27 October 2011

Pitting Under Safety Car

I find the current rules for cars pitting during a safety car period very confusing. As I understand it when the Safety Car is deployed each driver has a Delta, or target lap time he must keep to until he catches up with the Safety Car. This I feel favours some drivers more than others as often drivers don't lose, or don't lose as many positions during a safety car period as you'd have expected they would under normal racing conditions. It's also difficult for the casual viewer (or in my case a viewer of 30 years) to understand.

There are two better options as far as I'm concerned. The first would be to do like they do in NASCAR and Indy Car and close the pitlane once the safety car comes out until the whole field is all queued closely behind the safety car. Once everybody is lined up behind the safety car then re-open the pit lane so anyone who wishes can make their pitstops.  This would make things much more exciting as drivers and teams would have to decide if they want to get new tyres but lose track position or stay out and hope they can build a gap on old tyres before making a stop later on. Most importantly it will make much more sense to the viewer who will be able to see clearly what is going on. The second option would be to just keep the pitlane closed for the duration of any safety car period, any car who stops in the pits during that time would have to go to the back of the field before the restart.

I'll post my other ideas for the safety car rules sometime soon.

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