RD1 on blue flags
There are many great debates in Formula 1: Should F1 have legal team orders, should F1 allow in-season testing to return to the sport, should we give Michael Schumacher another chance? All topics of conversation around the virtual F1B water cooler (ok primarily the last one) however today I’m going to focus on one that doesn’t come up all that often: What to do with the blue flag.
Sure, Ferrari and McLaren don’t want to have their races mucked up by slow pokes but equally, it’s a race and doesn’t that apply to everyone and not just those racing in the front? Whether or not Formula 1 should continue to use blue flags to signal to slower backmakers that faster cars are coming is only part of the larger discussion of what to do with backmakers. Sure, all series have them but not all of them give them the blue flag treatment.
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So today, Virgin’s “guy” Richard Branson (what is his official title anyway) supports a previous statement by Lotus’s Tony Fernandes calling F1 to eliminate the use of the blue flag. Funny that two newcomers that are only saved from being last ever race by HRT would feel this way, right? After all, its all about the overtaking man:
Fernandes:
"Drivers are paid to overtake, whether they are back markers or at the front. I think it would be good for the sport to get rid of blue flags. In the days of Ken Tyrrell, he would never let any car pass. If it’s really hard for a world champion to get past a backmarker then I think it’s a sad day for racing. I think racing is all about getting past people and overtaking and adding a little bit of ‘je ne sais quoi’. You’ve got a driver saying it’s ridiculous that he’s lapping someone four times, so why should he be complaining about overtaking a guy that he’s lapping four times?
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Hey Tony, are you new to F1? Have you watched a race? There is no overtaking. And it’s not like this rule was instituted yesterday either. Why not man up and tell us the real reason why you hate the blue flag: Because you’re guys are the ones being passed!
Branson:
"It would be a lot more fun if they didn’t have blue flags. I am sure some of the more established teams would not like it, but it is a racing track and they should not have to be told to pull over. If that is what Tony is saying, I definitely agree with him. It doesn’t sound like racing – and it makes a bit of a mockery of the sport.
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A mockery of the sport? Yeah I’m pretty sure you can’t pin that one on blue flags. Max’s sex-capades maybe, but not really the uses of blue flags. Was Virgin punished lately for not seeing the flag?
And then the article concludes with a bit by Virgin Racing’s CEO Graeme Lowdon:
"We get a blue flag three seconds before someone approaches us, and at the moment three seconds is almost a lap and you have to let them by within four corners. So we have situations where our guys are pulling to one side and the car behind cannot catch up. It’s a massive compromise over the whole of a race. We do this graph of time against distance, and you look at the graph and you immediately see where the blue flags start because up to a point of the race we are there or thereabouts in terms of pace, but then it drops away. The issue is that you get the flags so early – and three seconds is quite a long time. And you have to tell your driver to let the guy past but you cannot speed the car up behind. It has ruined a lot of racing for us.
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Wait, what’s this? Sanity prevails? Lowdon’s explanation makes perfect sense and isn’t really a call for eliminating blue flags but more the time between telling the backmarker to get out of the way and the arrival of the faster car.
So what do you think? Blue flags: yeah or no way?
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