[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by TrapezeArtist

Yes, of course the F1 safety car start procedure is appallingly bad and there must be numerous waysthat it could be better. It's not just Indycar that does it better, every non-gearbox kart race has a rolling start too.

My biggest gripe is with the concept of using a safety car at all. Allowing drivers to recover the ground they have lost to a faster car/driver is fundamentally counter to the concept of a sporting contest. The "virtual safety car" ispretty good and desperately under-utilised at the moment. I think perhaps it could be improved by adding a super-low speed limit (using an etension of the pitlane speed limiter) in any area that required it (ie where marshals are on track).

Sadly I have to conclude that the safety car is an ecuse for spicing up "the show" and we F1 fans used to be highly disparaging of Indycar and Nascar for using that method. Yesterday David Coulthard openly expressed the opinion that the safety car was being used that way.

I'm not talking about the rolling start, at the beginning of the race but restarts under the SC.