“We’ll have four racing laps’: How F1’s Safety Car confusion unfolded at Monza

26 comments on ““We’ll have four racing laps’: How F1’s Safety Car confusion unfolded at Monza”

1. 

   Adrian Hancox (@ahxshades)
   14th September 2022, 13:26

   We believe we’ll have three or four laps after the Safety Car, racing laps

   came from Ferrari – we all know how their strategy has been this season :)
2. 

   Dominique (@tryneplague)
   14th September 2022, 14:15

   What does this box mean? I don’t understand it.

   “And Peter, you found a good job with massive layoffs. Really? Well.”
3. 

   Bullfrog (@bullfrog)
   14th September 2022, 14:23

   Advice for safety car drivers: if in doubt, pick up Max…
   1. 

      Esploratore (@esploratore1)
      15th September 2022, 12:02

      That’s true, every race since mid season there’s more chance he wins than all other drivers combined realistically.
4. 

   Rosa (@ciaran)
   14th September 2022, 14:30

   Do we know exactly how long the Clerk of the Course took to tell the SC to wave by Russell+backmarkers?

   Very frustrating that this happened when the racing was so promising, but the rulebook had enough scope for racing to begin, so I don’t think any radical changes are actually needed. The existing procedure doesn’t look like it was executed well enough.
   1. 

      David
      14th September 2022, 15:18

      Running out of time because a car was stuck in gear is an acceptable reason for finishing under safety car.

      Getting a well-known procedure wrong (starting with failing to wave George by) is not acceptable.
      1. 

         theRealMax (@millionus)
         14th September 2022, 18:24

         Is this from their new control center where they have more people and screens.! Not sure it’s as efficient as it can be if that is the case. Maybe this was the first incident they had and had no idea what they were supposed to be doing…
5. 

   Phil Norman (@phil-f1-21)
   14th September 2022, 14:34

   Something clearly went wrong and race control messed up. They would be better off giving the real reasons in public so that the issues can be explained and the same mistakes are not made again. Maybe they did discuss this at the FIA meeting on Monday but they still covering up at the moment.

   I think people who had paid for a ticket will still be very disappointed.
6. 

   Etikje
   14th September 2022, 14:47

   where Masi is you need him..
7. 

   BasCB (@bascb)
   14th September 2022, 15:19

   Thanks to the informative “as it happened” overview of the pit – car radios and analyses. These are really interesting to get an insight of what the teams and drivers were thinking and discussing.

   These kind of articles are really something I find only here.

   To make it even better, though would it be possible to ad a top bar telling us what column is which driver/car, since currently it takes a while to wholly grasp which is which when you don’t know the names of the engineers (I admit, I don’t) – @keithcollantine
   1. 

      Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
      14th September 2022, 20:13

      @bascb Thanks for the suggestion – I’ll see what I can do!
8. 

   Rafael Perez (@rafaelperez)
   14th September 2022, 15:39

   Race direction followed the rules, but they were clumsy at best.
   – it took way to long to show double yellow flags and send out the safety car
   – took way too long to put away the stranded McLaren, it looked like if they were having to check the instructions manual to act, the scenario was simple enough, broken down car stuck in gear that required a crane to be retrieved.
   – safety car picking up the wrong car

   Race direction was way more ineffective and clumsy on F3 and F2, they affected race results and championships outcomes with some questionable decisions.
   1. 

      anon
      14th September 2022, 17:30

      It actually took less time than you thought it did for the safety car to be deployed. The problem is that the TV coverage made it look as if it took a lot longer than it actually did, which in turn means that quite a few of the complaints are based on wrong assumptions.

      It seems that the issue is more to do with the gap on track between the two leading cars and Russell, and the fact that both then pitted under the safety car. That created a very large gap between the leaders and the safety car, which then made it difficult for them to then catch up to it.

      Part of the problem is also down to the safety car going fairly quickly – people often complain about the safety car going too slowly, but the problems here were because the safety car was going quite quickly, making it difficult for other cars to catch up.
      1. 

         SteveP
         14th September 2022, 19:13

         Part of the problem is also down to the safety car going fairly quickly – people often complain about the safety car going too slowly, but the problems here were because the safety car was going quite quickly, making it difficult for other cars to catch up.

         As per my suggestion in another thread: VSC with different levels of speed reduction depending on the severity of the incident.
         Absolute guarantee the race leader is in the front of the “train”, if the leader pits the new leader takes control of the train.

         Also allows for a variable speed of the train at different parts of the track and removes the complaints about the SC “going too slow”
9. 

   hobo (@hobo)
   14th September 2022, 16:40

   Hindsight and all that, but Is it weird to anyone else that heavy equipment was brought on track without a red flag?

   I am not looking for red flags or ‘THE SHOW’ to be more important than the sporting nature of the event itself (i.e. the random nature of a race should not be artificially manipulated just because an event occurs on the next to last lap rather than lap 7.) But for those of us that watched or remember the 2014 Japanese GP, having a heavy vehicle (or any non-F1 vehicle really) on track or near the track and outside the barrier seems problematic to me.

   Yes, behind SC, double-waved yellows, etc. I know, but…
   1. 

      slowmo (@slowmo)
      14th September 2022, 17:33

      @hobo I think the general consensus seems to be they will allow recovery vehicles to enter the circuit only when the cars are under full SC conditions and the track condition is good. Had it been raining, a driver was trapped/injured or the vehicle was on fire so close to the track I’m sure they’d have gone to red instead.

      While the Bianchi accident was horrific there were multiple mitigating circumstances, cars were travelling too fast for the conditions, there was no safety car I believe and just double waved yellows at the corner and of course no halo device on the cars. At the end of the day it’s a sport that will always have some risks but clearly there was more that could be done after the Bianchi crash and I think they have changed some of their recovery procedures. I would like to see the use of more static cranes in traditional run off areas though rather than putting vehicles in the firing line.
      1. 

         AlanD
         14th September 2022, 20:02

         Slowmo “and of course no halo device on the cars”

         The halo is a very effective safety device but I’m sure I read somewhere that it wouldn’t have made any difference in the outcome of the Bianchi crash. It was the rapid decellarion forces that caused the fatal injuries, rather than impact injuries. However, I take your point that conditions were different, and also very much agree that we should have more cranes rather than sending trucks onto the track. I find it strange that F1 insists on such high standards for tracks but then overlooks relatively simle requirmements for better ways to recover cars. I also think cars could be built with attachment points so that tow cables and lifting cables could be attached much more quickly.
   2. 

      Mark (@blueruck)
      14th September 2022, 17:41

      Really good point, if there is heavy equipment inside the barrier under a safety car the equipment is normally a gravel trap away. Not in this case.
   3. 

      Roger Ayles (@roger-ayles)
      14th September 2022, 18:08

      @hobo

      but Is it weird to anyone else that heavy equipment was brought on track without a red flag?

      Not really as thats how similar situations have always been handled in F1 and pretty much every other category.

      It was completely different to Japan 2014 as conditions were clear, The SC was out so drivers were at a safe speed & they knew where it was.

      It was a perfectly normal and safe use and exactly the sort of thing the SC was introduced for when it was brought in. Before the SC was brought in back in the 90s that car would have just been left there until after the race and covered under double waved yellows.

      At no point in F1’s history or in any other category would that have resulted in a red flag from a safety perspective.
10. 

    Ajaxn
    14th September 2022, 19:43

    To quote Ronny Barker of the Two Ronnies – “What a mucking fuddle”.
11. 

    AlanD
    14th September 2022, 19:51

    I’m really struggling to undersand what was going on here and I watched the race. Which car did the safety car pick up in mistake for the leader? Also confused as to why Russell was being given the signal to overtake as I didn’t think he was a lapped driver.
    1. 

       Alianora La Canta (@alianora-la-canta)
       15th September 2022, 21:11

       Russell was the car who was picked up by the Safety Car. Hence why he was lapped (since the definition of the lap start is where the actual leader of the race is, and Verstappen was multiple cars behind Russell).
12. 

    DB-C90 (@dbradock)
    15th September 2022, 2:43

    It was a mess but at least the protocols were followed rather than trying to engineer an inappropriate restart.

    I was quite OK with it finishing under the SC. It happens.. time to move on.
13. 

    Alianora La Canta (@alianora-la-canta)
    15th September 2022, 21:12

    Unfortunately the FIA’s explanation does not stack up with what was written concerning the radios, nor indeed with the visuals. By lap 51, the car was cleared, thus the FIA’s explanation does not help.
14. 

    Dan G (@dang)
    16th September 2022, 12:14

    Not sure what the issue is here? Cars stay behind the safety car until marshals are off the track. Then they cars pass the SC and proceed — at speed — to the rear of the line until the leader is behind the SC.

    Whole point of the SC is to slow cars right down for the safety of the marshals when they’re on the track.
15. 

    Julian Sark
    17th September 2022, 8:05

    Give every marshalling point a FIA-owned car jack, extra wide, with big off-road castor wheels. Lift car at the back, push out. Problem solved.

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