Formula 1 Can Fix Its Safety Car Problem Today
Formula 1 Can Fix Its Safety Car Problem Today
When Nicholas Latifi crashed in the closing laps of Sunday's Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, the implication was obvious. Whether the race re-started or not, the winner would be dictated by the timing of the safety car. This is the way racing has gone since safety cars were introduced, every race comes with a constant knowledge that one ill-timed wreck could alter the outcome of a whole season drastically. In NASCAR, this is a feature. That kind of chaos is encouraged, it's part of the show. In F1, it has always been considered a bug. Safety car timing and enforcement should not decide full seasons. This one did. Formula 1 Can Fix Its Safety Car Problem Today
Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton have seemingly accepted this. The team has dropped its intent to appeal a Sunday ruling that the race director can more or less do whatever they want regardless of what safety car rules officially say, removing the asterisk on Max Verstappen's first world driver's championship. Formula 1 Can Fix Its Safety Car Problem Today
But they did so only after the FIA announced a "detailed analysis and clarification exercise" over the incident, effectively an official review of the rules that allowed such a catastrophe to happen. In other words, the focus has shifted from wallowing in the knowledge that F1 race director Michael Masi's decision handed a championship to Max Verstappen in an instant to asking how it happened. From there, the logical next step is to ask how to keep it from happening again. Formula 1 Can Fix Its Safety Car Problem Today
That solution should be very easy.
Masi decided the outcome of the race, but his decision only mattered because the current procedure is out of balance. As rules are written right now, any late safety car will benefit either the leading or trailing car, and that benefit will always be decided by clean-up time and the race director's discretion. A good rulebook would take that decision out of Masi's hands, a great one would fix the tire problem entirely.
The benefit is straightforward: In Formula 1's current tire-based meta game, a driver in a comparable car outfitted on a fresh set of the softest compound of tire will always beat a driver with old tires on any one or two lap shootout to end a race. If the end of the race is guaranteed to come in a shootout after a restart, the leading driver will always come in to stop for that tire to avoid being passed within the first five or six corners of that lap. If the end of the race is guaranteed to come under the safety car, the leading driver will always stay out to win the race without giving up the lead on track.
So Formula 1 Can Fix Its Safety Car Problem Today
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