Is A Rule Change Required?

[New Judge]

Seb Vettel won the first GP of the season in extraordinary circumstances. Under a "Virtual Safety Car" (VSC) he overtook Lewis Hamilton by entering the pits and changing tyres in less time than Lewis was allowed to drive down the pit straight.

The idea of the VSC is to neutralise the race. How much further can it get from that objective if it enables the lead to change? As Martin Brundle said, if driving through the pit lane is considerably quicker than keeping to the track, I can see everybody doing just that under a VSC just to avoid being jumped.

[Garaman]

Just plain daft.

[Hopkirk]

F1 change the rules every few minutes, so no doubt it will be sorted.

[douglas9401]

It's becoming more farcical by the day and input from the US isn't going to help.
I'm going to stick with it while it's free to air but the idea of paying extra to listen to whiny Brundle, inept Hill and the presenting 'talent' at Sky is laughable from where I sit.

[sunny-dave]

Yes NJ - I did wonder if Mercedes had missed a trick.

No need to even change the tyres, simply bring Hamilton in to tweak (or pretend to tweak) the front spoiler & release him in front of Vettel - job done.

Not a great race - Melbourne is a 'no overtaking allowed' track and should have been ditched years ago - hopefully the custom built track in Bahrain will provide better racing.

[sunny-dave]

At least the relative equality of pace of the top three teams is encouraging - and Haas (if they can keep the wheels on), Renault and Maclaren aren't too far behind. May be a better season than recently for racing.

The UHD pictures on my shiny new OLED TV are quite stunning too :-)

[Hopkirk]

If I watch at all, it's just until the first corner. Sometimes that's where the fun happens.

[ToraToraTora]

yes VSC = race neutralised that should cover the pit lane etc. Clearly this is an unintended flaw.

[New Judge]

Thanks all.

As 3Ts says there is clearly a loophole in the VSC rules. I understand, though have not read the details, that Mercedes and/or Lewis caused the loss by crunching their numbers wrongly. However, there should be no possibility that this should happen. The race (including positions and gaps) should be "on hold" until the VSC is lifted. The idea of its introduction was to avoid the advantage given to all drivers behind the leader when a "real" safety car is deployed (basically all gaps are closed and even lapped drivers can unlap themselves). It was clearly not intended to provide the facilities seen today. It was even more unjust because a real Safety Car was deployed in the end when it was obvious from the outset that it would be necessary with a crane being needed to recover the stricken Haas.

Simple answer? No pit stops permitted under VSC.

[chrissa1]

I couldn’t agree more, NJ.

[douglas9401]

Ah, but F1 doesn't DO simple answers. They're very special. :-)

[Ryzen]

'no pit stops permitted under VSC'..the VSC is deployed when an incident has occurred ...generally resulting in damage to cars.Would you want the damaged cars to continue or retire?

[ToraToraTora]

usually the VSC or indeed the SC is deployed when a car is out on the track so stopping pit stops would have no effect there but I take the point so an alternative would be to enforce the VSC speed limits through the normally fast parts of the pit lane. I imagine the FIA are looking at options because clearly this is a flaw in the rules.

[New Judge]

A good point. Occasionally cars are damaged (but not so badly that they are immobilised - let's say a front wing broken).

It seems from today's papers that this was due to a miscalculation by Mercedes. However, that is not really beside the point. If Hamilton was going too slowly (due to Mereceds' miscalculations) and Vettel closed the gap (but did not pit) he would still not have been allowed to overtake under VSC. The idea of the rule is to suspend racing until the VSC is cleared. To be allowed to overtake via the pits - even if it is the result of an opponent's error) is clearly outside the spirit of the VSC rules. Vettel gained an advantage as a result of ann incident which should have seen the race neutralised. I accept he and Ferrari did nothing wrong but it cannot be just that an advantage is gained under such circumstances.

[ABerrant]

I do not believe that Mercedes or Hamilton could have done anything differently, no matter what numbers they crunched. Their fate was sealed by pitting before the VSC to cover Kimi's stop.

At that stop, under full racing speeds, Hamilton relinquished a 7+ second lead over Vettel to emerge 14+ seconds in his wake. This normal pit-stop effectively knocked him back about 22 seconds of track position.

Vettel didn't overtake in the pits. He was 12+ seconds ahead under the VSC before entering the pitlane and returned to the track with a less than 1 second lead. This VSC pit-stop effectively knocked him back about 12 seconds of track position.

Therefore, because of the lower track speeds, any non safety mandated pit-stop under VSC gives a 10 second advantage to a driver who can make use of it. As such, all non safety pitting (i.e. optional tyre change) should have been suspended.

[ToraToraTora]

"Vettel didn't overtake in the pits. He was 12+ seconds ahead under the VSC before entering the pitlane and returned to the track with a less than 1 second lead. This VSC pit-stop effectively knocked him back about 12 seconds of track position. " - No, Hamilton had already pitted which is approx 23 seconds so he was in effect ahead a net 11 seconds, Vettel's stop took the normal amount of time but it took a lot longer to get down the start finish straight than it would at race speed. This vettel, who could go any speed on the in and out slip road, before and after the pit lane limit, gained approx 10 seconds from the VSC.

[ABerrant]

This 'unintended flaw'/'loophole' is actually specifically written into the F1 Sporting Regulations.

Under VSC the ONLY permissible reason to enter the pits is to change tyres:

"40.4 When initiated during a race, no car may enter the pits whilst the VSC procedure is in use unless it is for the purpose of changing tyres."


Although meant to nominally neutralise racing during a double waved yellow incident, 3 of 4 permissible overtaking opportunities involve the pit lane:

"40.6 With the exception of the cases listed under a) to d) below, no driver may overtake another car on the track whilst the VSC procedure is in use.
The exceptions are :

a) When entering the pits a driver may pass another car remaining on the track after he has reached the first safety car line.

b) When leaving the pits a driver may overtake, or be overtaken by, another car on the track before he reaches the second safety car line.

c) Whilst in the pit entry, pit lane or pit exit a driver may overtake another car which is also in one of these three areas.

d) If any car slows with an obvious problem."

https://www.fia.com/regulation/category/110

[Bazile]

Another thing that needs looking into is the inability to get near enough behind the car in front (in a lot of cases )to be able to overtake .
This was demonstrated when Hamilton (even in a faster car )gave up after several laps and decided to save the engine

I also cannot understand why certain tracks were designed with the inability to overtake