Today, and once again we have been detracted from another race start and 5 laps under wet conditions. By the time, the SC has entered pits some cars have stopped for intermediate tires. I wonder why do they bring full wet tires. Only for driving behind the SC. RIDICULOUS. Several laps before, both the first and the last driver of the grid were reporting perfect conditions for racing. As said, it is not the first time this happens in the last years and it willbe like that meanwhile the decision of deploying the SC is taken by Charlie Whiting. So if you think that he should resign feel free to post and to sign this petition. https://www.change.org/p/fia-fom-di...ish&utm_term=mob-xs-share_petition-reason_msg Enviado desde mi ONE A2001 mediante Tapatalk
And give Bernie even more power? No thanks! BTW, this should probably be in the off-topic forum under the F1 thread.
Resign? That sure escalated quickly. There's a reason why they start behind the SC when there's standing water on the track. This is what it looked like last time they attempted a normal start in such conditions: The purist arguments don't really hold up when you look objectively at what's at stake. Blind luck that everyone walked away from that one, marshals and spectators included.
It really doesn't matter if 95% if the track is ready to race, as long as the 5% is not. We saw a few aqua planings even longer in to the race, so as much as we all just want the racing to get on, there ARE safety to take into account.
Hello And we all know drivers want to race and will risk it all to do so. And also they are not seeing the whole track and are not taking everything in to account. It is one thing to put your self at risk but not others. And whiting takes everyone in to consideration. That is his job and he is doing a good job. What would you say or do if he did listen to that driver and said go race and they ended up crashing and getting hurt or worse ? Ruben
I agree with Spaskis, what's the point in wet weather tyres if they don't race on them? These drivers have worked their way up from karting, through various motorsport classes, driven in all weather conditions, and then when they reach F1 they are wrapped in cotton wool and do not get to demonstrate their full skills. It's a joke when the SC is brought in just as everyone is thinking of changing to inter or even slicks. If there are still random pools of water that are too bad to drive on then the track drainage needs to be sorted at those places. The start of the race, under SC, is ruined. Just my opinion.
Meh, the race was still enjoyable and there have been a LOT of spins and errors induced by wet and pools, one of the problems is that setups can't be changed if saturday is dry then sunday rains, cars can easily get undrivable if there is too much still water on the track. In the "good old days" they could change the setup on the grid.
Technicaly speaking this was not at the start of the race but after the first corner. Throughout the race such accidents can happen aswell when cars are driving in a pack. Such mass accidents even happened in dry conditions. Tbh, I find it much more dangerous when cars get on the S/F line on behind one another at full speed with basicly no visibility than with a standing start. In case someone spins at the exit towards the S/F line there is high protential for a real carnage in such conditions. I wouldn't got as far as resigning Chalie Whiting from his duties, but the rules and execution of them recently have been a farce and to some extend fraud perpetrated on the customer. It's not just the F1 race. The Porsche cup started behind the SC aswell. In this case I wonder wether they should think about some of the generals rules twice and avoid racing open air completely. Why do they even produce rain tyres for millions of bucks per year?
Well, if a car up front fails the standing start, it will be near impossible to spot through the spray by those coming from the rear of the grid = potential catastrophy!
Here's the actual tyre range (Ultra soft excluded though) As the awesome Martin Brundle says: the throttle goes both ways.
The safety car usage at the last race seems to be the least of F1"s problems. How can such awesome cars produce such lifeless racing? There are usually a few highlights here and there but most of each race is sterile at best. Sent from my LGLS990 using Tapatalk 2
After like 2 laps behind the SC people were already ready for inter tires, no reason to keep it that long. This is getting ridiculous
Exactly, and that's why wet standing starts just don't happen anymore. We had that exact situation at Spa back then, where everything blew up as soon as the cars were up to speed, wheels nearly went into the crowd, etc. Of course F1 needs some risk factor, but unnecessarily stupid risks should be avoided as much as possible. Having cars side by side, drivers completely blinded by spray, with standing water on the track is an unnecessarily stupid risk to take. In all likelihood, in the case of a huge pile-up, every driver will walk away, probably unscathed too. Spectators and marshals, maybe not so much.
A time ago, wet track would be a lot of certainty of a good race, nowadays it's a sure of dozens of laps with SC until track get dry, sad F1 times. Yes, I'm for his resigning. If you think standing race start is dangerous, it's ok to have one lap of SC and please get it out.
Half the track was still soaked when the race went green, because only half the track was hit by the shower pre race. The wet parts didn't dry up during those 5 SC laps. Drivers were skidding off the track left, right and center during much of the race, there was action pretty much everywhere you looked. So yeah, a few laps behind the SC to avoid serious pile-ups, I'm all for it. It doesn't rob the fans of anything, other than potentially losing a big part of the field, and the likelihood of injuries/fatalities. I guess this year's Le Mans race director should step down too, then? He effectively turned the 24H into a 23 hour race, and actually waited to wave the green until the track was mostly bone dry.
I would like to recall that this guy didn't deploy the SC under much worse conditions than what we saw yesterday and where there was a tow truck in the gravel escapatory, which costed a life. He clearly cannot determine the real risk of a given situation. Last week, nothing was done when 5 cars broke their suspension due to the pianos. Something could have ocurred but luckiky it didn't happen in race or who knows what could have happened. This man's times are clearly passed. He should leave. Enviado desde mi ONE A2001 mediante Tapatalk
Not know about him resining, but SC was a wrong call imo. One or two laps maybe, but I was really pissed to see it for 6 laps. It wasn't even raining when they started behind SC. Wets are totally useless atm, what a joke. If it's wet then drivers should just adapt. Accidents and spins are part of wet race, let them happen, nothing wrong in that. They should slow down enough when it's really wet, not stop racing completely. I really don't understand those people at all who can defend what happened in this race. Suzuka was totally different, also SPA. No need to compare to this one.
Rubbish radio rules, unnecessary starts behind SC (as was said during race broadcast, Silverstone 2008 for example was way worse, and they raced), Suzuka 2014, and more poor decisions : Whiting should definitely retire. In fact, he shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a racetrack or be able to make a simple decision, as useless as he is. Suzuka 2014, they didn't want to send a Safety Car because darkness was coming, and if there was a Safety Car, they couldn't go the distance (hence the changes of start times the following year). So they thought it was a good idea to send a crane in a well known dangerous corner. Then they blamed Jules Bianchi for not slowing down under yellow flags. Austria 2016, qualifying session. Under double yellow flags, Hulkenberg lifted for something like 2 tenths, losing 4 kph, and it was deemed enough slowing down. Pathetic. They want to install the stupid halo thing, but teams aren't allowed to tell drivers the brakes are dying. If Perez was injured or killed at Spielberg because of stupid radio rules, what would have happened ? FIA would have said teams agreed on this rule, so it's their fault ? He has to retire, and he has to do it NOW, before he kills someone else.