[WEC] The ACO's Safety Car 'Overhaul'

[Simmi]

Originally Posted by rx555

Seems to me if Nurburgring can run 130+ cars and never have a safety car, Le Mans could too.

I love the N24 but nothing you see there from a track/safety perspective is transferable to anywhere else. And frankly it shouldn't be.

[Adam43]

Agreed, I wouldn’t want that at LM, or WEC, or IMSA, etc…

The N24 is ace.

[Steve McQ]

New Safety Car procedure just got tested, using a debris cleaning as a pretext to launch it.
It took 26 minutes while the débris got swept after 2 minutes. So 24 minutes with half the cars in the pits.

[Adam43]

Unlike IMSA then, who leave big parts or car and signs all over the track!

I wondered if they would test it.

In previous years at test day they are extremely cautious with cautions and reds. Anything brings it out.

Good bit of timing three - thanks.

[Adam43]

So there was a practice of the procedure.
https://twitter.com/onlyendurance/st...325078529?s=61

How’d it go? Worst thing ever?

[Steve McQ]

They did it again in the afternoon it seems. It lasted... 37 minutes. It is still time to ditch it, it won't be the first time the ACO changes its mind without telling anybody if you see what I mean.

[PascaLM]

This new procedure is catastrophic, too long and unintelligible. They should replace it with a code 80 on the whole track for the intervention of vehicules followed by a slow-zone. And if vehicles have to take the track again, code 80 again.
Nobody would lose time or get penalised.

[Adam43]

In the morning slow zones and the full SC procedure was tested.

I wasn’t doing the live timing screens, but DSC was:

Just before half-time, debris at the first Mulsanne Chicane offered the chance to practice the new Safety Car procedures – merging, pass-arounds, and dropbacks. From the minute the Safety Car was deployed, to the notice that the Safety Car would be withdrawn, the process of re-ordering the field took roughly 24 minutes or 3-4 laps.

https://www.dailysportscar.com/2023/...t-session.html

Then there was another chance in the afternoon

The process, including getting the two stranded Orecas free from the kitty litter, took just a shade over 30 minutes or 1/48th of a 24-hour endurance race.

https://www.dailysportscar.com/2023/...n-session.html

So very similar to IMSA. At Laguna Seca a FCY procedure was taking 18 to 19 minutes, but that is a short track. At Sebring, a longer track, it was a litle under 24 minutes. It does vary a little.

In the morning there were also a couple of reds, but that is not that unusual for practice.

[Gerard C]

What takes a long while is when they decide to replace a damaged rail and its poles… The procedure is the Chef de poste calls the race direction, then endless discussions, then they call for new components to be fitted, then they start working… If dicusssions are shorted, the first part takes at least 30 minutes. Or when possible/amissible, they put a YF on the rail…

[Mike E]

If they are doing barrier repairs somewhere on circuit and can do all the wave by, class rearranging etc on another part of the circuit then time loss can be reduced. If they wait for all repairs and then do the theatrics, it's more dead time.

[Adam43]

Yes, barrier repairs can take a long time. It’s been a fan moan for a long time.

Best thing they can do there is practice in the off season. In the dark. Get good and efficient at it. That will also add to the confidence that it is done well.

[Adam43]

I’ve been trying to look at the timing of the two practice runnings today, but I can’t find the timing replays. I didn’t record them live so don’t have them.

I do have the timing of when the first and last car to crossed the line in the safety car period, but I don’t have the actual time it was called.

In the first session the first car to cross the line after the safety car came out was #16 1h26m57s into the first session and the last was #55. #55 crossed the line 20m28s after. DSC timing this at 24minutes. S365 say 26 minutes.

For second one it was #23 first crossing the line at 1:23:48 into the second session and then #93 crossing the line last before it was withdrawn 26m38s after. DSC has this at a “shade over 30 minutes”, Paul Truswell said 32 minutes on the coverage and that included sorting out the problem. S365 say 37 minutes.

Could be the case as there will be time before and after these cars crossed the line that will be under safety car.

Anyway, no real info here, but it is an appeal to say does anyone have the data of when the safety car was actually out (IMSA gives good data on this), or did anyone record the timing (say on Timing 71?).

[Adam43]

I thought it would be interesting to post the procedure. Here is an article from when it was announced:
https://en.endurance-info.com/auto/a...letely-revised

And these are the regs: https://assets.lemans.org/explorer/p...ons.pdf#page86

A summary of this is shown by listing the articles in order.
14.6.1 Start of the procedure
14.6.2 When you are allowed to overtake
14.6.3 SC may use the pit lane if needed
14.6.4 Merging behind one SC
14.6.5 Pass around
14.6.6 Drop back (the classes LMP2 and then GTE)
14.6.7 End of main SC procedure.

The procedure is different in the last 60 minutes of the race:
14.7.1 Deployment of SC in last 60 minutes
14.6.4, 5 , 6 and 7 won’t apply.

Two things I couldn’t find:
1. How is garage 56 treated?
2. Do they do anything different if there is a safety car just after we’ve had one (IMSA does this - they have SC light if it is less than 30 minutes (IIRC) after the last one).

[Mike E]

What happens if the overall leader is not a Hypercar when the SC is called? Do we end up with an IMSA-style joke situation where the leader on the road is told they aren't allowed to be the leader any more and they get shuffled back to their group? I mean, that would be really embarrassing, right?

[Gerard C]

Originally Posted by Mike E

What happens if the overall leader is not a Hypercar when the SC is called?

I've been reading -not understanding!- some of the rules and between the fact that there are three SCs, named A, B and C, and other strange things I find difficult to answer your good question. From this link posted by Adam https://assets.lemans.org/explorer/p...ons.pdf#page86 May be reading the articles 14.6.5 Pass Around and 14.6.6 Drop Back can help. I suppose they will rearrange the flow, category by category, Hypercars, LMP2s and GTEs. It will take a while because they have to merge from three to one SC! Nothing about Garage 56 but the Camaro being a category in its own, I suppose it will be sent after the last GTE…

All this will be different during the last 60 minutes of the race, of course I wonder how teams, drivers, marshals, commentators can cope with so many rules.

[Gerard C]

Imagine they want to train all the marshalls, all the drivers and team principals to the described procedures it will take a month! May be more.

[joeb]

Originally Posted by Gerard C

I've been reading -not understanding!- some of the rules and between the fact that there are three SCs, named A, B and C, and other strange things I find difficult to answer your good question. From this link posted by Adam https://assets.lemans.org/explorer/p...ons.pdf#page86 May be reading the articles 14.6.5 Pass Around and 14.6.6 Drop Back can help. I suppose they will rearrange the flow, category by category, Hypercars, LMP2s and GTEs. It will take a while because they have to merge from three to one SC! Nothing about Garage 56 but the Camaro being a category in its own, I suppose it will be sent after the last GTE…

All this will be different during the last 60 minutes of the race, of course I wonder how teams, drivers, marshals, commentators can cope with so many rules.

Good question about the G56 car, how will it operate with the new safety car procedure?

I mean we can talk and bemoan this new way of doing things, but with any luck we won't have to find out if it works! Race is going green the whole way

[Gerard C]

Agreed. Either green all time, seems impossible to me, or FCY / code 80 sometimes but no SC. When the teams will have to manage situations like pitlane entry closed/exit open then vice versa, they gonna have a moment! Place au sport as they say in Surrey! Or is it Yorkshire…

[Adam43]

First SC was 35:15 long. Hard to judge anything as it was early on.
Re-ordering the class went well.

Barrier repair probably meant it was that long whatever.

[PhilipR]

Originally Posted by Adam43

First SC was 35:15 long. Hard to judge anything as it was early on.
Re-ordering the class went well.

Barrier repair probably meant it was that long whatever.

It felt too long for me - but wonder if they used it to try the system and it was non controversial as there were no winners and losers out of it?

They surely could have slow zone the mulsanne in the first hour rather than 30 misn plus safety car

[Adam43]

Second SC was a tedious 1:25:29.

I felt it was the right call to start it. And the length wasn't to do with the procedure. That added some minutes, but was done fairly quick. would have been nice if it was one lap less.

But it was very long. Just didn't want them to race in those conditions? I don't think there were any track repairs to do.

[Gerard C]

May be they had to call individually each Pug shareholder to take a picture? "Total" waste of time.

[Adam43]

Originally Posted by N Martin

Welcome to the IMSA le mans 24 hours. In asssocation with NASCAR. Nice try anyway Peugeot. Good while it lasted.

They had a 20 odd second lead. Do it this way it will be 1 second or so. If they didn't then the Toyota ended up quite a bit behind and the next SC, I think. So 20s even became 1s or 1 minute! Which is worse. I'm not saying, but it is debatable.

[Adam43]

Third SC summary

00:16:57 SC starts
00:53:34 Incident clear - prepare for merging
00:53:46 Pit Land Closed
00:54:20 Eduardo on the radio - "let's do the merge" - this wasn't on the timing screen
00:59.24 Prepare for Pass Around
00:59:34 Start Pass Around*
01:07:32 LMP2 prepare for drop back
01:07:47 LMP2 Start Drop back
01:09:51 Car 24 start drop back
01:10:32 GTE prepare for drop back
01:10:39 GTE Start Drop back
01:16:15 Car 80 let the cars pass before MP30
01:16:21 SC in this lap
01:16:47 car 80 to RHS on the run off
01:17:30 GREEN FLAG
01:18:36 Team manager car 80 to the race director immediately.

36:37 to sort the incident
23:56 to do the procedure.

*The procedure could have been faster, but 77 (I think that was the number Eduardo said) was tardy getting round. Grrrr.

And we had the annoying #80 LMP2 breaking down in the middle of the procedure, but they didn't care and still started anyway. Eduardo told him to pull over!

[thetool]

Far too much of this race is being lost to the terrible new safety car procedures. These days all the cars are GPS tracked with full telemetry. I see absolutely no reason why the zones with incidents can't be managed with a set speed limit and no overtaking, and then green conditions the rest of the way round. The only reasonable exception I can see to this is an incident so severe that emergency service access to cars trackside requires further intervention.