Safety Car Speed in general

[Phoenix1]

Taken from Planet-f1.com
http://www.planet-f1.com/news/story_15693.shtml

Q: (Matt Bishop - F1 Racing) A question for all the drivers, obviously the safety car does have to slow the field but do you think that possibly the safety car slowed the field too much and maybe a faster safety car should be used?
JT: No, I don’t think so. The safety car just has to keep the pace in certain circumstances when there is a yellow flag when there is an accident. If we have to look at the action that has happened between Montoya and Michael today, the safety car has nothing to do with it.
RB: I think that it is just that Monaco is very different to the other places, to be honest. It is difficult for any other type of car to keep a higher pace and it wouldn’t have made a difference. I cannot judge, because I haven’t seen the accident. It was slow but it is Monaco, it is very tight and it is difficult anyway.

[Phoenix1]

Now I do not want to get into the specifics of Monaco and I do think the saefty car F1 uses is up to standard but if and when the Merc retired what should replace it?

1) A new 'touring' car like the current one

2) A single seater style car (this of course intails the issue that it can not pick up drivers and/or carry medical supplies

I'm not to sure myself and am purely intreasted in the aspect of the saefty car and not what it did/did not cause in terms of accidents at a street circuit near France lately!

[garcon]

This always reminds me of the time in a GT race - can't remember where/when - in which the lead race car (a Saleen I think) radioed in to say he couldn't keep up with the pace car (an Audi RS6) in the torrential rain...

I think an SLR McLaren is the ideal pace car. At least it gives the McLaren fans something to cheer now and again...

[BSchneiderFan]

Does Bernd Maylander still drive the safety car?

[woodbine]

Well at least its got to be better than the safety car used in one of the Argentinian GPs. That was a Renault Clio driven by (I think) the president's daughter!

[hgmonaro]

they need one of the utes they use at the trots

[Gt_R]

Haha..i was thinking about the Mclaren Mercedes SLR too...

I know the SLK is a very quick car, and very advanced...but F1 needs something even more exotic preferably.. And i think the SLR fits the bill perfectly...among the stable of Mercedes

[Snrub]

Originally posted by garcon
This always reminds me of the time in a GT race - can't remember where/when - in which the lead race car (a Saleen I think) radioed in to say he couldn't keep up with the pace car (an Audi RS6) in the torrential rain...

That was also a problem for CART at Surfer's Paradise in 2002. I imagine the car was less potent than a RS6.

[bosch!]

It was probably an illusion but the pace car seemed to be drifting a bit round the bend in the tunnel. What kind of speed was it doing through the tunnel, 120 - 160 kmh?

[Cougar]

What would the implications be if you did away with the saftey car and made the cars have a SC limiter. Much the same as in the pits but with a slightly higher limit I would guess.

[Dutch chap]

) A single seater style car (this of course intails the issue that it can not pick up drivers and/or carry medical supplies

Nothing new then. The SC does not carry medical supplies (why should it, it's function is not to stop at an incident but to pass it on reduced speed. Ans it can be a single seater because beside the "experienced driver" there also should be a "experienced observer" on board".

[Stephen Green]

Originally posted by Dutch chap
Nothing new then. The SC does not carry medical supplies (why should it, it's function is not to stop at an incident but to pass it on reduced speed. Ans it can be a single seater because beside the "experienced driver" there also should be a "experienced observer" on board".

The safety car has a driver and passenger and so cannot be a single seater. The passenger is the person who reports directly to Race Control while the driver concentrates on keeping the safety car at good speed and on the track.

On the subject of having a limiter on board instead of the safety car there are other implications that come into play. One of the beneifits of a safety car is that when deployed, it bunches up the field which gives more 'space' for marshals to work trackside in minimal danger conditions. If you were to employ a limiter, the cars would be spread round the whole circuit thus making it more dangerous to work trackside.

[ASCII Man]

They can always use one of the Arrows 2 or 3 seaters, all they do nowadays is just gathering dust anyway.

[Dutch chap]

and so cannot

Thanks Stephen,

My response [ quote] Ans it can be [/quote]was made a bit to hasty and therefore not quite accurate.

[Dutch chap]

and so cannot

Thanks Stephen,

My response

Ans it can be

was made a bit to hasty and therefore not quite accurate.