Formula 1: New Safety Car Rules

So how many times has it happened this season alone? You see the little “SC” at the top of your screen and you know that any second now you will see that sexy Mercedes CLK 63 AMG burning round the track to take its place in front of the race leader to bunch up the field. Oh the anger caused, the disappointment of drivers, that bet goes out of the window, the face of the full race is changed in an instant.

Over the last couple of weeks especially, it has been used extensively and last week it was at the centre of attention sparking much controversy over whether or not it should even have been out in the first place?

So at the beginning of last year the rules were changed. The problem was that drivers were racing to the pits as quickly as they could at the announcement of the safety car being deployed so as to limit time damage to their race. Get the pit stop in straight away and then prevent having to stop again after the safety car. This meant that cars went all out full speed under yellow flag conditions, which is the exact opposite thing you want the cars to be doing under a safety car period.

So the rule was put in place to close the pit lane at the point of the safety car deployment being announced, this method was already in use in Indy racing and NASCAR and it was effective.

HOWEVER... If the driver was just about to come to his pit stop time anyway due to low fuel, he had a big dilemma to face: either pit in under closed pit lane and get a 10 sec penalty for that (in other words throw away his race) or staying on track with a heavy risk of running out of fuel.

The penalty for drivers if they refuel under safety car is a drive through penalty which usually takes about 20 seconds out of a lap or a 10 second stop/go penalty and considering the field is bunched up due to the safety car being out, the driver is as good as last in the race with either of these punishments.

I honestly believe that the rule would remain unchanged until the end of the season if it wasn’t for the farce that was caused at Canada due to the SC. The long and short of it is as follows:

Because of the position of the pit lane in Canada being where it is, the cars rejoin the circuit on corner 2 rather than corner 1 like it does on most GPs. This cuts out a big section of the circuit and consequently the cars can be pitted in, refuelled, tyres changed and then out before the SC and the rest of the field has cleared the end of the pit lane. Hence the red lights being on at the end of the pit lane causing drivers to bunch up in 2 rows at the red light.

This was missed last year by Felipe Massa and Giancarlo Fisichella and they were both black flagged (Disqualified). This year, Lewis Hamilton ploughed into the back of Kimi Raikkonen's Ferrari after not seeing the red light and ending both of their races instantly.  

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