What purpose does the safety car serve?

[Valve Bounce]

Apart from a comment in another thread that they love to see the Mercedes safety car on the track, or that it serves to bunch up the field, I cannot think of one single logical reason why that safety car should be on the track. Either the cars should be slowed by flags, or surely the race can be stopped. The tyres can be warmed up again on the grid, and the cars restarted with a formation lap type run with no passing allowed, and then the race is on when the lead car passes the finish line. The silly thing is that it takes quite a while to mobilise the safety car, during which the race can be red flagged and the cars brought back into the pits promptly, allowing for debris to be cleared from the track, and any ambulance service to be provided without interruption from the passage of the racing cars as they circulate. I have never liked the idea of the safety car, as it is simply boring to see the cars going round and round slowly, with the possibility of the cars picking up sharp debris in their tyres. In this case, the passage of all those cars only managed to make difficult the task of clearing the track of debris, and even slowed the passage of the ambulance. Maybe I have missed something here, so would somebody explain to me the advantages of the safety car please.

[Sparky]

I'm with you on this one, VB.

The only thing I can think of is that the Safety Car keeps the spectators informed. I know that sounds trite, but realistically, if you were trackside, and twenty two cars streamed by as expected, but didn't appear a minute and a half later, you might wonder what had happened.
I fully agree that the safety and care of the injured should come before the satisfaction of the fans, but that's how I think the game is played.
Logically, the cars could reform on the grid, but would you do that on lap 49 of 60? I think the SC is the only consistant way of doing things, even though it does hinder the recovery effort.

Not ideal, but the only workable way, perhaps.

[Valve Bounce]

Yes!! I would do that on lap 49 of a 60 lap race. The cars can then be reformed on the grid and restarted when the track is clear, using the formation lap type rules with no passing allowed until the cars cross the finish line. That's exactly what they do now after the safety car pulls off into the pits anyway!!. It is better than running another 6 laps or even the rest of the race under the safety car. At least we would get nearly the full race. The use of the formation lap rules would replace exactly what the safety car would achieve. I suppose if you wanted to keep the spectators informed, you could run the safety car around on its own, telling everyone through a loud speaker system that "the race has been halted temporarily owing to unfortunate circumstances beyond the control of the organisers".

[djb]

Some thoughts from reading your comments:

Yes, the point of circulating cars picking up debris from the accident and the potential of tire failure later because of this if a real concern, a very valid concern.

The time with the safety car out yesterday was so long because of very unfortunate circumstances, but thankfully most of the time, it is simply a matter of properly removing the damaged car or cars and cleaning the track. I would think that bringing in the pack and shutting down the engines could lead to some of them not starting up-I may be way off with this, but it seems that their fickleness could be problematic, no? Don't you think that the drivers would prefer to stay in their cars, keeping concentrated on a rolling restart?

If the presence of the group going by an accident scene did impede the doctors or ambulance, I would agree with not having them there, but it didn't seem to me that this was the case yesterday, or with other recent cases.

Just thinking out loud and trying to keep an open mind on the subject.

[Craig]

I would imagine it is a hell of a lot easier to control the behaviour of the field by having a single race official out front controlling the cars under direct control of the race director than it would be trying to communicate with 24 charged up racers by way of flags or by passing messages to the teams and expecting them to relay them via radio.

[Maximum F1]

There are proposed plans for the future to electronically control the cars in such situations. The cars will be slowed by a speed limiter instead of a safety car.

[Valve Bounce]

Craig, I think that I was a bit muddled in my post - I am actually proposing bringing in the field rather than run the safety car out on the track. Once the situation goes beyond a flag waving one, like yellow flags, then red flag the race and bring them in.
I think at one point the ambulance did stop while the field went past behind the safety car.
The points I really want to make are that it would be safer to bring the cars in,
easier to clear the track of debris,
possible to land the ambulance helicopter onto the track to provide urgent medical attention and take the injured person to a hospital.
Running cars around endlessly behind a safety car lap after lap is just plain silly.
I'm just still upset, so forgive me if I sound rude.

[Maximum F1]

If you bring the field in I would guess that this would cause problems with tyres and stuff like that, teams would also be able to get a complete close up look of their cars without losing time.(this could be beneficial if they are trying to figure out a problem). I think all the cars benefit from continuing to run and not being stationary.
Maximum F1

[Craig]

You don't sound rude at all, VB. As Maximum F1 says, stopping the race can cause it's own problems and, rightly or wrongly, you can understand the race director's reluctance to stop a race for every single incident. There are many many incidents which can be dealt with by deploying the safety car, but which could not be dealt with under yellows and would necessitate a race stoppage.

The way I see it there are three options open to the race director when he is faced with an emergency - waved/stationary yellows, a safety car, or a red flag. It is up to him to choose the most appropriate depending upon the exact situation.

In this case he went with the safety car. That may or may not have been the right thing to do as far as the race itself goes but, in this incident, i'd have thought that red flagging the race would have been the decent thing to do. But then hindsight's a wonderful thing, and I wasn't the guy faced with making that decision.

One final thought. Someone mentioned the medevac helicopter landing on the circuit. This is not normal practice - the patient will usually be taken to the circuit's medical facility for stabilising before being taken by road or air to the local hospital. However, in the case of F1, i'd hazzard a guess that the circuit's medical facilities would put many hospitals to shame.

[Valve Bounce]

Actually Martin has gone to great pains explaining how the tyres cool down when following the safety car, and that has even been suggested as the reason for Senna running off the track and crashing. If the cars are brought back to the grid, the tyres can be warmed up with the blankets. What I am saying here is that the safety car serves no purpose, and if you have to bring the safety car out, you may as well bring the cars in. Some circuits are quite long and the helicopter can be used to bring quick medical attention to the injured, and take them back to whatever medical facilities are appropriate. In heavy rain, I would rather the cars be brought back to the pits, rather than have the tyres cool down running slowly behind the silly safety car. It is not that difficult for stewards to ensure that apart from keeping the tyres warm, no work is carried out on the cars while in the pits. You can even line the cars up on the pit lane in their race order to restart the race with one formation lap used before racing agian. The only drawback I can see is that the TV will have nothing to show. Maybe that would be a good time to show quals again, or some previous race, or even a road runner cartoon. That would be better than watching F1 cars trolling endlessly behind that silly safety car.

[Maximum F1]

Sorry Valve, but you will find that the blankets don't warm up the tyre's, they retain some of the heat already in them and that heat will eventually be lost anyway.

[Valve Bounce]

Oh!! Sorry!! I meant the electric blankets used to heat the tyres up to high temperatures before quals, and while the cars are on the grid. I didn't mean the blankets you buy at K-Mart.

[yorkie]

VB I agree with you to some extent. But the are advantages and disadvantages of both systems.

One of the main advantages on the safety car is that it allows the viewers and spectators to know the position in the race – ie the lead car is actually winning. On the other hand bringing the safety car out can totally change the outcome of a race (eg Silverstone 98/99?).

A restart is more confusing for the viewing public but the outcome is a truer reflection of the race but obviously involves all the dangers of starting a race.

The best solution I can think of is to deploy the safety car if the obstruction is in the early part of the race and the safety car will only be deployed for a few laps (say 5% max). In all other circumstances the race should be stopped and the cars quarantined (so that they can not be worked on) with the exception of putting on tyre warmers. The race could then be restarted behind the safety car to avoid the incidents associated with standing starts.

[Valve Bounce]

That's just the point I made, Yorkie - you don't have to restart unde the safety car. Just start the cars up under the formation lap regs, with no passing allowed until the cars pass the finish line. This way, there are no dangers in restarting the race.

[RussianFriend]

Valve Bounce,

do you mean that all the efforts of overtaking and pit stops strategy results should be given up? They have already won the place but should start again? Or they should start from the places they were at the moment of the crash?

My argument against your way is the threat of engine failure of gear boxes broblems. You know that cars often breaks after repeated starts, because F1 gear box can bear only several starts and engine can't withstand such changing duty.

[KC]

I have heard Max and Bernie denigrate most forms of US racing becasue of full course cautions and yellow flags. So I always thought they used the safety car so that they did not wave a full course yellow.

[yorkie]

RussianFriend,

If the race were stopped the FIA should use the same rules as have been used in the past, that is that the result is an aggregate of the two race times. This is why I pointed out that the viewing public could be confused after a restart.

I have never liked the safety car, simply because all racing ceases when it comes out. I for one don't want to watch cars behind the safety car for 10 laps.

I like the idea of cars being stopped and then a rolling start. No on track advantage will be lost anyway if they do this. But the physics of racing cars would have to be considered too (ie Tyre heat etc).

The only time I remember a race being stopped during the middle was Japan 94 (correct me if there are more) and when it restarted positions were figured out on aggregate, very confusing. (However we did see a brilliant battle between Alesi and Mansell )

[Speed]

What about motor temperature, driver´s momentum, and Mercedes Benz publicity

[Valve Bounce]

From what I can see here, some guys are posting here in response to other posts without reading my original post in this thread. Many of the questions asked by posters are in fact answered in my original post. I certainly agree with the concept of aggregate times - why should a car that has built up a substantial lead of almost 1 lap be asked to lose this lead for no logical reason than that it would be more exciting to bunch up the field. We can take this to extremes, and bunch up the field as a matter of routine just for the heck of it after every 20 laps.