Safety Car Etiquette

[fasted]

Competing in the Guards GT race at the Gold Cup I, through my own lack of talent found myself parked for a short period on the grass on the inside of Druids. Having lost time and distance to those I was racing at the time I was pleased to see the safety car boards. This was a purely selfish sentiment, whilst wishing no harm to the person who had had the incident which brought the safety car into play. It gave me the opportunity to catch up with the rear of the safety car crocodile, this whilst gaining no positions it would put me in a better position to make up for my earlier misdemeanor. Whilst in pursuit of the rear of the crocodile I gradually caught another competitor obviously with the same intentions as myself. All this came to nought when we caught a third car who was simply driving round as if on a slowing down lap, not in any obvious trouble, but apparently unaware that the situation could be used to his advantage. What do we do, he was impervious to all the waving of hands and flashing of headlights. After 2 laps of losing ground to the safety car!! I opted for the pit stop and the problem dawdled on up the road. Can we have a special flag to enable overtaking behind the safety car ??? Slower Safety Cars ?? Or just get our fellow competitors to understand the game?

[Peter Mallett]

I've had similar problems and it is frustrating. For the officials it can be a nightmare because it can mean they deal with two crocodiles rather than one.

I think dawdling drivers should be black flagged.

[terence]

I quite understand you're frustration! The main problem is that there are quite a few drivers who simply do not understand to rules regarding SC deployment.As you have demonstrated,the SC can be used to an advantage for those who,for whatever reason,find themselves at the back of the field.The ruling is that under SC conditions,all cars that are in front of the SC should maintain a reduced pace IN ORDER TO CATCH UP WITH the rest of the field,maintaining their position with ABSOLUTELY NO OVERTAKING.Not as happened recently at Masters Donington,where there was one car trying to beat the SC [with amber lights going] out of the Pit Lane Exit ,or slowing down to a crawl and waving the SC past!As to special flag's,I really do not think any further confusion would help when all that's needed is for competitor's to read those bits of paper that come through the post,their usually called Final Regulations.
If they did take the time to read and understand the reg's,it could actually reduce the amount of time the SC is on circuit.

[Dave Brand]

Originally Posted by fasted

Can we have a special flag to enable overtaking behind the safety car ??? Slower Safety Cars ?? Or just get our fellow competitors to understand the game?

Definitely the last one! The safety car serves two functions - to slow the cars down at the scene of the incident &, more importantly in my opinion, to form all the cars up in a 'train' so that marshals working trackside know that they have a discrete gap in traffic to work in & that, if necessary the safety car can slow the train down almost to a dead stop to pass the incident safely. Stragglers seriously reduce the benefit of using the safety car.

If the train is too spread out the safety car driver may well be asked to slow down to allow drivers at the back to catch up, but when, as frequently happens, some womble is trundling round half a lap behind the safety car, that's not going to solve the problem. We were talking about this on Monday - probably because of the car causing your problem, & somebody commented that he'd seen an instance at Mallory where the safety car had caught up with a straggler!

I understand your frustration - we marshals, for different reasons, share that frustration. The problem with allowing overtaking of excessively slow cars behind the safety car is that it's a matter of degree - how big a gap do you allow, how slow do they have to be going, etc. - far better to remove the cause rather than treating the symptom.

On a slightly different tack, I was the Post Chief at Druids for the Gold Cup weekend. Track conditions being what we were, we had more cars in the gravel than you could shake a stick at! I had an excellent team of incident marshals who worked tirelessly at pushing them out, on many occasions when it looked like an impossible task. One of the good things about this meeting was that, because drivers were respecting waved yellows & slowing down to a safe speed I was happy for this work to be done, & my team was happy to do it, under waved yellows, saving the need to ask for the safety car. At a conservative estimate this combination of drivers' respect for waved yellows & good marshalling saved half-a-dozen safety car interventions or red flags. (No thanks, however, to the one driver who spun under a waved yellow!)

[rogerwills]

This drives me nuts and is all down to driver education and etiquette or lack thereof.

I think the organisers in the safety briefing should (many do actually) tell all drivers that it is imperative to catch the back of the train under the safety car.

The last resort is that all teams should be issued with a few special signs for their pit board. I reckon if the entire pit wall showed something like we have done for our team below the culprit might get the message.



http://www.flickr.com/photos/38190428@N08/3881055732

[terence]

Originally Posted by rogerwills

This drives me nuts and is all down to driver education and etiquette or lack thereof.

I think the organisers in the safety briefing should (many do actually) tell all drivers that it is imperative to catch the back of the train under the safety car.

The last resort is that all teams should be issued with a few special signs for their pit board. I reckon if the entire pit wall showed something like we have done for our team below the culprit might get the message.

HOPEFULLY!

[John Turner]

Originally Posted by fasted

All this came to nought when we caught a third car who was simply driving round as if on a slowing down lap, not in any obvious trouble, but apparently unaware that the situation could be used to his advantage. What do we do, he was impervious to all the waving of hands and flashing of headlights.

This is not an unusual eventuality; I've seen it quite a few times in recent years and even commented upon it in some of my reviews. It's pretty frustrating just to watch so what it's like for you competitors, I can only imagine.

[Mike Bell]

We had exactly the situation described in a GTS race in 2007, but the 'straggler' was having engine problems and couldn't go any quicker. If it had been me I would have pitted to get out of the way but he didn't. In those circumstances the 'offender' could be black-flagged, surely?


And Roger, start mass producing those pit signals!

[delta]

This has been discussed before and if John Gee had been C of C he always explains the safety car procedure at drivers briefing,after all the quizzing on yellow flags. Good old John.

[tonyC]

I had the dubious pleasure of being Safety Car Observer in the Britcar 24 Hour race that continued through the night in dense fog. At one point, we actually caught up with the tail end of the field !

Part of the problem was we had team managers up in race control asking if we could pick the pace up as some of the more “exotic” machinery was suffering at the reduced pace – Then we had the ones asking us to slow down as the backmarkers couldn’t keep up trying to find their way through the murk

Thankfully the following year changes were made to call a temporary halt in the same conditions.

[terence]

Originally Posted by Mike Bell

We had exactly the situation described in a GTS race in 2007, but the 'straggler' was having engine problems and couldn't go any quicker. If it had been me I would have pitted to get out of the way but he didn't. In those circumstances the 'offender' could be black-flagged, surely?


And Roger, start mass producing those pit signals!

Why do those drivers never have it 'on board' to simply pull onto the grass,limp back to the pit's once all other cars have passed?


I thought there were some team's with comprehensive hand signals for their respective drivers?

[zac510]

I saw this happening while I was watching at Oulton. There were two 'groups' behind the safety car. I thought it odd that the safety car was pulling in while two separate groups were circulating, but figured it was a short race and less time wasted behind the safety car was better value for the racers.

[Al Weyman]

Maybe with the increasing use of the safety car to save restarts a new flag or signal should be bought out to tell the car not closing up to either pull off or get his finger out. We had the same last year I think it was in a Classics and Historics race at Donington that ruined the race for some of the guys in fact I think several overtook the offending car in the end but I cannot remember if they escaped exclusion as a result or not. BTW if the guy going slowly is nursing the car home but wants to finish the race and feels if he goes into the pits he may not get going again say a problem like I had at Lydden stuck in third gear which if I had stopped that would have been it, if he waves the others through how would the Clerk see that?

[terence]

Originally Posted by zac510

I saw this happening while I was watching at Oulton. There were two 'groups' behind the safety car. I thought it odd that the safety car was pulling in while two separate groups were circulating, but figured it was a short race and less time wasted behind the safety car was better value for the racers.

Believe it or not,that IS a major consideration for Race Control.Invariably the length of time the SC is sometime's dictated by these drivers who do not understand the importance of re-forming the field to pre SC period,it has been known to have to perform perhaps an extra two laps in order to allow tail-ender's to catch up!

[terence]

Originally Posted by Al Weyman

Maybe with the increasing use of the safety car to save restarts a new flag or signal should be bought out to tell the car not closing up to either pull off or get his finger out. We had the same last year I think it was in a Classics and Historics race at Donington that ruined the race for some of the guys in fact I think several overtook the offending car in the end but I cannot remember if they escaped exclusion as a result or not. BTW if the guy going slowly is nursing the car home but wants to finish the race and feels if he goes into the pits he may not get going again say a problem like I had at Lydden stuck in third gear which if I had stopped that would have been it, if he waves the others through how would the Clerk see that?

As overtaking whilst under a Yellow/SC board.The reason why idealy that driver should pull off and NOT stay 'on circuit'.Even the SC has to keep a constant report going to keep RC up to speed,or in some case's,to get permission to pass the driver in front who's driving very slowly and attempting to wave the SC through!!

[james s]

During the drivers meeting for the guards trophy race the clerk of the course said that a slower driver trying to catch the tail of the safety car could wave past a faster car behind him.This was the first time that i had heard this before.During the race this situation happened to me when i was waved past the very slow B8 of Kelvin Jones under SC conditions.

[terence]

First time I've heard of it James,however,ultimately it is up to the Clerk how he run's his meeting.

[SWCRacing]

Thats where all the problems start!! It is not down to the Clerk to make that decision. The Safety Car regs are very clear, and one of the main reasons for the MSA producing them this year was to stop different organisers interperating the regs diferently
It is down to the drivers to follow the regs and catch the train up, or if they are struggling with a problem and limping back to the pits, pull off the circuit till all behind have got past. After all, as Hamilton / Trulli proved, if you are off the track you can be overtaken while the safety car is out!!
There is no way I would overtake anyone under Safety Car conditions, that is a real easy way to get a penalty

[Dave Brand]

Originally Posted by james s

During the drivers meeting for the guards trophy race the clerk of the course said that a slower driver trying to catch the tail of the safety car could wave past a faster car behind him.This was the first time that i had heard this before.During the race this situation happened to me when i was waved past the very slow B8 of Kelvin Jones under SC conditions.

Interesting! The fact that the slower driver had waved the faster driver past would (or should!) be stated on the Post Chief's report, so the Clerk would be aware of the situation. However, it doesn't really change much for the marshals, rescue unit, recovery vehicle or whatever dealing with the incident - one car or a second train of several cars way behind the main group is just as big a problem.

[jminsh]

should we not just run bull bars and shove the numpty's round ??

[John Turner]

Aesthetically displeasing!

[jminsh]

what the shoving or the bull bars !! ha ha

[ChrisA]

Originally Posted by terence bower

The ruling is that under SC conditions,all cars that are in front of the SC should maintain a reduced pace IN ORDER TO CATCH UP WITH the rest of the field,maintaining their position with ABSOLUTELY NO OVERTAKING.Not as happened recently at Masters Donington,where there was one car trying to beat the SC [with amber lights going] out of the Pit Lane Exit ,or slowing down to a crawl and waving the SC past!As to special flag's,I really do not think any further confusion would help when all that's needed is for competitor's to read those bits of paper that come through the post,their usually called Final Regulations.
If they did take the time to read and understand the reg's,it could actually reduce the amount of time the SC is on circuit.

Couldn't agree more. What the driver at Donington hoped to achieve by beating us out of the pitlane, I don't know! The S/C is under the complete control of R/C, and it is only R/C that tells us to pick up speed or slow down, or wave cars past. As Terry says, Final Instructions....READ THEM!

[fasted]

Perhaps the rules should state that any competitor unable to catch the SC train, who are themselves caught by the SC or through their lack of pace, create a second train should be black flagged.
Secondly when the SC is withdrawn and green flags are shown simultaneously round the circuit why do we have to wait to cross the start line before commencing racing. It is a little unnerving to realise that the pack has been unleashed into Old Hall at full tilt whilst you are pottering along following a slower car through Knicker Brook which you are not allowed to overtake.

[terence]

Originally Posted by fasted

Perhaps the rules should state that any competitor unable to catch the SC train, who are themselves caught by the SC or through their lack of pace, create a second train should be black flagged.
Secondly when the SC is withdrawn and green flags are shown simultaneously round the circuit why do we have to wait to cross the start line before commencing racing. It is a little unnerving to realise that the pack has been unleashed into Old Hall at full tilt whilst you are pottering along following a slower car through Knicker Brook which you are not allowed to overtake.

Thats exactly what SHOULD be done,you are not racing untill you have passed the green flag at the start-line.