Quote:
Originally Posted by karting
This really bugs me. Formula 1 is rich enough and smart enough, so there must be a obvious reason I’m missing.
Instead of letting the lap car overtake the pack and safety car, then drive round (we may lose 1 or 2 laps whilst they catch the train again, why can’t they just let the rest of the field overtake them and then add a lap onto their timesheet
Surely this would be a lot more time efficient and also won’t have cars speeding round trying to catch the pack going past the incident
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Firstly, the free pass lap only happens when the track is clear already.
Secondly, if you reposition already lapped cars to the back of the pack by asking the pack to pass them, then they have a tyre and fuel advantage. It's not always the lowly teams in the position of the freebie and many F1 fans would spontaneously combust if someone manoeuvred themselves to be in that position and take advantage of fuel/tyres accordingly. It WOULDN'T BE FAIR in the same way that if your driver does badly out of the SC it ISN'T FAIR AND SHOULD BE DONE DIFFERENTLY.
Having spent a considerable amount of time on track as a marshal (both dealing with the sort of stuff that drivers do *and* in the passenger seat of the SC at club and national level in the UK and abroad), there are times when the WEC-style FCY (NOT the American style FCY which involves a pace car!)/the F1-style VSC/the Code 60 used by DSMB, Creventic and the like is the right thing to do but there are also times when the traditional safety car is the right thing to do also.
The 'everyone run at the same speed' rules are great, if everyone does that, but they don't necessarily give a decent gap to be able to clear debris if it's strewn all over or you have to get recovery vehicles or personnel to cross the track. The traditional SC works incredibly well at creating a big working gap until people start to pit, then you have cars chasing the pack at close to racing speed - and that can be quite hairy.
In both cases, *everyone* in high-speed non-club motorsport whinges like fury about how slow the SC is going (or how slow the VSC limit is) because it affects the tyres - yet that's the same for everyone.
In any case, the deployment of SC/VSC/FCY etc sometimes throws the strategists a lifeline - and makes for interesting races. Which is, after all, what we want.
Isn't it?