Formula 1 2021

[PaulRhB]

1 minute ago, Andrew P said:

In fairness to the Drivers and Teams, I don't remember Track Limits being such a big issue in Charlie Whittings days, may be I'm wrong, I won't be offended.

No, spot on Andy and DC hit on that point too. 

[Andrew P]

I called Max's Track Limit when it happened, such a shame for him again.

[Andrew P]

Once again, I feel Russell must be feeling the pain of a slow Williams today, after a great Quali on Saturday. 

[Pete the Elaner]

4 minutes ago, Andrew P said:

In fairness to the Drivers and Teams, I don't remember Track Limits being such a big issue in Charlie Whittings days, may be I'm wrong, I won't be offended.

 

Track limits were just ignored with the argument of 'just let them race'. I never agreed with this & don't know why it was spinelessly accepted in Charlie Whiting's days. It was just as wrong then as it is now.

Sorry if I seem a bit anal about it, but I used to be a snooker referee & many years before that, a football referee, so I am a strong believer that if there are limits or rules, they should be enforced rigidly or else you will allow others to see how much they can get away with. If you let someone get away with an infringement, it opens the door for others. If you deal with the first one, it stops others following. If you don't enforce things, this cheats the non-offender.

I have also been a speedway fan for as long as I can remember. If a rider puts both wheels over the inside white line, he gets excluded & there is never an argument of 'but he didn't gain an advantage'. If the argument of 'he was pushed there' is raised, the response is 'well he should have shut off then'.

I have been told speedway is different to F1. Both involve people with fast machines trying to beat each other, going for half-gaps in the hope they work out. Where is the difference?

[newbryford]

21 minutes ago, Andrew P said:

In fairness to the Drivers and Teams, I don't remember Track Limits being such a big issue in Charlie Whittings days, may be I'm wrong, I won't be offended.

 

Maybe in the past, if you ignored track limits. you were in the gravel/on the grass?

Whereas nowadays, we have big smooth run off areas and astroturf before the gravel.

 

Although you never see any advantage in exceeding track limits at Monaco.............................. 

[PaulRhB]

5 minutes ago, Pete the Elaner said:

If you let someone get away with an infringement, it opens the door for others.

That’s it though it’s being inconsistently applied, if it was the same for all like in Charlie’s time that’s fine but now it seems the stewards go with personal opinion rather than a set rule so as they change so do the rules. It’s been complicated by making tracks safe for cars, not launching them clear over the top of the gravel, plus bikes at some circuits so big curbs that damage the car are rarer. 

[Pete the Elaner]

2 minutes ago, newbryford said:

 

Maybe in the past, if you ignored track limits. you were in the gravel/on the grass?

Whereas nowadays, we have big smooth run off areas and astroturf before the gravel.

 

Although you never see any advantage in exceeding track limits at Monaco.............................. 

 

So what happens if you ignore track limits at Monaco? You get a crash then a safety car. The leader's 20 second advantage gets wiped out. But the point is that drivers manage to stay within the limits.

So instead of barriers, gravel trap run-offs. The car gets stranded, a safety car & the leader's hard-earned 20 second advantage gets wiped out.

Grass run-offs? The car spins & quite often, a safety car. The leader's advantage gets ripped off them again.

[PaulRhB]

Maybe technology could be used where if you pass over a wire defining the edge it cuts power by for example 50% for 5 seconds or so making it an automatic instant time penalty. Bit like going on the grass or gravel slows you down but without risking beaching and subsequent safety cars?

[Pete the Elaner]

4 minutes ago, PaulRhB said:

That’s it though it’s being inconsistently applied, if it was the same for all like in Charlie’s time that’s fine but now it seems the stewards go with personal opinion rather than a set rule so as they change so do the rules. It’s been complicated by making tracks safe for cars, not launching them clear over the top of the gravel, plus bikes at some circuits so big curbs that damage the car are rarer. 

 

Yup.

As a referee (when I did snooker I was often a tournament director), I was lenient...too lenient.

Then when a couple of players took the p***, where do you draw the line? There comes a time when you have to do something & you realise that the fairest way is to enforce things strictly. With track limits, you can do this. You either define the limit as the white line or the kerbs. Both are clearly defined.

[newbryford]

1 minute ago, Pete the Elaner said:

 

Yup.

As a referee (when I did snooker I was often a tournament director), I was lenient...too lenient.

Then when a couple of players took the p***, where do you draw the line? There comes a time when you have to do something & you realise that the fairest way is to enforce things strictly. With track limits, you can do this. You either define the limit as the white line or the kerbs. Both are clearly defined.

 

So what we're seeing now is the clampdown on drivers that have been trying it on for the past few seasons?

 

As Paul says, kerbs were larger and offered more resistance to cars - hence a penalty for misuse. Apart from the reduction of obstacle size, is it also down to the improved technology of the cars that can cope with the extra demands of a kerb, thus less of a penalty for using them, compared to previous times?

 

Rules enforcement have also changed for many sports with the implementation of technology. VAR in football, TMO in rugby, Hawkeye in cricket and tennis.

Extra cameras in F1 - look at what happened to LH in Austria last year when it was shown that he didn't lift when VB left the track in quali. That footage from his own onboard cam only emerged the morning before race start and he was handed a grid penalty.

 

Technology changes, rules (and enforcement) change.

 

Life moves on.

 

[RJS1977]

Some years ago I was occasionally called on to umpire in Civil Service Cup cricket matches (great, as it counted as an afternoon's work!).

 

In one match, I called a no-ball on one of 'our' bowlers (a fairly senior manager) for the rare infringement of having part of his back foot outside the return crease. He wasn't happy about it, and told me I should have warned him rather than calling it as a no ball.

 

Next match, as he came on to bowl, he reminded me to warn him if he overstepped the return crease. A couple of deliveries later, he overstepped, and I no-balled him again.

 

I couldn't have done otherwise. Quite apart from the fact that the Laws contain no option for warning bowlers for such an infringement, in the interests of fairness, had I warned him, I would also have had to warn the opposing team's bowlers if they did the same thing.  But if one of those deliveries had resulted in a wicket, then what? I would have been faced with a choice between giving a batsman out off an illegal delivery, or potentially warning one bowler and penalising another. No, the only fair and consistent course of action was to apply the Laws as written.

Edited May 2, 2021 by RJS1977

[mozzer models]

one way to stop track limits would be if any wheel go's outside of the line its a drive throw the pits 

this would stop it over night as it would cost to much time 

 

[Pete the Elaner]

12 minutes ago, mozzer models said:

one way to stop track limits would be if any wheel go's outside of the line its a drive throw the pits 

this would stop it over night as it would cost to much time 

 

 

Absolutely.

Define a limit with a clearly defined penalty & everyone would conform instantly.

It really isn't that hard.

[black and decker boy]

Watching the early phase what caught my eye was the difference in lines between VB & LH. VB was mostly on the kerb & quite wide, LH was typically much tighter and mostly still  on the tarmac.

 

The ex-driver commentators have regularly made the point that drivers can keep the car within whatever line is legal, each take the same time penalty from a tighter line so long as it’s enforced consistently. 
 

I have no issue with enforcing a line so long as it’s done to all.

[Pete the Elaner]

1 hour ago, Andrew P said:

I called Max's Track Limit when it happened, such a shame for him again.

Why?

If he went wide, he got penalised. Seems fair enough to me.

[ejstubbs]

14 hours ago, PaulRhB said:

Maybe technology could be used where if you pass over a wire defining the edge it cuts power by for example 50% for 5 seconds or so making it an automatic instant time penalty. Bit like going on the grass or gravel slows you down but without risking beaching and subsequent safety cars?

 

Given that the overwhelming majority of excursions outside track limits occur on corners, suddenly cutting the power would create a serious risk of upsetting the balance of the car causing a loss of control.  I can't see that being too popular with the drivers.  At least you can see and feel a kerb or a gravel trap so you have some warning (and a gravel trap is at least supposed to catch an out-of-control car).  Reductio ad absurdum you might as well make every circuit like Monaco, with a wall all the way round the track so "exceeding track limits" means you end up with a bent car (and driver, if you're unlucky).

 

Automatic time penalty...hmm, mayyybe.  But what would you do if when such an automated system went wrong, and started penalising drivers when there hadn't actually been an infraction?

 

I think the comments about modern video technology allowing rule breaches to be more consistently detected and penalised are very valid, and IMO that eliminates any need for automated systems.  The examples offered from other sports, such as VAR, aren't automated: they assist human arbiters but don't make decisions of themselves*.  That's basically what's happening now in F1 with modern video technology, and in my view that approach seems to work adequately well now that drivers seem increasingly to understand and accept that they aren't going to be granted the leniency they had previously been used to.

 

* You could argue that Hawk-Eye® does in cricket, but even that has to be triggered by a human process: an appeal from the fielding side, the initial decision from the umpire, and the batsman then opting to have that decision reviewed.  You aren't automatically given out by the machine.  I'm not quite sure whether the same is true in tennis for line calls.

Edited May 3, 2021 by ejstubbs

[Oldddudders]

14 hours ago, Pete the Elaner said:

 

So what happens if you ignore track limits at Monaco? You get a crash then a safety car. The leader's 20 second advantage gets wiped out. But the point is that drivers manage to stay within the limits.

So instead of barriers, gravel trap run-offs. The car gets stranded, a safety car & the leader's hard-earned 20 second advantage gets wiped out.

Grass run-offs? The car spins & quite often, a safety car. The leader's advantage gets ripped off them again.

I think the real point of the present run-off areas being so benign is that F1 has long since ceased to be a sport, but is now a spectacle and a business, and F1 management want all 20 cars to run the full length of the race. It's called value for money. Cars that dump in the gravel, needing to be hauled out, cause extended neutralisation of the race - just as Kimi did yesterday. The white-line penalty tries to be fair to all, but not banjax the spectacle.

 

It is chilling that Max really didn't know that Turn 14 had been added to the proscribed list - or so he says.  

[Jol Wilkinson]

The point was made on the C4 broadcast that many tracks run F1 and MotoGP events. The run off areas and kerbs are compromised to suit the two wheeled racers which means that F1 cars can run over the kerbs with little problem and only suffer if they get into the gravel.  Hence therefore the increasing policing of track limits as there is otherwise no real penalty for going beyond them.

[Andrew P]

Would a temporary wall work any better?

 

What I'm thinking is a 5mm Dia hole in the rumble strip about 2 meter apart, so that plastic poles could drop in and stand about half a meter high, so the crowd could still see the cars. A Plastic sheet / wall could be slid over the poles to act as the temporary wall, hit it and your out, unless your pushed in to it. 

[EddieB]

13 hours ago, black and decker boy said:

Watching the early phase what caught my eye was the difference in lines between VB & LH. VB was mostly on the kerb & quite wide, LH was typically much tighter and mostly still  on the tarmac.

 

The ex-driver commentators have regularly made the point that drivers can keep the car within whatever line is legal, each take the same time penalty from a tighter line so long as it’s enforced consistently. 
 

I have no issue with enforcing a line so long as it’s done to all.

Absolutely.

 

Whatever the rules, they should be applied fairly and consistently.

 

1. "Normal racing".  If a driver goes beyond track limits, they should first be given a warning (after three offences?), followed by a black & white flag ("unsportsmanlike behaviour"), followed by a time penalty -  as such yesterday Tsunoda found himself getting the warnings at turn 1 and took remedial action

 

2. Overtakes.  Less tolerance than "normal racing" - a driver who exceeds track limits in making a pass  (or to gain an advantage) should be required to give up the place or relinquish the advantage.  However there is a place for adjudication by the stewards if the driver has been "pushed off" by the actions of another driver.  Likewise allowance for any driver who leaves the track to avoid a collision or a previous accident.

 

3. Fastest Lap.  The same conditions apply as in qualifying - deletion of fastest lap time where a driver has exceeded track limits.

 

As far as I can tell, those are the rules.  The problems seem to arise where they are not enforced consistently or sometimes not at all - drivers or turns on a circuit.  It shouldn't be difficult to measure and keep a tally of violations against each driver.

[Hobby]

17 hours ago, PaulRhB said:

But equally if all cars can go wide there is no advantage to anyone. I guess it’s enforced where it’s seen as shortening the track?

 

Shortening the lap time rather than the track I think? 

[RJS1977]

Just now, Hobby said:

 

Shortening the lap time rather than the track I think? 

 

Yes, sometimes running wide can allow a driver to take a corner faster, and the time saved in doing so can be more than the time lost in going 'the long way round'.

[PaulRhB]

14 hours ago, mozzer models said:

one way to stop track limits would be if any wheel go's outside of the line its a drive throw the pits 

this would stop it over night as it would cost to much time 

 

Two things with that, as we’ve seen from slightly higher than drivers view onboard camera it’s actually very difficult to tell when the wheel is actually on the line due to them blocking the view. A wall is taller and easier to reference. 
Second throwing a lot of extra traffic into the pitlane makes an accident more likely with genuinely pitting cars and their crew so it’s a bit of a double edged sword even with a speed limit. 
 

1 hour ago, ejstubbs said:

Given that the overwhelming majority of excursions outside track limits occur on corners, suddenly cutting the power would create a serious risk of upsetting the balance of the car causing a loss of control.

Yes but I’m sure the experts could solve that with the technology whereby they cut it at a specified time, say 5 secs later and the driver has a 5 sec warning light on the wheel and even a light on at the rear to warn drivers behind? Give them time to react and get out of the way if in traffic, even have a snooze button that delays it another ten secs so they can get out of a dangerous situation. 

[Pete the Elaner]

18 minutes ago, PaulRhB said:

Two things with that, as we’ve seen from slightly higher than drivers view onboard camera it’s actually very difficult to tell when the wheel is actually on the line due to them blocking the view. A wall is taller and easier to reference. 
Second throwing a lot of extra traffic into the pitlane makes an accident more likely with genuinely pitting cars and their crew so it’s a bit of a double edged sword even with a speed limit. 
 

Yes but I’m sure the experts could solve that with the technology whereby they cut it at a specified time, say 5 secs later and the driver has a 5 sec warning light on the wheel and even a light on at the rear to warn drivers behind? Give them time to react and get out of the way if in traffic, even have a snooze button that delays it another ten secs so they can get out of a dangerous situation. 

 

Not the pit lane. An extra chicane which must be taken within 2 laps & a warning light on the steering wheel to indicate that it must be taken.

Using Portimao as an example, there are several areas which can be used for this, none of which have much effect the flow of the circuit.

A chicane between turns 1 & 2

2 alternative routes at turn 3; an inside & an outside. F1 used the outside of these yesterday, which as well as being further, is a lot tighter therefore slower. This looks the best one to use as a penalty detour.

There is a short cut to turn 13.

There is also a short cut to turn 15, but I don't think this would be of any use.

 

I like the idea of also having a rear light so drivers behind can see that the car in front will be taking a different line to take the penalty (& they don't need to fight it for position). I had not thought of that.

[rocor]

1 hour ago, EddieB said:

 

2. Overtakes.  Less tolerance than "normal racing" - a driver who exceeds track limits in making a pass  (or to gain an advantage) should be required to give up the place or relinquish the advantage.  However there is a place for adjudication by the stewards if the driver has been "pushed off" by the actions of another driver.  Likewise allowance for any driver who leaves the track to avoid a collision or a previous accident.

 

 

This is the most contentious of the track limit rules. A driver being pushed wide while attempting a pass around the outside on a corner. Is the driver being overtaken just following their "racing line"?, or are they ensuring that the driver overtaking will need to exceed track limits in order to avoid a collision?.