2024 Brazilian Grand Prix Weekend

[Akrapovic]

Originally Posted by broadrun96

I get telling Lawson it's Max and let him decide what it's worth but direct radio call is Busch League stuff for kids

There's no practical difference. It was clearly pre-decided - Max was making it known in Lawsons mirrors that it was him.

Red Bull are the only team with 4 cars when it comes to on track assistance.

[TrapezeArtist]

Free and cheap pit stops under red flag, safety car and VSC turn F1 into a lottery. That is not the way to run a major international sport. Furthermore it introduces an extra risk factor, which is exactly the opposite of the VSC/safety car/red flag function: drivers continue lapping on unsuitable tyres (worn inters in very wet conditions) in the hope of getting that free stop.

Here are some ideas to at least reduce the random lottery.

• Scrap the safety car and replace it by an enhanced VSC.
• In place of the safety car, use the VSC and add in a requirement to pass through waved yellow zones on the pitlane speed limiter. (A static yellow one post earlier could give warning of the requirement.)
• Put the cars in a total parc ferme during red flag stoppages. Any car needing a tyre change or other work can start in its pit box with work starting when the restart in given.
• Maybe the red flag parc ferme could be waived when multiple cars need significant work in order to continue racing (a la "that" Spa crash).

[TrapezeArtist]

Lawson jumped out of the way when Max came up behind him, but battled hard against Checo. To me, that looked like a man who knows where he will be next year, or is trying hard to secure that place.

[chillibowl]

The Perez v Lawson stuff has been fun I must admit. It’s like they are intentionally being forced to sort it out on track in different cars and not inside the team simulator or something as some sort of proxy war between Horner and Marko?

Max did amazing of course in Brazil and looks to have gotten them the drivers this year so on the surface a reasonably successful season…but underneath what a dumpster fire of a season for the Red Bulls!

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by chillibowl

The Perez v Lawson stuff has been fun I must admit. It’s like they are intentionally being forced to sort it out on track in different cars and not inside the team simulator or something as some sort of proxy war between Horner and Marko?

Max did amazing of course in Brazil and looks to have gotten them the drivers this year so on the surface a reasonably successful season…but underneath what a dumpster fire of a season for the Red Bulls!

3rd in the WCC, with three races to go is not where RBR would have expected to be at the start of the season.

[chillibowl]

Originally Posted by TrapezeArtist

Free and cheap pit stops under red flag, safety car and VSC turn F1 into a lottery....

so im a mixed bag on this subject but imo a red flag due to an accident/weather with half the race to go is much less of an issue for me then say a red flag with a handful of laps to go on dry circuit. im trying to have it both ways i guess?

that said i do have questions as to why this particular RF period, requiring a rolling restart ostensibly because of the weather, did not come with a requirement for all the cars to be fitted with full wets?

in all honesty im unsure what the rules or past precedents are here but im kinda sure we have seen that before in these types of situations?

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by Skam85

Meh, there's no reason to change it. Some people are benefitted by SC timing, others benefit from a red flag timing. It is what it is.

Regarding "it is what it is", that sort of implies that the rules can't change? It's all out of the hands of the sport? See my comments below as to why VSC exists.

Originally Posted by Skam85

I like the randomness

It can spice things up. But does the sport need this? Why not just have a lottery every 5-10 laps during the race, pick a car number out of a hat and retire the car, or award extra points to someone else? It would be very exciting!

Originally Posted by Skam85

plus Norris and Russell's teams were dumb for boxing at the end of the VSC and deserved to be on the wrong end of 'luck'.

McLaren and Lando didn't shine this weekend, but that not working out is only obvious in hindsight. I think at the moment, those staying out were taking the gamble.

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

It's motor racing. If they disallowed tyre changes then it would've screwed Max and the Alpines disproportionally too. It is what it is and it's part of the sport.

How would it had screwed Max and the Alpines? Per my suggestion they would keep their gained track position? How was my suggestion less fair than it is today?

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

As Skam said - the red flag looked like it was coming. If not for weather then someone was going to bin it, and that's exactly what happened. It was predictable and it appears Lando and George made the calls correct from the cockpit but McLaren and Mercedes chose to pit them anyway.

As to "it was predictable" and that the red flag was "coming". Please pick some lottery numbers for me if you can see into the future. There was a risk, but it only looks brilliant in hindsight. At the moment, a Red Flag was not an absolute. It was a risk, but not for sure.

Just prior to them bringing out the safety car (which is another can of worms), cars were racing each other. Lando sailed past George. Some who pitted for full wets were attacking those in intermediates. There was actual "racing" going on. The rain was forecast to decrease and it was. Track conditions were improving.

I will make the argument that them bringing out the safety car actually is what caused the red flag. Colapinto pitted under safety car and if you watch his in-car after he rejoined the track, he was pushing VERY hard to try to catch the back of the field as it stacked up behind the safety car. He nearly lost it multiple times on that lap. It was echos of Jules Bianchi IMHO. If you have access to F1TV, just go back and watch his lap. Are there minimal sector times during SC to prevent this type of situation? But that is a different topic.

Originally Posted by Plantagenet

But in F1, it seems to be because seemingly everyone hates the wet spec tyres. When they red flagged the race, the vast majority of drivers were still on intermediates. So, we've sort of got to a point that if it is considered to be too wet for intermediates, we need to intervene with SCs and red flags, which seems a bit strange if I'm honest.

The overall lack of the sports confidence in racing with full wets is interesting. I don't know how much of that is concerns with the capabilities of the full wets, or the teams pushing for races to be stopped in full wet conditions, not due to inability to race, but for fear of damage to the cars and impacts due to budget caps?

Originally Posted by PhilipR

There is no perfect solution to red flags and SC/VSCs. There will always be winners and losers. However we have these instances more often nowadays and they tend to have a bigger impact on championships than they used to when they were used sporadically.

Agree. There is no perfect answer. But we can't also just throw our collective hands up and say... "oh, well, that's racing"

For example... why does the VSC exist? I believe it exists because of similar concerns that fully SC is too big of a hammer and artificially erases the work someone might have done to build a gap. Some might say... "I like that the occasional SC collapses the field and creates better racing." That is a very NASCAR view of things. So the VSC slows the field, but neutralizes the race. If we can create something like the VSC, why not adjust Red Flag rules?

Overall my point is that similar adjustments could be made to red flag rules so as to attempt (not fully) neutralize the field and not award pretty random "rewards" to some drivers. None of this will fully "fix" the downsides, of a SC or Red Flag, but there are ways to remove some of the randomness.

We also can't get bogged down in things such as this past weekend and justify that the "losers" in the Red Flag randomness "deserved what they got" due to something like an impending Red Flag being a forgone conclusion. That might happen sometimes, but we can also point out examples in which there is an accident out of the blue that was not predicable, it causes a Red Flag and the "free tire change" aspect absolutely changes the shape of the race... and that is NOT down to skill of the winning team or driver.

As I call out earlier, if we like the randomness, and rewards or punishments that are not related to on-track performance, why not just have periodic lotteries to reward wins or points as that also provides some exciting randomness.

Richard

[TrapezeArtist]

I totally agree with Richard's post above, but I won't "quote" it as once again he didn't have time to write a short post .

There is one point that I had been thinking of but forgot to mention earlier: full wet tyres seem to be redundant these days. I would suggest two related reasons for this. Firstly, the intermediates are so good that they can be run in extremely wet conditions. Then by the time intermediates are not sufficient, the amount of spray is so bad that racing is unacceptably dangerous. That was the case in São Paulo, and it was also less than ideal for spectators and TV viewers as you couldn't even see the cars most of the time.

Although exceptionally good in the wet, I fancy the present inters are not so good in drying conditions. (Someone will give me examples of races where that can be shown to be true, or wrong.) Perhaps Pirelli need to move the intermediates towards better dry performance and then the wets will be the right tyre to use in slightly less wet conditions.

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by TrapezeArtist

I won't "quote" it as once again he didn't have time to write a short post .

I struggle daily!

Richard

[Tourer]

Originally Posted by Richard C

There is no perfect answer. But we can't also just throw our collective hands up and say... "oh, well, that's racing"

Of course we can. Red Flags will always be needed as sometimes a situation is severe enough that racing has to stop and the cars need to be removed from the track (at any speed).

Bear in mind that use of the safety car is reasonably new - it was either the late 80s or I think actually the early 90s that it came into play - prior to that, red flag was the only option for race control when things got bad. I can remember being at Brands Hatch and seeing a 12 lap race red flagged three times through the course of the race.

Then the VSC came in - so the idea of having lesser versions of the red flag has already been addressed. In the fullness of time, there might even be another lower level as well but a red flag will always be a red flag because it simply has to be.

Think about Russell's shunt at Albert Park - the only option that was suitable for that situation was the red flag. Sometimes it is what needs to happen.

If that has a sporting impact, then so be it. Back in the day, times would be accumulated during red flags, but that would often mean that the car getting to the chequered flag first was not the winner, because it had been behind more in the period before the red flag than it was ahead now. Probably a bit fairer in all honesty but very hard to sell and commentate on accurately.

Originally Posted by TrapezeArtist

There is one point that I had been thinking of but forgot to mention earlier: full wet tyres seem to be redundant these days. I would suggest two related reasons for this. Firstly, the intermediates are so good that they can be run in extremely wet conditions. Then by the time intermediates are not sufficient, the amount of spray is so bad that racing is unacceptably dangerous. That was the case in São Paulo, and it was also less than ideal for spectators and TV viewers as you couldn't even see the cars most of the time.

The spray is the big issue to me - once the full wets are needed, the amount of water on the track means vast amounts of spray and that's what kills it - plus with low ground clearance single seaters, the risk of aquaplaning applies to the underside of the car, not just the tyres, so once it is wet enough for full wets, the potential impact of standing water on the track surface is too much.

Originally Posted by Richard C

I struggle daily!

I feel your pain - that multi quote post above would have taken quite some work.

[Akrapovic]

Originally Posted by Richard C

How would it had screwed Max and the Alpines? Per my suggestion they would keep their gained track position? How was my suggestion less fair than it is today?

Because the pack would've bunched up, causing the Max/Alpine pit stops to be dramatically more impactful on track position than they otherwise would've been. They would not have kept the track position because they still had a stop to do.

Originally Posted by Richard C

As to "it was predictable" and that the red flag was "coming". Please pick some lottery numbers for me if you can see into the future. There was a risk, but it only looks brilliant in hindsight. At the moment, a Red Flag was not an absolute. It was a risk, but not for sure.

I'm not being a d*ck here, but I wasn't the one saying it was predictable. Both Sky commentators, Ted, George Russell, Lando Norris all were saying it before it happened. Then after it happened, several said that's what they were waiting for.

It was so predictable that many predicted it.

Originally Posted by Richard C

There is no perfect answer. But we can't also just throw our collective hands up and say... "oh, well, that's racing"

Yes we can.

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by Tourer

Red Flags will always be needed as sometimes a situation is severe enough that racing has to stop and the cars need to be removed from the track (at any speed).

I am not sure if I am not understanding what your point is, or if maybe somehow my comments have been misconstrued as saying we don't need Red Flags. I absolutely think we need to keep Red Flags. I am saying to adjust what work is allowed to be done to the cars during a red flag. Or... that some work (such as changing tires) should not be without consequence.

Originally Posted by Tourer

I feel your pain - that multi quote post above would have taken quite some work.

I predominantly use a PC, so it's easy to do. It's a bit harder on mobile devices. I am trying to condense my posts.

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

Because the pack would've bunched up, causing the Max/Alpine pit stops to be dramatically more impactful on track position than they otherwise would've been. They would not have kept the track position because they still had a stop to do.

I am still confused. The issue you describe above are no different than for a safety car period? The cars would have been bunched up, and if the the leaders didn't want to give up position to pit for new tires, then everyone would have been on their prior compounds. If they did pit under yellow, then they would have lost positions, exactly as I propose in my red flag revisions.

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

I'm not being a d*ck here, but I wasn't the one saying it was predictable. Both Sky commentators, Ted, George Russell, Lando Norris all were saying it before it happened. Then after it happened, several said that's what they were waiting for.

It was so predictable that many predicted it.

I rewatched much of the race earlier today around the time period we are talking about. There was speculation that increased rain "might" result in a Red Flag situation if it became heavy enough. The closer it got to the actual Red Flag, the more "predictable" it became. My point being... Just because there was speculation, even significant speculation, doesn't mean it must happen. For example, there was prediction and speculation for increased rain towards the end of the race. And I don't think that actually materialized!

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

Yes we can.

Sorry, yes you are right. We "can" throw up our hands and say "Well, that's just racing!". But we don't have to. Saying "Well, that's just racing" can explain away or be used as an excuse for most anything that is status quo. Wasn't it a common just a few years ago here that talk about safety improvements (such as Halo or closed cockpit) were shouted down because the danger was "just part of racing?"

Richard

[Richard C]

Hey, I think my posts on this are becoming tedious to some. I think I made my points. People don't have to agree with me. So I don't want to drag this on. I will try to move on.

Richard