After reading some of the comments on the "Grand Prix The Killer Years" thread it got me thinking about safety and the modern day race track. The tendency today is to replace gravel traps with run of area's in the name of safety, but doing this means there is very little punishment for a driver making a mistake, he can take more risks and simply lose a place or two, whereas with a gravel trap he would run the risk of either being out of the race altogether or losing a bunch load of time. In golf a bunker is put there as a hazard a punishment for making a mistake. In a way it could be seen that having run off areas could be detrimental to safety as a driver could make an ill informed overtake in the belief that he is safe and cause a massive accident. Also run off areas are partly to blame for controversial stewards enquires on drivers getting an advantage by cutting the track. Do I have a point here or am I talking out of the lower end of my anatomy?
It would only be workable on a limited number of corners but they could put lines down to mark where a car can't rejoin a circuit, forcing cars to take a longer, and therefore slower route back to the track if they go off.
Couldn't drivers be penalised electronically? Why not make the white lines marking the edge of the track define the boundaries within which they can travel above a certain speed, say 15mph? When the driver runs wide of the lines, the engine cuts to limit revs, so the driver can only use the pace he went off with, and the 15mph to recover to the track? Personally, I don't see it as a massive extension of the current DRS activation technology, and something which would be possible if thought was given to it. Or do you not feel this is penalty enough? Personally I do find it disappointing when drivers aren't penalised, we shouldn't be having record numbers of drivers finishing nearly every race. Whilst safety is paramount, there has to be a incentive for the drivers to stay on the track. Admittedly the solution i'm proposing is rather artificial, which I don't like, it would work. I won't bore you with science, but I wonder whether a type of tarmac could be developed which offers grip in only one direction? That way the driver would have the grip to slow down, but then have to crawl out of the "tarmac trap" due to the poor grip? If the surface was composed of grains of grit which were rough on one side, offering grip, but smooth on the other, spinning the wheels, then maybe this would work?
Those are some brilliant ideas DHCanary and well within todays technology I especially like the virtual gravel trap idea, safe and a deterrent, much better than the stacks of tyres they put on the chicanes at Monza in 1996
The only problem in cutting the cars power is that it may make it harder to regain control after a off, and avoid any barriers. stopping a car from accelerating would slow cars going off down, and should help keep them in the race, tis a good idea
Run off area just makes the track look like one big car park and aesthetically it comes across as stale and soulless on tv. There is too many of them. They don't punish the drivers enough which is a case for all the new tracks. Safety conscious freaks that design these tracks should step down. We have tracks like Spa this weekend, Canada, Melbourne and even Monza where if you go off you'll be punished. No safety issues. Just hard and fair. Why can't the designers notice it rather than give us samey boring regurgitated ****e in the form of these new tracks?
You very much have a point Mephisto. I always find myself straddling a rather uncomfortable fence on this issue: as a racer I want tarmac for myself and gravel for everyone else. But I want the best possible safety for us all! So we need to find a compromise but I accept that it does quite rightly err on the side of safety these days, even if it allows some less sporting types to exploit weaknesses in stewarding. Ultimately it is the stewards who should come down hard on transgressions which overstep the mark, but it has to be said that even at the top level, they have historically got it wrong. That said, now that we have a professional driver advising and leading the stewards, things have become less partisan than they once were - when alliances and persuasions of one sort or another tended to give favourable decisions in the direction of a certain red team, particularly when a certain driver was performing!
A combination of gravel and tarmac could work in certain corners. In areas where cars would typically leave the track on entering a corner, surface it with tarmac... the rest of it, leave it gravel making rejoining not so straightforward.
I want gravel traps back - tarmac is the worst thing because they can just drive back on or run wide - little penalty. Gravel traps however are much better because they penalise drivers for mistakes!!! It makes it much more excitable and it also takes more skill to keep a car moving in the gravel. The FIA want to increase excite but instead of adding all these 'gizmos' such as KERS and DRS thy need to reinstate gravel traps. The safety argument doesn't wash at all - the cars are so strong with high sides and roll structures that no driver is going to get hurt if they roll! Look at Webbers 'flying lesson' in Valencia '10, he landed upside down and didn't get hurt! Gravel slows the cars down faster as well so it could be argued that they ARE SAFER than tarmac. Anyways the FIA has got it all the wrong way round and they need to sort it before F1 becomes too clinical and safe!
Monza is one of the tracks that really annoys me when it comes to run-off areas. Last year, when Webber was trying to overtake Hulkenberg at the chicanes, Hulkenberg was able to cut across the chicanes and didn't get any sort of penalty and had got no disavantage, but I reckon regardless to whether there was any run-off at Ascari (which there isn't) or not, I don't think he'd have gained an advantage, which makes me think they've got gravel traps in the wrong areas at Monza. I'm liking some of the ideas being put on here like electronic limiting or just gravel and virtually no run-off.
yeah the rivage hairpin has had its gravel tap replaced by a run off area which i think is a really bad idea that corner is meant to challenge drivers and i think its the toughest part of the spa circuit racing there on f1 2010 of course
I think its obvious that the modern day driver will exploit every opportunity to get an advanatge, and in some case running wide or not making a corner does gain an advantage. With Spa this weekend La Source has always been a corner of debate at the start of the race! The run off areas ultimatley benefit the more aggressive of drivers who will risk outbraking themselves in trying to make a corner stick on the basis that he can just rejoin the track in the same position and sometimes get a better run - Kimi springs to mind! Again, Spa was probably central to one of the most debatable advantages/disadvanatges of a failed overtake! The Bus Stop Chicane (LH/KR) when LH outbraked himself and then carried on with an element of momentum making the move stick into La Source! Not here to debate the penalty, but if LH couldnt have tiptoed across the rumble strips he wouldn't have made the next pass! In addition, if there was a gravel trap or barrier there he might not have even have tried to pull the move off! I've often wondered that inkeeping with saftey, an electronical engine cut off (5 Seconds?) when all 4 wheels go outside of the white lines dictating the racing track or a felexible bollard system that would fold under force and absorb the momentum of the car, but be strong enough to damage a front wing or underfloor areo. This would give the affect and damage as armco but allow the car to continue back to the pits for repair.
"…Not here to debate the Hamilton penalty"; but you have brought it up Smithers! Surely it's best not to mention things if you want to avoid debating them? However, I'll not take the bait more than to say I disagree with your conclusion! Run-off areas are bound to reduce the consequences of misjudgement, but one of the most outstanding abuses of run-off occurred in that same race with Raikkonen running off in the wet at Blanchimont and gaining time due to the extra traction afforded by the high friction surface, which offered far more grip.
Thinking about this a bit more during the day (and restricting myself to modern technology), maybe alternating stripes of gravel and tarmac around the track would work? Immediately off the track, a strip of gravel could potentially cause a spin, or at least cost time. 3 metres off the track, the surface could change to tarmac, allowing a driver the opportunity to control any spin, or at least slow down consistently, and then maybe more gravel at the extremities of the circuit, so drivers who don't recover the car quickly enough in the tarmac section are penalised further? Whilst a potential solution, it would take a lot of space, so might only be possible on new tracks. The other issue is that the extra run-off pushes fans further from the track, which is not ideal. With the amount of money in F1 though, it wouldn't surprise me if the stands could be raised off ground level, allow the outer run-off area to be underneath the stand, bringing the fans closer. Whilst I'm not sure if the fire risk would be too great if a car on fire went under the stand, with modern fire ******ant building materials and quick-witted marshals, I wouldn't think it would be a problem - doesn't Singapore have a section of track running under a stand?
Canary: are you aware of the solution at Paul-Ricard in the south of France? - They use alternating strips of high and low friction surfaces which don't do the tyres any good, thus punishing the drivers; whilst at the same time increasing safety.
Unfortunately that does not include Spa anymore, watching FP1 this subject was the theme for that program (am I psychic or what) as they have removed the gravel traps and put in run off areas the trap that Hamilton went through last year which could have cost him the race,,, gone it is now run off. jesus
I was just using the example and yes I agree that Kimi gained advanatge, as he did at the start when he ran wide and out dragged a competitor down to Eau Rouge in I think 2009! Not sure what your point was but I used examples of 2 drivers at the same race track where 1 got a penalty and 1 didnt yet both left the race track and had there been a gravel trap or armco would not have continued! If anything I was highlighting the opposite of your insinuation unless I have totally missed your point?
My apologies Smithers: perhaps I missed at least part of your point!?! I admit to not reading it very thoroughly and focussing on the Hamilton incident, where I felt that he had complied with the rules after running off, and that the subsequent penalty was unjust. However, I was also trying to avoid going down this avenue of discussion, because it has been spoken of so much! No offence intended and I apologise for not taking in everything you were saying properly. My fault…
I wasn't, and that does sound like an excellent solution. Thanks for informing me, it'd certainly be a lot easier to implement than anything I've suggested! However, maybe in places which don't have extensive land for run-offs, such as most older existing tracks, maybe water would work? If a small amount of water was present in a shallow recess, rather than a gravel trap, the driver would lose tyre temperature running through it, and with grippy tarmac underneath shouldn't (hopefully) spin. Although I agree the Paul Ricard solution seems a good one.
