They need to ensure that the flag marshalls are doing the same as the light system. Monaco was a good example. I thought Schuey was perfectly entitled to do what he did, especially as it put a cheeky one on Alonso! Can flags be dispensed with in all but the most serious cases as the light system is now used everywhere?
Exactly my thought. Stupid that people complain and say 'so what if it's a green light at the end of the straight' and 'he knew from previous laps' Criteria for discussing penalties at this amount : Did anyone get hurt? Was anyone's race or qualifying compromised? If both are no, no need to make 3 pages worth of comments about it. Hamilton and Perez did the wrong thing and have been penalised fairly in my view.
Heres my attempt to lighten the mood, 2 drivers having a bit of fun [video=youtube;3fVS-FjkCzg]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fVS-FjkCzg[/video]
Hamilton is treated as equal as any other driver on this forum, even though we may have our reservations... if you don't like it... both of you, you know where the address bar is..
Hamilton and Perez fully deserve their penalties by the way. It sounds trivial, especially as it's motorsport, but racing under waved yellows is very serious, if a marshall or driver had been crossing the track we could easily be sitting here discussing yet another tragedy in motorsport, in light of the fortnight we've just endured you have to wonder what the two of them were thinking.
I'll think you will find the reason why people keep bringing up Lewis in general with this duel punishment is because yet again his fans are shouting out foul play for the 15th time this season where as the Perez fans (like myself) have accepted the punishment because it was THE RULES! and he broke them. Gets boring telling them that it's in the rules and it doesn't matter who you are, you follow them regardless. It's like telling a man u fan the reason why Rooney got a red card is because he kicked a guy in the leg, how obvious does it have to be to show them that he has broke the rules, simply as.
Did it not stem from teh confusion that the lights were showing different from the flags the marshalls were waving? My point is, if you have a lights system to shown green, blue, yellow, white etc, do the marhsalls also need to show flags? Arguably the lights are much clearer. Marshalls are clearly needed to deal with events, but from the point of view of warning drivers, the on track lighting system, and the warnings they have in their steering wheels is surely sufficient and should be the marker stone for deciding if a driver has transgressed the rules. I think at Korea there was an example of the marhsalls waving one set of flags, yet the lights were showing different. WOuld have to go back through the whole race to see exactly when that was (could also have been Singapore) Hence I supported Schuey at Monaco when the suggestion was racing was back on to the finish line and I thought he had absolute right to take Alonso, but apparently it wasn't! How was he supposed to know?
Yeah good point actually, it was the confusion with the signals not the frigging decision lol, sorry. Don't know what I am saying anymore hahaha.
Maybe Hamilton gets mentioned as he is a more previlant driver being at the front of the grid more than Perez, so therefore gets more foucs generally? Kind of goes with the territory. I'm sure if, say, Vettel or Alonso had got the penalty as well as Perez, they would have got more attention than Perez.
The green light being shown was telling the driver after that (marshal post) is the sector was clear. Lewis and Perez were still within the yellow flag area when they floored it, putting lives in moderate danger. The fact still stands though, the yellow flags was before the green light, they seemed only focused on seeing green and completely blanked the double waved yellows and orange marshals.
Re: Monaco '10. The track was rated green but I think there's an obscure rule that says you can't overtake if the Safety Car comes in on the last lap. The confusion comes from the stupid "safety car line" rule, why after so many years of grand prix racing they felt the need to invent the line is beyond me. As for flags, I don't see any reason to get rid of them, they do the job perfectly. A marshall sees an accident, he waves a flag. No glitches, no power outages.
Lights can be seen further away than flags and that they can be used in the dark and are LED so uses minimal power. There are so many different ways of being a flag marshal that from lower league to top flight f1 differ slightly, but yet 200-300 marshals can't learn the 101 rules of f1 to suit every situation since they need to react now and not 10-20 seconds later. It doesn't matter who is in charge when there are marshals on track you watch their back double yellows and all until they get back, end of... The green light wasn't positioned correctly if you ask me, that or the yellow flag wasn't closer the the start of the straight.
Okay, first look at practice 1 as been out and about all day. The light was flashign green, but two yellow flags being waved. Which signal is the driver bound by? On a side note, also bear in mind Button overtook the HRT when yellow flags and lights were waved and even though he said it on the radio, the HRT did not 'nearly come to a stop'.
Right! Without looking at it again, Lewis and Perez are bound by the first signal, yellow is by far the more important of casual flags that are used on the weekend. Green is an obvious (sector is clear carry on) but he was using DRS in the waved yellow zone not after the green light. Now I haven't looked at it again but IMO the reason why Jenson got away with his is because: 1: He was going slower than Lewis and Perez. 2: The car he overtook was going even slower. 3: He was entering the green sector when he overtook the HRT. 4: He did the overtake after the crash zone so nobody was in danger.
You CANNOT overtake under yellow flags. CANNOT. That rule is clearly written. Those for and against Lewis will/may argue about whether he was in a yellow/green sector, but the rule about overtaking is clear. How could Jenson know that there was no danger? But, back to my first point, is the driver bound by the flags or the lights? If the lights are merely confirmation of what the flags are saying, then they are bound by the flags. But where there is a contradiction, what does the driver do?
Here seems to suggest that the drivers are bound to the on-board display. Without getting a view of that, you can't tell who was obeying the rules and who wasn't. However, if you can transmit that signal to the cars, surely the trackside lights would work on the same principle?
You'd guess so. As the flags only relate to part of a sector the stewards must have been satisfied that Hamilton had not adjusted his speed at that point, rather than just look at his sector overall. However, the lights on Jenson's car would also have been lit, he would have seen the car ahead slow, so how did he know there was no immediate danger ahead of the car that slowed dramatically? Maybe it had slowed for an obstacle on the track, say another dog? Question for Silver that one. You can't overtake then rely on the Stewards afterwards to say it was okay to overtake as there was no danger, as if there was no danger, why do you need to slow down!?
