At the end driver of green car lost the position and more than one due to little mistake that grew into big mistake. Better driver could have easily left one car width space on the side, or perhaps even more to avoid collision. Unless it was totally oversteering, overturning with no chance to avoid crossing the path of an opponent. But this time it was understeering, and nobody understeers into a turn, only out of it. Inside car was already backing off because it was on the verge as much as possible. If you'd slow down dramatically in such case and allow driver in front to regain complete control before getting near then you are in a track day/practice, not in a race.
The trouble with these kinds of videos, one party always wants affirmation that what happened was not their fault. This could go on for weeks, best to just chock this up to a Racing Incident and move on to your next event.
In very competitive racing good drivers are capable to stay away inches away from big collisions without giving up their current speed and lines. So what if grey car did lift a bit, and overlapping was less, then green car would have been pit manouvering itself even harder. If I was grey car driver, I would not expect understeering car to abruptly zig zag into me, especially when it is faster for it not to do so. You guys are asking grey car driver to literally foresee future, a most unexpected thing happening. Next thing would be avoiding racing side by side completely, because you never know when a side car will accidently swerve into you, just because it may need wider entry. Moment before impact grey car had half of the car overlapping, that fully grants right for the chosen path. Even though it is irrelevant, because at that point it was effectively on the outside, because right turn already begun. And green car ideally would have been a meter or two to the right side if its interest was to keep as much momentum as possible, instead of blocking a path of its rival. Pointless move unless it was last lap, and it was extremely important to win that place.
The white/grey car can see the green car, and can see it's out wide, sliding, and coming back. "If gap, car" isn't a great response to that situation. The white car has more awareness of the situation, and that's why - despite overall it's really a racing incident, unless it's a league/series situation with rules covering that sort of scenario - I consider the white car was more responsible for the actual contact. They had the information and control to allow avoidance. The green car less so.
I think it's useful to discuss these kind of sensible situations because sometimes it's hard to say what's the best thing to do if I was involved in a similar situation. It's easy to say what should have been done after the facts but stop the video just before the white/red car tries to overtake and pretend you've not seen the rest of the video. If the red/white car didn't try to overtake, the green car could have spun and cut its way provoking a crash anyway . If the red/white car would have slowed down significantly in advance to avoid such possible crash then another car from behind could have been involved in a bigger crash. When a car is driving without control, you could do whatever you want and still would not prevent a crash. I wouldn't say the red/white car did anything wrong by overtaking with such a big gap and following a predictable line when the other car had already lost the turn. In the other hand, it's pretty clear the green car was trying to keep its position, not slowing down after understeering, trying to speed up instead and returning to its line by going side to side in a dangerous move. Why should the red/white car be more careful than it already was and the green car should be forgiven of driving carelessly when doing a mistake in a turn?
Watch the first 6 seconds of the video. Even without seeing the previous corner (which the actual white car driver did, but you don't see that until later shots in the video) you can see the green car out wide, smoke coming off the tyres, and start to swing back in. Now maybe you won't get a penalty for going for that gap (I did say that, right? Several times? We're not hanging the white driver here) but that right there is an "uh oh" moment, because that car might be about to get a lot closer. By seconds elapsed = 7 it's halved the distance. Collision imminent unless there's a drastic change. Sure, you can still go for it. Maybe you make it. Maybe you don't. Backing off for maybe a second might lose you a few tenths, and might save you from potentially knocking yourself off the track. Will it guarantee avoiding a collision? No, but on average I think it would be a safer option. The thing that surprises me is people talking about the green car making a dangerous move when it's just been sliding across the track for 3 seconds and likely has no idea where the white car is (sure, in the video it's in the mirror. Is the green driver watching, or concentrating on the track at full lock understeer?). You call it speeding up, but that sliding doesn't stop until right before the collision. We have its cockpit view. Now, will the green car driver feel upset about the collision immediately afterwards? Yep. Should they still be upset after watching a replay? Not so much.
As already written in the thread title, it was a "raceaccident", in this case there is no absolute culprit. The green driver made a mistake, which led to the situation shown. But that doesn't make the green the absolute culprit. If you think along these lines, then the gray one should not have entered the race and the situation shown would not have happened In a perfect world, the green driver would have an overview after intercepting the car and would know where the gray one is. He would then have left enough space for the gray and they could have continued to race fairly for position. But unfortunately it's not perfect. The gray one could have easily solved the situation by briefly lifting the accelerator pedal and with a better overview he could have positioned himself better to overtake safely.
There are three basic situations aren't there? 1 ) Overtaking car is less than halfway past... with the front wheels not past the rear wheels of the car in front, the leading car has the right to defend the racing line; any collision is caused by the overtaking car. 2 ) Overtaking car has front wheels in front of the leading cars rear wheels... both cars can claim the racing line is theirs and blame for any contact should be shared. 3 ) Overtaking car is more than halfway past... the overtaking car has the right to the racing line. Any collision is caused by the car being overtaken. If you watch Max Verstappen you'll often see that he uses the second situation to his advantage, and "scares" drivers into conceding the racing line. It's human nature to take avoiding action. However, "dive bombing" by carrying too much speed shouldn't mean that the overtaking driver can deny causing any accident in the third situation... also see Max Verstappen!
Don't think this halfway past rule is written anywhere, it's very vague. For example if you are less than halfway past, the car ahead is still not allowed to switch racing lines and chop you out. It used to be that having any part of the car alongside meant the other car has to give room, but that may have changed slightly in the last couple of years. Regarding this incident, I think the car behind could have potentially avoided it by better anticipation, but likewise the car ahead didn't need to return to the racing line like that. Unless it's very clear who the blame goes to I usually think of it as a racing incident.
https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkx_3zqidCIvZiX20FCRawTPnn_yk9Xcg19?si=DML0TT7H_Q2tRIK- This is racing incident, but I'd qualify our example as unsafe rejoin, and it would make green car completely at fault of its own and nobody elses. Of course he never left the track, but he left racing line by a mile, and made a sharp comeback, while being overtaken. Suggesting that race car drivers shouldn't overtake, when there is large gap is just something that would never have good outcome, and would result in races where everybody is overly polite, and basically giving away positions for one another.
I think we also have to consider the opening line of the original post... And consider the difference between bad driving and poor driving?
That's my doubt now. Should I overtake only when the car in front of me goes off track? Should I refrain from overtaking when the car in front of me makes a mistake? I had an incident similar to this, except that the car went completely off track. I tried to overtake and the car returned to fight for the position crashing with me and sending me to the barriers. In that case, I was also told that I should have anticipated that. When a car looses control in front of us is very hard to anticipate what it's going to do in a second, but I would expect they would at least avoid crashing into others. That's what I do. So should I only overtake when they make me signs to pass? It's the only time it seems to be safe. If overtaking requires us to be so cautious and the leading car has so much freedom to do whatever they want (because only we can anticipate the danger), we would never overtake.
Every situation is different. Here I don't think the driver of the green car had any intention of crowding out the white car. I doubt that the driver had any idea the white car was that close nor it's position. Even F1 drivers make mistakes like this. At Las Vegas, Russell clashed with Verstappen and said afterwards he didn't see him as Max was in a blind spot.
Except the green driver should know that they're not entitled to the whole track width for their recovery or else they'll likely have an accident. The OP was accused of being a bad driver for running into the green car when, in reality, the green driver's poor driving skills took him where he was more likely to get hit.
No the green car driver didn't want to crash and didn't see the other car. But did they thought the car that was closely following them had vanished in the air? Couldn't they think the red car would try to overtake? Or that making a fast return to their driving line would be dangerous?
