human intervention/judgement calls or do damage to cars/cause accidents. Granted, best way to avoid this is if drivers stay on track. But what if there's a spin or accident?

Maybe the FIA should just accept that most Grade 2 tracks are plenty safe even for F1 cars. After all, it's only F1 that requires Grade 1 and a lot of that is also under the pressure of FOM for infrastructure and hospitality.

[broadrun96]

Originally Posted by chernaudi

I know that grass when it's wet offers no traction and virtually no braking resistance. But paved run off encourages track limits abuse unless something is done to discourage it. I'm almost in favor of temporary "moats" filled with gravel, grass or other low traction materials that can be cleaned out and covered with concrete patches or astroterf for say a bike race or other event.

There is NO chance of something like that. Let's see hard edge of a "moat" with gravel filling it, yeah there's nothing there that would catch and flip a car at all. The gravel will give as the car moves through it and when it hits the rear edge of the pit the car is now lower than that edge. Sudden abrupt stops are always good for safety. And if it is filled with enough gravel to not catch the edge now there is enough gravel to act as a ramp and launch the car, and even less intelligent plan.

Your problem is NOT with the design at all. Sit down and actually think about what your complaint is. It is the abuse of the LIMITS of the track, usually clearly marked, and the LACK of enforcement of said limits. That's not a track design problem in anyway, and blaming the track is the same problem. LAZINESS, don't make it a rule, or the edge of the track, and then not enforce it. It is not the track designs fault the stewards don't want to make drivers cry, tough turds, grow up and drive or find another occupation. But whining that is a poorly designed track is just as lazy, it's not the track it's management.

[broadrun96]

Originally Posted by GORDON STREETER

By the looks of it another car came through at speed after she was slowing in the kitty litter !

Yeah, it looks like the flag stations just before the incident were not showing red while the track was red flagged. I'm guessing they have radios on the cars so for me pretending to rely exclusively on flagging is a lazy excuse. But she was on it and shifting hard prior to the incident so let's not pretend everyone was completely innocent.

And she was fined not for the incident but for the unauthorized posting of the video as per the series rules. And she WAY over-stated the fine (5k not 20k euro), hopefully not to generate views but I can't help but think so.

[chernaudi]

Well then explain to me how you're going to prevent track limits abuse unless you make the punishment severe for taking liberties and take it out of the hands of the officials?

Personally I think designing huge asphalt run off areas and not expecting it to happen is laziness on the part of the FIA and others. To me, the solution is simple. Either put some low grip surface where you mark the track limits, or look at how NA Grade 2 tracks do things. You don't see a lot of track limits abuse on NA tracks, because if you take your liberties, the track can, and sometimes does, retaliate.

And we do have to remember that not all track limits abuse gets called and race directors and officials waste their time on it when there's probably other things they can or even need to pay attention to.

To me, it should be like curbs in the rain--there's a reason why drivers usually don't run on them. And as we've seen, you can't expect the drivers to mind limits without some penalty, as when they see one do it and get away with it, they'll try it too. And we all know that when race directors give drivers an inch, they'll take a mile.

[Dave Brand]

For racing under UK MSA licences there is a very well-defined series of punishments for exceeding track limits:

https://www.msauk.org/assets/tracklimitsguidance-3.pdf

Those are the penalties imposed during races; in a timed practice session the time for any lap on which a track limit transgression is reported will be disallowed.

Some circuits, Oulton Park, Brands Hatch, Snetterton, have track limit sensors at points around the circuit where advantage can be gained by exceeding track limits. The sensors are linked to cameras, with a display in Race Control, so that penalties can be immediately applied by the Clerk of the Course. Elsewhere, it's down the the judgement of a trackside observer who will, or should, be appointed as a Judge of Fact - drives are not allowed to appeal the decisions of a JoF.

[chernaudi]

I don't think that the ACO or FIA or anyone else have a JOF who's decisions can't be appealed. Also, every document I've seen of those organizations do say that a decision made by a race director or the officials' panel can be appealed, even if it's black and white that someone did something wrong.

Also, the FIA's judgement of such things does differ from the MSA: MSA says that you can have the outside or inside wheels on the curb but not beyond it. FIA says that the wheels on the outside of an inside curb/inside of an outside curb have to be still on the racing surface.

Also, doesn't organizations like the ACO and FIA have GPS so they can track and see who could be exceeding track limits where they're trying to enforce them?

IMO, right now the FIA are kind of in a no win situation. They don't do something, questions get asked about track limits, they do something, drivers and teams complain about car damage and stuff like that.

I'd think that having curbs like the outside curbs at Road America that upset the car and disturb traction but won't necessarily cause an accident or spin is a solution. Or paint that either doesn't offer up as much grip as pavement or, like Paul Ricard, wears out tires if you go too far off line.

[ScotsBrutesFan]

Originally Posted by chernaudi

Also, doesn't organizations like the ACO and FIA have GPS so they can track and see who could be exceeding track limits where they're trying to enforce them?

I don't think GPS or even a localised transponder based positioning system are accurate enough to be used unless the car is several metres off, in which would be obvious to an observer..

It would need something a "hawkeye" type system thats used in Tennis, where the area is mapped out pre-event with the defined track limits, and then monitors movement within that area. Expensive enough within an arena or stadium type setting but whether it would even be feasible to cover a racing circuit.

Getting back on subject, it think you are doing a dis-service to the word barrier, when talking about that Mexican track. It appears to have just been a collection of tyres with nothing behind them to being pushed back creating a ramp situation.

[chernaudi]

Seeing the NASCAR Mexico wrecks, I don't know how those barriers would pass as barriers for most local short track owners, let alone NASCAR, or organizations like the ACO, FIA, IMSA and others.

I'd like to know if that individual circuit had/has a FIA grade, and if so, what is/was it? I know that the main track is a road course, but even an improvised oval should still have some standards.

Also, the Villa Real WTCC deal probably doesn't look good for the FIA, considering that the WTCC is a FIA sanctioned series and the FIA also signed off on the track. I know that the FIA probably didn't think that a wreck could happen there, but ask Jeff Gordon about hitting areas of tracks that had no Safer Barriers because a bad accident was seen as unlikely to happen. He sure did hit enough walls in those areas. Also when Allan Simonsen died at LM in '13, the ACO probably though that an accident like that couldn't happen at Tetre Rouge, but it did.

[NaBUru38]

Originally Posted by chernaudi

I know that the FIA probably didn't think that a wreck could happen there

If I'm not mistakes, they claimed that the Vila Real design papers had barriers there, but they weren't put.

So the approved design had the barriers, but they didn't put them, and the inspection passed. Still a terrible job by FIA.

[bella]

Originally Posted by broadrun96

Yeah, it looks like the flag stations just before the incident were not showing red while the track was red flagged. I'm guessing they have radios on the cars so for me pretending to rely exclusively on flagging is a lazy excuse. But she was on it and shifting hard prior to the incident so let's not pretend everyone was completely innocent.

And she was fined not for the incident but for the unauthorized posting of the video as per the series rules. And she WAY over-stated the fine (5k not 20k euro), hopefully not to generate views but I can't help but think so.

iirc no radios in f4, they're in formula renault and fia f3 but not f4.

she's handled the whole thing terribly, kinda reminds you that these are just kids and they don't understand their actions and the consequences. she posted the footage with the intention of misleading people, then either failed to understand the fine she was given (wtf) or posted it with the intention of winding people up. i don't think it was to increase views, just to try and keep people on her side.

honestly, drivers not doing what they're told is the biggest danger to themselves, not the circuits.

[chernaudi]

Wanna know how to fix that? Throw out fines and penalties, and make drivers financially responsible for any damage they or their actions cause. You threaten to touch their money, they'll listen. Forcing them to pay to fix race cars will probably cost more money than any fines would.

Just like with rules violations in NASCAR, if you yank wins and prize money, they'll listen.

[Pontlieue]

Speaking of unsafe race tracks, I remembered Ahvenisto in Finland. It looks like a circuit straight out of the 1960s, with a guardrail being the only protection in most parts of the circuit, and some corners lacking barriers altogether, with earth banking lining the tracks, some of them covered in trees. And this track hosts F4 races.

[chernaudi]

And people will still complain that Grade 1 and 2 tracks are unsafe. What's the FIA's recommendations for F4 track grading?

[chernaudi]

In light of the ACO expanding the run off area in the Porsche Curves by using asphalt that has either abrasive content in it or abrasive paint, I do wonder if there's a way that would genuinely satisfy both safety and discouraging track limits abuse.

Can we really have both at the same time?