SECU Very Much
Just over a week ago Christine pointed out on F1 Minute that revised safety car procedures would be tested out during the French Grand Prix weekend. Details were sketchy at the time, although she did say that it would likely involve the use of the standard ECU.
A regulations revision is needed in order to work around a side effect of rules introduced at the beginning of 2007, which, in an effort to remove the incentive for speeding back to the pits, sees the pitlane closed to anyone wishing to take on fuel. The problem of course is cars already running on fumes have no choice but to stop, and this has already ruined races for Kovalainen and Heidfeld this year.
Practice Makes Perfect
During this week’s Renault podcast, the team’s sporting manager Steve Nielsen divulged a few more details about what might happen next weekend in Magny Cours.
Supposedly the original timetable for the trial saw a test-run planned at Monaco, but that was shelved in order to give teams more time to look at the ECU changes during this week’s test in Barcelona. If all goes well, the suggestion is that in the event of an accident, a warning light will appear on driver’s steering wheels immediately after the safety car is deployed. They then have a maximum of five seconds to acknowledge the warning and after that they must reduce their laptimes in accordance with a readout that’s also displayed on their wheel.
Steve mentioned that two trials will take place in France. The first during the in-lap at the end of Friday Practice 2 and the second time during the in-lap of Saturday Practice 3. The target time drivers must remain within will be calculated during the first practice on Friday.
Nielsen Ratings
No penalties will be issued to drivers failing to keep to the specified time, but what isn’t yet clear is what happens if no cars happen to be out on the track, if for example it’s raining. Presumably the decision to split the trial over two days goes some way to mitigate the chances of that happening.
It’s also worth adding that this information hasn’t been confirmed as yet and Nielsen was quick to point out that plans may have changed, but that was as much as he knew at the time the podcast was recorded.
What’s clear though is that nobody’s going to rush headlong into this. Steve said he felt that if the trial was successful, the appropriate time to introduce the rules would be the beginning of next season, and as unanimity between the teams is required for the system to be implemented, we should expect the current regulations to remain as-is in the short term.
Confusions
If you ask me, the proposals sound more than a little convoluted. Not only for the drivers and the teams, but also for anyone trying to follow the action at the track or at home. How in the world we’re supposed to figure out who has acknowledged the warning or who’s not managed to keep within the limits is anyone’s guess.
One also wonders, if everyone is spending so much time looking down at their steering wheel rather than looking where they’re going, isn’t that more dangerous than speeding through the scene of an accident in any case?
June 13th, 2008 at 10:58 amMattw said:
So if this is introduced for real - What will be the penalty if you don’t acknowledge the warning within 5 seconds?
Also, how many teams will fit a count down timer, so the driver can acknowledge right at the last minute, thus gaining a couple of seconds?
June 13th, 2008 at 11:10 amme said:
not sure, no-one’s saying yet.
all of ‘em if they have any sense. i do have to question, if this is such a great system… why have a safety car at all?
June 13th, 2008 at 11:23 amSteven Roy said:
Even by Max’s standards this is beyond stupid. What does laptime have to do with anything? What matters is the speed through the scene of the accident.
Example
The driver has a spin or a minor incident delaying him in sector one by 10 seconds. By the new rule it is decided that the drivers must do a lap time equivalent to our man’s normal laptime plus ten seconds. If the accident that triggered the SC is in sector three our man can now go through there full speed and still comply with the laptime.
Example two
If we have an accident which cause traffic to be backed up and delayed for 30 seconds so that it is impossible for them to complete a lap inside the bogey time we are going to have drivers going through the scene of the accident picking up carbon fibre on their tyres and effectively being forced to race to the pits. Assuming the full course yellow still applies if one driver is following another and the first driver decides to floor the throttle and go for it the second guy has to as well or risk losing a lot of time.
I am literally coming up with these immediately on reading the story and every time Max comes up with a new rule I do the same as do many, many others. There must be someone close to Max who has enough imagination to see the problems.
If I was in his place I would be running computer simulations of all the possibilities but I guess that requires too much effort.
June 13th, 2008 at 11:28 amme said:
it’s worth listening to the tone of the podcast. mild scepticism is how i’d describe it.
you raise some good points there, and i’d also add, what happens if it’s dry during FP1 so the target lap time is quick, but wet during FP2 when they test it? presumably they’d have no chance of hitting the target, so it’s a free-4-all to the line.
nope. that requires computers.
June 13th, 2008 at 2:55 pmIan Lockwood said:
So under this proposal, within 5 seconds after SC deployment, all cars have to adhere to the timed lap(S)?? As I understand it then, we won’t have the bunching up of a train of cars behind the saftey car as we are used to?
Does seem to be asking a lot of the drivers to automatically be able to drive a lap to a specific time.
I remember driving some petrol karts at a track at Butlins in Minehead once. If someone spun there, the marshals had the ability to flick a switch which automatically controlled the speed of all other cars. If Butlins can do it, surely F1 could devise something similar??
June 13th, 2008 at 3:01 pmme said:
i imagine the plan is to run all the way around to the start / finish straight, and then pick up the safety car there, at which point they all go at SC speed.
they used to do it quite well for the
fuel burntrack sighting phase of Q3 last year. so maybe it’ll be okay.because someone will hack it, or someone will think someone hacked it, or someone will think… actually who am i kidding, no-one’s thinking are they?
June 13th, 2008 at 3:05 pmIan Lockwood said:
Good point - first time a Mclaren loses a second a lap to a Ferrari, the FIA/Ferrari conspiracy theorists (of which I confess to being an occasional member) would be up in arms.
June 13th, 2008 at 4:36 pmSteven Roy said:
Imagine if Max had access to the SECU at Brazil last year when Lewis ran into his technical problem which caused him to sit in the middle of the track going nowhere. Bear in mind this came after the equality steward fiasco and was followed by the fuel temperature fiasco. It just might have looked like manipulation.
June 13th, 2008 at 7:06 pmChristine said:
By the way, did you make that picture half black and white, and half not? Cos that’s kinda groovy!
June 13th, 2008 at 7:12 pmme said:
erm, yeah. press shots get sooo boring don’t they?
just cars, and people and then some more cars. did i mention the cars?
nothing inventive from anyone in the press offices, and the shots from professionals like xpb.cc are damned expensive.
plus y’know, i have a short attention span…