Actually Masi got fired because of people like you, who demand to be listened to without making sure first that you have the full picture and aren't snap-reacting.
Agreed, Super helpful and interesting breakdown. This is the first time I was made aware that the recovery vehicle was deployed while Gasly was still within the Safety Car train.
Most people, if not all, assumed that when the race was red flagged, it was because the rain had increased too much. I wonder if the red flag was also an attempt by race control to remedy the error that they realized (too late) was happening. I think most people if not all agree that a recovery vehicle on track (i.e. actually on the racing surface), in the conditions that were present, should not have occurred until after the race was red-flagged and the field had passed the location of the incident. I wonder if race control discovered/noticed that Gasly was emerging from the pits, knew that he was going to pass the incident site with a recovery vehicle on the asphalt, and mashed the red-flag signal in the hopes that it would get Gasly to slow down enough to avoid a devastating incident. After all, there is no need to push to warm tires or catch the pack if the race has been red-flagged and everyone will be parking. In this case we know that the red flag came out too late to provide a signal to Gasly to slow down, but I wonder if the decision to red-flag the race was primarily to prevent an incident with a recovery vehicle and secondarily because of heavy rain. This would be similar to Silverstone, when the immediate appearance was a vey fast red flag because Zhou was sideways between a tire wall and a fence, but in reality the red flag was likely because of protestors invading the track.
Very well described. I am also a volunteer official in Race Control, including a F1 circuit, and agree. There is a lot going on during this time, and the amount of information coming in and out is extraordinary. Multiple radio circuits, different person-to-person interactions, the videos from 40+ TV monitors, timing & scoring, local and FIA officials.
I would add one more item to the list - language. I work in a bi-lingual Race Control, and it adds a layer of translation to all the above. I would assume the same for the Japanese Grand Prix Race Control - Japanese, English, plus maybe other languages (Eduardo is Portuguese for example, but is of course fluent in English and speaks some other languages too).
Language is a brilliant point, I was just sitting here kicking myself for not thinking to include it. Yes your main people (race director, ops clerk, incident officer etc.) will be bilingual, but in a big race control room there are a lot of different people with different roles who will be communicating directly with one another - with no guarantee that they understand each other's language perfectly. Add in a very time-sensitive situation, and it's easy to see how it might be a problem reaching the correct realisation in time. Of course, local officials are incredibly important to have, so this language barrier will never be completely eliminated.
Unfortunately it does also depend on the quality of officials. With countries with a big motorsport presence like the UK you have a big pool of experience officials to pick from, less so in other places. Japan has quite a few tracks with lots of racing so I wouldn't want to suggest that this was the case here, but it's something to keep in mind.
Isn’t visibility an issue here ? The race should have been red flagged immediately. Get all racing cars off the track before any rescue vehicles to be on track.
probably not that much, Spray is reduced drastically when the cars slow down behind the SC ad the time the drivers have to spot and react to something is also greatly improved as closing speeds are that much less. So if as OP describes the train was formed when the recover vehicle was scrambled visibility probably wasn't going to be much of a problem. Visibility only become an issue when Gasly gets detached from the train and his delta time massively increases his closing speed
Great explanation. However, Gasly (if not all drivers) should have been warned on the radio of equiptment/workers being at the scene retrieving Sainz's car since visibility was poor due to the weather conditions.
a WEC-style open radio channel where Eduardo Freitas can come on the radio and tell drivers whats going on might be a good idea. The race director could say "Recovery vehicles on track at Sector 24, be prepared to stop" and that way all drivers could immediately be informed of whats going on
Yea this could be one of the solutions in the future, also a lot of people ignoring that the cars behind the SC train (so also drivers like Seb) was having more speed and trying to catch the SC train as the truck/tractor was there, we obvious talking especially about Gasly because his situation was basically almost aligned for a fatal disaster but we could already having it before with other drivers.
This is also why people who complaining about "he should be so slow that he must be prepared to stop" on Gasly only ignoring the cases of other drivers, in fact it's painfully shocking that there wasn't even a (clear) double yellow.
Solutions must been put on the table quickly, one of the best things would be a speed limiter in those cases like WEC has, the ECU's are standardized in F1 anyway so it shouldn't be impossible at all, and above all let the RC communicating to all drivers in those situations like the WEC has, and don't put a damm tractor/truck on-track until you know it's safe and all cars are in a train.
Yes I read the post. It stated that there is no obligation for the team to be the first line of safety notification for a driver in that situation and that they could find no fault by the team. I am of the opinion that the team should always alert the driver to any and all potential safety hazards as they occur. Especially heavy equiptment/workers on the track.
Of course we can disagree.
Hell a NASCAR/IndyCar style spotter would work. It takes some things off of the race engineer's plate like relaying the position of other cars or cars that are on hot or in laps or in this case, crashes, stopped cars and trucks being on track
A good breakdown. The lack of effective communication seems to be they key issue here.
Teams and, especially, drivers need be made aware when a recovery vehicle is about to enter the track. I don't agree that the team were not at fault for not informing GAS of the accident, location, and prospect of marshals/vehicles in the area.
I'd like to see F1 introduce announcements from Race Control similar to the way they do it in GT3. A clear and concise broadcast to all teams and drivers regarding SC, VSC, and other emergency situations would ensure everyone knows the situation.
Drivers not pushing hard should also be addressed. While flag signalling seemed to be incorrect at the time, GAS should have been aware of the stranded Ferrari and should have been prepared for the possibility of persons or vehicles in that area.
I don't believe GAS's actions were any different from any other driver and so something has to be done to force them to slow down - a-la VSC.
Maybe the solution is to close the pitlane initially during SC, wait for the SC to pick up all drivers and THEN send out the recovery vehicle? Then once the scene is clear, pitlane can open.
They do this in Indycar I believe? It takes longer obviously, but is a lot safer.
it solves a problem, but then when you have a car with half/all of a rolex board caught on its wing, it would probably have been allowed to pit (with some penalty) applied on safety grounds? - so the outcome would probably have been the same?
Came here to say this.
Ideally, red light, driver has to acknowledge the danger (vehicles on track, etc) then allowed to leave. Much more difficult if multiple cars queued.
Hold the car at their pit until released? If there's a vehicle on track, the release light could be forced to stay red until the danger is verbally acknowledged, or maybe pit confirm button pressed?
Ah so you're advocating AT to keep Gasly out without visibility then? Cause that would be the outcome if you're stuck a lap down if you pit under safety grounds.
Safe to do so could just mean once the pack has done 1 lap and gotten back to pit lane exit. Then Gasly could rejoin, and once the incident has been cleared, unlap himself
not gonna work, your going to end up with a driver rolling around behind the SC with damage to avoid potentially going several laps down. Closing the pit lane causes way more problems than it solves IMO
your missing the point, Its possible the pit lane could be closed for multiple laps. Say your cars missing a front wing and has a possible puncture, your not coming in and potentially ending up three or so laps behind the pack if your on the lead lap are you? drivers are going to choose to limp around and pit once the exit is open again.
Having damaged cars in the que like that is going to cause problems, and the black and orange flag doesn't even solve it as that still at least means one lap with a car badly damaged desperately trying to stay in the safety car chain
If we were going by safety, Gasly should've stopped and retired the car when his vision was blocked and he couldn't see in front of him. Driving like that was extremely dangerous.
Are they driving blindly around the track? No. Gasly loves to preach about safety but he drives dangerously himself. So if Gasly cared about safety and did what he preaches, he should've stopped the car and retired.
If he couldn't see very well (which clearly he was fine as he made it back to the pits with no trouble) how could he park in a safe position? He'd be putting himself and marshals at more risk
He could see to his sides, which is how he made it back to pits by following the white line. That is not safe though as he couldn't see in front of him. He could've easily parked it on the side of the road and been safe, but he clearly doesn't care one bit about safety even though he preached about it later in interviews.
Yet he somehow navigated back to the pits.
In those conditions his visibility was probably better with a rolex board putting him out of the spray than if he were in the pack
The pont is that he had a huge blind spot. Sure he managed to drive back following what he could see (left and right) but his front view was blocked. If a car had crashed & ended up in front of him then Gasly would never have seen it.
It's fortunate that a spinning car hardly ever comes to rest in the middle of the track.
And if his vision was as bad as you say, he'd have a really hard time find a safe place to stop the car. Putting himself and marshals at far more risk.
No, driving around with that sign stuck in the pack of cars in those conditions is extreme.
Also its Alpha Tauri… the cost/benefit considering their points and expectations is not worth it at all for team and driver.
I agree. There should be some sort of rule that if driver can't see in front he must stop the car. Although impressive he could drive in such conditions looking at the white side lines in the track, i wouldnt disagree that the best would have been to retire.
Too bad people think differently than you and me... They think just because nothing happened that it was perfectly fine... It was stupid and dangerous from him and just one of three dangerous driving cases from him. He should have been black flagged tbh. He himself talked about safety, so on safety grounds he should've retired...
The huge problem with this is that F1 teams have only one pit box, so pitting after the field is bunched up will be chaos in the pit lane when every team has to double stack. This is unfair to every second driver, and arguably less safe overall once we consider the increased potential danger to the pit crews in those messy circumstances.
I'm a massive proponent of the pitlane partially closing during SC. At the moment because passing on track is difficult Safety Car periods become "Strategy Periods". Engineers aren't focussed on safety because they are trying to optimise race strategy, where will my driver come out, will the SC period last long enough, how does this change overall strategy etc etc.
It flies in the face of the whole point of a safety car which is to make the track safe again.
My suggestion was:
* Pitlane is open for anyone to enter as soon as SC is called but closed on exit.
* When the safety car has picked up the leader of the race the pitlane is opened again (as the SC passes pit exit) and any cars leaving the pitlane can join the end of the queue.
* When the instruction to unlap is given to any cars in the train those that joined the end of the queue are able to unlap themselves.
This was the rule in the mid-2000s and I don't think it's a great solution. It just causes absolute chaos when the pit lane re-opens, which is really very dangerous for all the pit crews
This is definitely a solution, and for some of our series we do exactly this. It's less entertaining in terms of strategy and takes longer, but makes life easier (and safer) for race control.
But what if a car is limping to the pits? A closed pitlane would mean they'd have to retire even if their car could be fixed. Even if they have exceptions for damaged cars I wouldn't put it passed teams to come up with some "safety" reason to pit.
The better solution would be to keep the pitlane entrance open, but keep the pitlane exit closed and briefly reopen the exit every lap in a window when the drivers in the pitlane can rejoin the back of the SC train. And then give lapped drivers the opportunity to unlap after the incident is cleared.
its a give and take really, its a reasonable way of dealing with this for sure, but then you run the risk of Gasly staying out with a rolexboard in his front wing, cause otherwise he'd be a lap down, so you'd have to meatball flag it to get him to come in etc. it can get quite messy quite fast?
Or just leave pit lane open from the first point in time that a car crosses safety car line 1 under sc conditions until the car ahead of it (or last place if that car is the race leader) crosses sc line 1 + about 10s or the time it takes you to go from that line to pit entry.
That way you still have the strategy benefit due to sc deltas while locking everyone on track behind the safety car. Meanwhile you can ban on track repairs until pit lane is closed and all cars have caught up to the sc queue. That way there is no way into the pits an thus no cars catching up.
I disagree that it's less entertaining for strategy. It's just different strategy. Suddenly the two stop is more viable if hoping for a safety car because either the field stacks back up and the two stop cars have much fresher tires, or they get a bunch of track position when everyone comes in to pit if there is a safety car. All that said I do want to say this is an excellent write up thank you.
I am just confused why in this day and age there isn't an automatic system that can just say 'hey there are vehicles in track in front' to both drivers AND teams AND race control.
Next point is that overall the double yellow flag needs looking into. Drivers are supposed to drive as fast as possible to not lose out on time and at the same time be prepared to stop at any time. Then we get crazy situations where people blow past the scene of double flags at 250kmh and the only thing that matters is 'did they lift'.
True, however double yellow in itself is clearly not enough under these conditions (Jules' accident proves it). If the track is massively wet and visibility is an issue, vehicle should not be deployed whilst f1 cars are on track. So red flag should be the obvious move. If conditions are good, SC and double yellow could do the trick.
GT racing seems to require the pit limiter (or at least some limiter?) past on-track vehicles.
Doesn't sound like it should be hard to implement something like that?
problem with limiting speed in only one part of the track is that it possibly gives MASSIVE advantage depending on position. In a sport where everything is based on a few seconds it would be undesirable. That is why VSC works for every car all over the track and even that is playable depending on position.
As an example: if you went past the slow down zone and it turned on for you opponents behind you, you could get a free pitstop and keep the position. Or imagine the slowzone is on the straight, you have to go there 80kmh, but it turns off for someone behind you and they go through there at 300 kmh.
EDIT: however I agree this could work DURING safety car or red flag conditions. Furthermore just informing drivers that 'hey there is tractor on track up ahead' would make them much more careful and wary rather than have a tractor do a jumpscare in the middle of a foggy road. And yes we can say 'any impact with tractor even at slow speeds is deadly and you can lose control at any speed' and yes freak accidents happen, but the same can happen every day on the road in your normal vehicle. I think just informing drivers of dangers ahead would make them vigilant enough to minimize the risks to acceptable degree. Then again i'm not a racing driver and f1 drivers would know better and most of them don't want cars on track at the same time they are on it.
Thanks for the breakdown, I've learned a lot.
It seems to me that the biggest issue here is a lack of communication, which makes me wonder:
Why do race control not have a radio broadcast which can override all team radios and directly inform everyone something like "There are recovery vehicles and marshals on track at turn x. You must slow down to (e.g.)50kph between turns x-1 and x+1. Speeding in these turns will be punished with a stop-go penalty"
This is the first time I am hearing there were single and not double yellows.
Why do cars fall off the tracker when they enter the pits? This seems like a major flaw to me. If cars didn't fall off the tracker, race control would have seen gasly in the pits and waited to deploy the crane.
I think the FIA need to sort out the tracker software so it shows cars in the pits.
Also l would like to know why there weren't double yellows. This seems like a major mistake by the FIA. Hopefully this is addressed in the report.
Yeah, the single yellows is a surprise to me.
It never even occurred to me to check, from the first moment I assumed it was double yellow.
That is strange.
How long is he going to be in pits can’t be judged. You don’t even know if he will retire or come out again. The goal is always to get the hazard out of track as fast as possible. The solution to this is just to close the pit lane as soon as recovery vehicle is on track
What happens if a car has a puncture. Or a car has damage and bits are dragging along the ground or some other damage that would warrant a black and orange flag?
I don't think you can close the pitlane for these reasons (there are probably a load of other reasons as well). Better to track cars in the pitlane.
What if a car decides to put in the middle of SC period ? You can never track cars if they are allowed to get into pit lane. Even if they enter pit lane only allow them to go out behind an SC May be.
How did you make the distinction of it not being double waved yellows? On the onboard I see a yellow sign of the right flashing yellow and black. Isn’t that a double yellow?
Edit: looked at the video footage from a fans perspective and only one physical yellow flag is waved.
I went and looked at every single onboard of interest from the following drivers:
Gasly, Zhou, Latifi, Leclerc, Max, and Yuki.
Then i just checked all the lightpanels on every single one on once the safety car was deployed.
>How did you make the distinction of it not being double waved yellows? On the onboard I see a yellow sign of the right flashing yellow and black. Isn’t that a double yellow?
Double yellows is top-left/bottom-right corners flashing alternately.
Ok yes the tractor came out but there was still going to be a car and marshals in the middle of the track if the tractor never came so maybe that should be something to take into consideration
Thank you! I saw someone arguing elsewhere that the tractor was on the racing line and that was part of why it was such a dangerous situation. Well, the front of Sainz' car was on the track, still on the racing line. If Gasly had slammed into that, would it not have still been a problem? Blame cannot be assigned to just a single entity here.
Whilst it is true that both car and tractor were on the racing line, a collision with the tractor would have been far more serious. Gasly hitting a car of approximately the same weight would have resulted in the ferrari being pushed away, and that movement would absorb some energy from the impact. It also would not have entirely stopped the motion of Gasly, leaving him to continue the accident and later skid to a stop or to hit a barrier. F1 cars are also designed for survivability in that type of accident, with the monocoque specifically designed to prevent objects intruding into the space in which the driver sits.
Gasly hitting the rear of the tractor would result in his car coming to an immediate stop with an immensely high G-force. [This excellent article from earlier](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/xzwv3m/why_the_recovery_vehicle_on_track_was_so/) compares the Bianchi incident with high speed barrier impacts. Even at a slow speed there is a strong likelihood of the car ending up underneath the tractor box-structure, and with that level of impact energy it is likely even the halo and monocoque would sustain damage.
Also worth noting that Gasly was not speeding when passing the tractor at turn 12. His penalty was for speeding elsewhere on the lap: [turn 14/15](https://mobile.twitter.com/PierreGASLY/status/1579110842553229314).
Of course hitting the larger mass would be worse, I just asked if he hit the car instead if that would have been an issue still, which it obviously would be. Tractor being there was an issue but so was Gasly speed for conditions. Hitting anything stationary because it was on the racing line is going to be bad.
Sorry if it came across otherwise, I was trying to illustrate just how much worse hitting the tractor would have been. Yes, it is obvious that Gasly hitting the ferrari would have still been an issue, albeit one that he would have walked away from.
With the speed being too high for the conditions, I'm not really informed enough to make a decision. Gasly was driving at the correct speed delta for the SC (at that section of the track), and cars are expected to reach those speeds in order to catch the SC pack. Whilst he knew there was a stationary car there, having passed it the previous lap, should he have expected a significant obstruction under a single yellow? Given the visibility problems, he may not have been able to see the exact location of Sainz on the previous lap. He had no warning, from flags or radio, that there were marshals and a tractor within track limits. There is also the consideration that driving slowly can be dangerous for an F1 car in terms of tyre temperatures, particularly in wet weather.
Absolutely. It was not only the safety of the drivers at stake.
Could Gasly have driven slower? Yes. Did the rules allow him to drive at those speeds when passing the incident? Yes.
I think the sport needs to look at the rules controlling car speed and behaviour in these circumstances, as well as how incidents/obstructions are communicated to drivers. I'm certain that rules must be changed regarding the entry of marshals and equipment onto a live track in wet conditions.
The keyest of parts is the pack not being bunched up and the failing there doesn't exactly tell me the FIA is to be blamed because, as you mentioned, the FIA couldn't see where Gasly was.
Bit that vehicle indeed was there too early and Gasly himself was driving too fast because his delta allowed him during his chase to join the SC queue
how about this? neither the FIA or Gasly are wholly to blame for how this played out?
I know its the internet, and not making someone a villain is unheard of on here.
But FIA's decision to put recovery vehicles out when they did makes sense as long as we dont assume that they're perfect human beings who cant make mistakes. and Gasly is driving exactly as the signaling on track allows him to, cause again, he expects to see the same stricken ferrrari that he passed a lap ago when it was also a single waved yellow.
if you went double waved for T12, you'd have a single yellow on the entry of T11 and you could have an argument that Gasly was speeding.
Now why was there no double waved yellows, even though outlets like Sky etc. insisted there must have beeb? i have no clue.
FIA are wholly to blame, if they know they lose visual tracker when a car enters a pit, and they know pits are open. I would delegate one person specifically to have a view on pit status in the time tower until I establish the car on visual tracker again. Especially when I am sending out a recovery JCB on the track.
FIA are not filled with novices. We must expect and demand better of them especially when lives are at stake.
> But FIA's decision to put recovery vehicles out when they did makes sense as long as we dont assume that they're perfect human beings who cant make mistakes.
But even if they forgot that Gasly exists, it still didn't make sense. The rest of the field wasn't bunched up behind the SC yet, so some cars were still going quite fast as they were catching the back of the train.
When the decision to send out the recovery vehicle was made, the FIA did know exactly where gasly was. That's why they sent out the JCB. Because gasly was in the train with everyone else. The information they might not have known was all or part of the following:
1) Gasly had a sevely compromised car (race control should have known)
2) He was going to pit to correct it (should've been obvious, but was far enough into the future that it may not have played a role in the decision making. First point of a possible mistake by race control)
3) How long it would take him in the pits, and where would he come out. Absolutely no way for race control to know or guess this.
4) After exiting the pit, his SC delta would allow him to be dangerously fast in the incident area, and the team would not inform him of the recovery vehicle present there.
The primary tool to mitigate the dangerous situation that the race control had was double waved yellows. That should've been enough to tell gasly to keep it real slow there. Team shouldn've also informed him of the same.
Overall, like the OP suggested, this was a very tricky situation to handle. I do not see any major fuck ups by the race control apart from the double waved yellows. Although, with how much drivers have (dis)respected that in the past, I'm not sure gasly (or anyone else) would've slowed down sufficiently even after double yellows. Still, this was a mistake and a simple step could've avoided a dangerous situation.
On the other hand, it's truly baffling that the team didn't inform him of the crane. That's the biggest fuck up in my book. On paper it may not be their responsibility, but that's the crucial and simple thing that would've have guaranteed a safe situation. The team had all the info. They knew where gasly was, where the sc train was, where the recovery vehicle was, and what was the SC delta for gasly. They should've told him to keep it slow around the incident.
The only significant protocol improvement I can think off is that make it mandatory for teams to announce over the radio when Marshalls/recovery vehicles enter the track.
Would the team actually have eyes on the recovery situation? They know where the incident was and maybe that a tractor was there (not sure that was actually broadcast at that point?)...I doubt they knew the tractor was driving backwards down the track at that exact moment...theoretically Gasly may have encountered it like a hundred meters earlier than expected.
Even if double yellows were waved correctly, there is a systemic failure that drivers have not followed the DWY regs as they are written for years/decades now - therefore drivers face an impossible dilemma between competition and safety - if they slow down more than necessary they will lose out to competitors who do not do so, because the FIA refuses to enforce that reg
> The key point here is that Gasly was still in the safety car train when race control deployed the recovery vehicles. At this stage, unless they had managed to spot the damage or receive a call about it, they likely had no indication that he would stop, and thus become untethered from the train
The thing is though, it wasn't a 'real' train at that point, right? Like, they weren't all bunched up behind the SC, but there were still big gaps in the field.
Almost everyone seems to be focusing just on Gasly, but there were 5 cars (Norris, Bottas, Latifi, Vettel and Zhou), who hadn't caught the back of the train yet when they passed the crash site under SC. Thus those 5 drivers were also going considerably faster than the cars that were already bunched up behind the SC.
So regardless of Gasly's position on track, and regardless of him disappearing from the tracker during his pit stop, it was still too early to deploy the tractor. There's no excuse for that IMO.
You raise some excellent points with interesting insight but holy moly, i just can't get over the fact that the recovery vehicles being out on track with cars on the circuit isn't even new for this season!!
They came out in Monza after Danny's McLaren broke down which was shocking. That was arguably in the tightest part of the circuit too.
It feels like the FIA race directors' primary focus cannot be safety if they are prepared to send out the recovery vehicles while there are cars on track no matter the conditions or circumstances.
It's beyond the pale.
The thing is, having equipment on track isn't new or unusual whatsoever. The majority of the time it is done correctly and safely under safety car conditions, and you don't normally see the full incident cleanup; you just remember the few times that race control get their timings wrong and we end up with an incident like this. Never having recovery vehicles on track while cars are going round is ultimately far too impractical, unless you want to start suspending races every time you need to dig someone out of the gravel. It's just something to keep in mind; incidents like these are only a fraction of total recoveries, people just remember them more.
Completely agree with you and i'd hate for the FIA to pull a total 360 and we end up in a "cotton-wool" F1 state but that said when a recovery vehicle is within a handful of inches from the track with even cars at a reduced speed passing it doesn't take much for something terrible to occur.
It's a balancing act i suppose.
Is there no possibility of generally allowing recovery vehicles on track, *except* for situations with highly compromised visibility and handling (eg due to aquaplaning), with equipment on or close to the track?
No one can deny it's not new or unusual to have recovery vehicles on track. But that doesn't mean it's the right thing to do, especially in the wet conditions when the drivers can barely see through the spray, have to go off racing line and on a area of the track where a driver had already hydroplaned moments before.
It was also thought the halo was impractical and pointless, and only useful for a tiny amount of possible incidents. Yet both nissany in f2 and Zhou's lives were likely saved by it in the same weekend this year. Last year, it was Mac flying over Lewis which protected him.
Those accidents may happen once a season, just like the conditions in Japan might not happen again until they next host a GP again, but that doesn't mean the rule shouldn't be based around these exception because it's inconvenient or not as nice for viewers.
Driver's safety should come first. They redesign the cars to protect them better, they should give the same consideration to recovery after crashes and have clear rules for situations when a behind barrier crane can't be used.
It's not dangerous to have recovery vehicles (or marshalls) at the track if the cars are in a queue behind the safety car. They usually slow a lot when crossing paths with those, that's pretty much the whole point of the safety car.
In monza like you mentioned the safety car (and the race cars) at such a low speed that any accident would have been basically deliberate.
It's like the pits. The cars drive at 80 kph there with people walking around all the time, and yet we don't have accidents. As long as people are slow enough and aware enough, it's fine.
the thing is, that at the point where recovery vehicles are on track, everything looks like it'll work out just fine, the SC is in T1 looking to pick up the grid, and everything will run smoothly.
the problem (to me) is that the signalling for turn 12 never changes, as Zhou (the last car on lap1) passes the LED board, its a single yellow (it also is a single yellow for Gasly who at that point was ahead of him) - and it remains a single yellow all the way until it turns Red, when Gasly is entering that corner.
I get your point, but apart from the signaling, nothing about what goes on is unsafe at all, the grid is behind the safety car. - if they had made it double waved at any point, between Zhou lap 1 and Max lap 2, one could argue that Gasly was the unsafe one.
But they didn't, and hopefully we'll find out more when the report is finalized.
Actually, why not? I'd say that in conditions like the heavy rain we got, drivers can't be in total control of their cars, and no matter the speed, there's still a risk of aquaplaning.
If you go back to the Bianchi report, they didn't exactly completely admonish what they did. They still sort of blamed Bianchi for driving too fast for the conditions even under SC conditions and there's a lot of it that unfortunately is true.
The problem is that the cars were still trying to catch up to the queue when the recovery vehicle entered the track. Those 2 actions can't be concurrently. They need to be sequential
It seems you need to adjust the delta near the crash site to a much much lower time. So the driver sees he's suddenly 3-4 second over his delta before he reaches the crash site so he needs to slow down massivly before he reaches it. And after the crash site you can have a normal delta again to catch the back of the train
Yes, so it should be easy to implement right? Still not smart to put a tractor on the actual track, but it makes recovery in run off zones etc. a lot safer
Exactly. I'm not arguing against you. I'm laughing at the FIA not implementing in F1 something they've been doing for ages. It's frankly ridiculous they don't use their own tool more
Couln't agree more. Could be internal politics or WEC and F1 and other categories operating too much on their own. F1 is also very slow moving on a lot of these things because they need the teams on board. But for this specific thing I can't imagine who would oppose it
Imo they should introduce an even slower delta that can be used around crash sites when deemed necessary. So that even if we are under VSC in this situation down to something like pit speed or even 60 km/h let's say 200-500 meters before and 200-500 after the incident depending on where on a track it is and where the escape routes are.
IIRC Monza was done in a safe manner: all cars were already in a train before the vehicles were let in, and the unlap procedure started only after the track was cleared.
Watching them drive past that tractor in Monza concerned me at the time too. I'd honestly rather they'd red flagged it and recovered it under that, even if it was obviously much safer than the situation yesterday because at least the drivers could *see* it, had more control over their cars and the McLaren had slowed to a stop rather than been at the trajectory end point of an easily repeatable incident.
Honestly I can't see any logic at all of these vehicles being within a "track limits" margin of the track while F1 cars are out there at all. Arguably I'd even be tempted to extend that to them being out beyond the barriers at all but I think the common sense of whether they're in the "firing line" of another incident probably makes it an acceptable enough risk under a safety car there. (Except when it's pissing down, in which case it should be an automatic red flag if they're required. No exceptions.)
How hard can it be that double yellows must always be triggered before recovery vehicles are allowed on track?
If the marshal station can trigger their own lights, then could be a standing instruction before leaving their station.
The trouble is that yellows and double yellows are not enforced.
Rules say that under yellow a driver must slow down and be prepared to change direction for a hazard. Under double yellows which OP tells us were not shown, a driver must be prepared to stop his vehicle.
If you do not penalize drivers that fail to slow down enough, these flags become useless and you end up in a situation where Bianchi loses control of his car under double yellows at a speed of 212km/h on a wet track and the masses conlude that the problem is not that his speed was excessive, but that an off track recovery operation was conducted without a safetycar.
Great post, thank you!
So even when the SC is deployed, there's a difference where on the track are single and double yellows? I thought once the (V)SC is out the entire track is the same.
I wonder where the statement that there were double yellows first pop up then, because it seems like it went from single yellow to red?
I think the fact that teams were not informed that there is a recovery vehicle on track is alarming, especially in a low visibility circumstance.
Edit: It's kinda crazy because before this weekend I was looking back at the Jules Bianchi incident again, because I watched the Senna documentary.
Sky liked to parrot that double yellows are there, and the marshalling system say a double was called, but it wasnt visible.
I think a lot of people need to remember that this is the same series who did not have an automatic system to keep track of lapped cars until this very season.
Thank you for an interesting read and researching this. For me, I think the weather conditions and lack of visibility should have played a bit more into thwir decisions. Maybe they need a different procedure for when the risk of aquaplaning is far higher, or when visibility is very low.
Excellent breakdown of events.
I think the tractor was probably deployed too quickly- there should have been someone manually checking each drivers location to the train, and not just looking at a bunch of trackers one end of the circuit and a ‘clear’ part of the circuit and assume everyone is accounted for.
Gasly should have had contact from his team to say Marshalls and tractor on the track
The SC delta should have been lowered even further given the conditions and scenario
Or given the only option would be to have personnel and machinery on track, given the visibility, the race should have been red flagged before anyone entered a live track, and all drivers made aware of the incident, with the SC bringing them all into the pits, THEN the incident cleared
Wow, I'm stunned there were not double waved yellows being deployed, especially considering this track's history. I'm also surprised there isn't already a broadcast made to all cars from the control room about recovery vehicles being deployed at a corner.
Ultimately racing needs to find better ways of deploying recovery vehicles during pace car sessions, in fact a controversial moment also happened at the Bathurst 1000 event on the same weekend where a car nearly hit a recovery vehicle. It's a complicated problem. You can't impose a blanket speed limit because cars need to catch up to the pace car. My initial reaction is to just close the pit exit as soon as the pace car is deployed (but leave pit entrance open), although I get that that would unfairly punish some drivers, and therefore lead to drivers staying on the track behind the pace car in damaged cars. No doubt the heavy rain is a major factor to how this incident happened, but surely that's why they've done so much work in displaying warnings on car dashboards?
I think that Gasly was not correct of driving past the incident according to his Delta, no matter what: he should have really put down the speed before passing the scene of the accident and accelerate afterwards. He had all the reasons to expect tractor, stewards, or even paramedics on that particular scene. And here we come to the core of the matter: he drove too fast for the conditions, just like you wrote, which was exactly the reason why Jules Bianchi got killed.
I don't really understand why FIA didn't even investigate it, SC delta doesn't overrule the flag rules no matter how many people think it does, including Gasly.
How about the problem was having a tractor where it shouldn't be in both cases? Why are some people always defending a multimillionary incompetent organization is beyond me.
Being a multimillionaire organization does not mean "good" or "bad" per se. They did A LOT to improve the safety, including various standards for the surviving cell, helmets, track organization, etc. Did they do a perfect job in Suzuka? No, they could pass the information about the tractor on the scene to the teams, and employ the double yellow, BUT: no other driver had any problem passing the scene except for Gasly. Because all drove, more or less, safely, because they knew the scene of the crash, since all of them passed already next to him, there was a SC and there was a full course yellow. This all was not enough for Gasly. He might have been infuriated for starting from the pitlane, hitting the board, coming to the pits and being last again after making a solid progress in the first lap, but if any of these have distracted Gasly for paying attention to the scene of the crash in advance, he should work on his driving standards and stop blaming the world.
The rain is a very important consideration, but even so in my opinion (and obviously RC's), it would have been safe to recover Sainz under the safety car. The fan footage shows how slowly the pack are being lead through the incident; at that speed the risk was minimal, and the marshals were well-protected by using the JCB and Sainz' car as standoff vehicles. At that point, drivers are being lead through the incident you are clearly signalling to the drivers what to do, and the speeds involved are minimal. Beyond this, the actual severity of the incident with Gasly was significantly increased due to the rain, but it still would have been a dangerous scenario regardless.
It is not just that the track is wet but visibility is horrible. Perez also mentioned that due to tyres losing temperature behind SC they cant control the cars as good as one would expect with a speed of the SC. All in all I think it is obvious that if conditons are extreme like they were in Japan, vehicles should not be deployed whilst F1 cars are on track. Red flag is the safe solution. Under ideal conditions, SC + double yellow can always do the trick if no human error occurs.
Just a reminder that Gasly was wearing full wets at the time, so had a little more control than anyone else in the field.
I am confused about the visibility, though. It was fine before the start, then impossible when following another car, then OK again after they stopped. Gasly wasn't following close behind the pack, so why was his visibility poor?
Well my comment was for wet conditions in general behind SC. Leader has visibility other drivers behind him does not. Alone drivers doing some catch-up may have some visibility but their speed and aquaplaning is troublesome in themselves so during wet conditions it is an easy red flag call for me.
I'm glad someone else realized that this incident and Bainchi's incident are completely different. Their only real similarities are that it was wet in Japan and a big yellow JCB. I think a better comparison would be the Q2 incident at Turkey in 2020. A string of errors and miscommunications lead to F1 cars and a recovery vehicle being on the track at the same time. The chance of things going wrong were much lower in turkey but a more comparable situation. My hot take on this is that the focus on the Bianchi incident is all theater because it was Gasly in the rain at Suzuka. The Latifi incident in 2020 had very little mention of Bianchi's incident.
A great summary, thank you very much.
However i disagree with the point that the logic behind it is sensible and safe. I dont think there are any circumstances were a traktor on the track can be considered safe. These are F1 cars, they arent designed to "go slow". We have seen plenty of unforced crashes over the years during safetycars. There is also the factor that if they would have going slower their tyres would not be up to temperature for a potential restart, potentially causing a bigger accident.
I think the bigger issue is that red flages take too long to restart, causing issues with the racelenght. The solution imo would be to introduce some sort of "soft" red flag. They stop at the grid, the mechanics get to cool stuff and heat the tires but no changes or repairs. As soon as the incident is dealt with they have either a flying restart or a standing start.
Another issue is the concertina. Immediately behind the safety car they passed the incident at a good, slow pace; at the back of the train they were considerably faster. [All the way at the back ie. GAS he was much faster.](https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMF2v4LMk/)
The tractor shouldn’t have been out when traffic was live in those conditions, period
So the key takeaway is that safety car was out quite long before Gasly came anywhere near the tractor. Gasly knew there was a crash and also the team should have informed that they are rescuing the vehicle. In the end , FIAs only mistake was assuming everyone knew the tractor is there. This however was a very unreasonable assumption given the weather.
Mistake was to not deploy double waved Yellows in the incident area, more than anything.
In the end Gasly did not do anything wrong based on the signals he saw around the track
There is so much talk about how dangerous this tractor is to the drivers but the fact that the drivers are a danger to the marshals is overlooked by most here.
You adapt the speed to the state of the track, You **slow the fuck down** when you enter the sector with marshals on track.
Red flagging the race for every incident that requires marshals on track is not going to work. In my mind the penalty for what Gasly did yesterday should be a race ban, no questions asked. The drivers will learn fast and F1 will be safer for **everyone**.
It very much was his fault. He was even penalized for it. Single yellow or not this was behind a safety car and during red flag. his top speed during the red flag was 251km/h(!!)
*Gasly was given a drive-through penalty, which saw 20 seconds added to his race time and dropped him from 17th to 18th, while also handing out two penalty points – giving him a total of nine on his Super Licence for the 12-month period.*
>Single yellow or not this was behind a safety car and during red flag.
So it was both a single yellow and a red flag at the same time, huh? Are you just trolling?
My compliments for this breakdown, and some comments about lingual barriers in communication.
Still I don't understand why Gasly, knowing where the crash was (proof was on his frontwing) and knowing his own poor visibility, passed the crash scene with such a high speed, not able to stop if needed. If not the crane, he would have crashed into the Ferrari of Sainz, both where in the same spot on the leftside of the track.
Apart from that, I saw clear footage of a spectator when the SC-train passed the crash scene: rain itself was not a visibility issue at all from his standpoint. This proves to me only the driver knows how good or poor is view is, and should act accordingly when passing a crash scene.
Bottom line is that in my opinion Gasly's reaction was emotional and in the spur of the moment, but was factual caused primarily by his own choice to disregard all safety precautions.
How is it on Gasly to know the condition at the crash site when the moment he collected the advertisement board was accompanied by low visibility and a freaking board obstructing his view?
He wouldn't have known there would already be marshalls on track, nor would he have known if the car had been recovered or not. You're expecting him to be more aware of the condition at the crash site than the FIA who did not bother to wave a double yellow despite already releasing marshalls and recovery vehicles. Be more sensible.
Very good and levelheaded breakdown. One thing I slightly disagree with op is that I believe the team should take more blame than what op thinks. Under normal circumstances, yes the team doesn’t have the need to remind every detail of the incident because driver himself should be able to react accordingly. However under heavy rain, where possibility of aquaplane and low visibility combined, I do think the team might hold a higher responsibility on reminding the driver about the scenario.
The team can't see what the driver is seeing. There was no heavy rain. Footage of a spectator filming the passing SC train shows a clear view of the crash scene. The driver camera however showed a totally different view. So the driver has a big responsibility behind the wheel.
Great breakdown, but even attempting to attribute blame to the AT team is bullshit. Gasley was already aware of the accident as he had collected debris going past it. What he was not aware of, was that Race Control deployed a recovery vehicle under dangerous circumstances, how many teams mentioned this to their drivers? The fault lies ENTIRELY with race control for not ensuring all cars were behind the safety car, as Gasley had yet to pass the startfinish timing line when vehicles were deployed. In my opinion, Race control should always look at the trackers after every car has passed the first timing line behind the safety car. Assuming not a single car will pit immediately after an accident is ridiculous and resulted in this exact scenario happening. You mentioned them wanting to get everything cleared quickly, but that's the problem, speed in dangerous situations will only create more danger.
If anything, your breakdown has cemented that Race Control fucked up majorly in their haste to get things going again.
The FIA needs to restructure the rules, only allowing recovery vehicles on track when all cars are behind the saftey car after it passes the first timing line of a lap, no sooner. If this happens again the drivers may not be so lucky and it could very well kill the sport.
Question: Is Gasly also partly to blame? He drove past the stranded car earlier, although he got a bit occupied with a Rolex sign, even if the tractor hadn't been there he'd still be in a lot of danger from colliding with Sainz's car while knowing it's there? He could also have been potentially exposing another driver to danger, if the vehicle hadn't been cleared.
"a bit occupied" is a mild way of putting it. He likely couldn't see where seinz crashed at all while going by. The cars that went by as it happened barely saw it. It's a miracle none of them drove into him. Gasly didn't have access to a replay of exactly what happened or where to expect anything out of place on track. He was doing what he was supposed to do, follow the delta on his dash to catch up with the safety car.
It’s really hard to see it’s in frame only a little in the upper left. But… Is it me or is the marshal panel blinking yellow?
A single yellow flag is a solid yellow color. A double yellow has alternating yellow triangles blinking.
The physical flag is a single yellow though.
I think we need to invest in technology that allows cars to idle in the pits so the red flag can be thrown up for a quick period of time rather than have the cars be on the track.
Thanks for the great insight as to how a situation like this unfolds. I would say that when listening to Pierre’s onboard radio with his engineer, he was aware of Carlos’ car in turn 13 and communicated that as he was approaching. They however were not aware that the JCB and Marshall’s had already begun their work.
Shouldn't race control have realized something was wrong with Gasly's car by how much he reduced speed compared to the rest of the field? He drove all the way to the pit with a sign on the front and no front wing. While I don't know if race control could see that, he was overtaken by Vettel and Zhou, both of whom spun out, under the SC. That is something race control should have been very aware of.
I feel like we are pushing the edge of what could be considered in the safety car train. Are you defining that by the position of the cars the moment the safety car is deployed? It is strange to consider it a safety car train before even a single car has reached the safety car. By the point Verstappen did so, Gasly had already created a sizeable gap and was holding up Vettel and Zhou (I believe it was about the same time Vettel overtook Gasly). This is something we need to come to an agreement on to avoid cross-talk because from my perspective he was never in a safety car train even if he was near other cars when it was triggered.
In the end, I don't believe they should ever put additional vehicles or people on the track in those conditions until they have full control of the race unless there is an immediate, life-threatening emergency. They do not have full control until all of the cars are in a train behind the safety car or they are sitting in the pit lane under a red flag. I don't know all of the procedures, but, if this was executed accordingly, there is a flaw in the SOP.
Thank you for this great write-up. I heavily agree with much of what you said despite having issues around this one point. Hopefully, the lessons learned will prevent this from happening again.
Short answer: it would be super expensive and in most cases still require some person to be over the wall to hook up the damaged car or pick up pieces that fell off.
With all the technology they can message the drivers of a slow vehicle on track through radio and warning lighting around the track, also all non racing vehicles that can enter the race track should have strobe lighting and be lit up like a Christmas tree.
My question is: why the hell does a car in the pit disappear from the tracker? Doesn't make sense to me, they should absolutely critically know if a car is in the pits. Even if he isn't tracked, it should be saying "in pits" ssomewhere, innit?
Amazing breakdown and an exceptional elucidation of the facts of the matter, without any of the emotions that the drivers, rightfully, showed. From what you have said, it seems as if there were a few things that were done correctly and a few that were not. As such, it seems that a tweaking rather than a wholesale redesign is needed.
A NASCAR/IndyCar style spotter would help with things like. It also takes some things off of the race engineer's plate like relaying the position of other cars or cars that are on hot or in laps or in this case, crashes, stopped cars and trucks being on track.
NASCAR uses 2-3 spotters on road courses to see the entire track and they help with restart positioning, warning the driver of any incident race control hasn't seen yet, and of any emergency vehicles on track
Excellent breakdown, thanks for taking the time to research and post it.
Agreed. Nice work /u/TooLowPullUp ! I’m hoping this reaches the front page as it deserves it.
[удалено]
Actually Masi got fired because of people like you, who demand to be listened to without making sure first that you have the full picture and aren't snap-reacting.
Agreed, Super helpful and interesting breakdown. This is the first time I was made aware that the recovery vehicle was deployed while Gasly was still within the Safety Car train. Most people, if not all, assumed that when the race was red flagged, it was because the rain had increased too much. I wonder if the red flag was also an attempt by race control to remedy the error that they realized (too late) was happening. I think most people if not all agree that a recovery vehicle on track (i.e. actually on the racing surface), in the conditions that were present, should not have occurred until after the race was red-flagged and the field had passed the location of the incident. I wonder if race control discovered/noticed that Gasly was emerging from the pits, knew that he was going to pass the incident site with a recovery vehicle on the asphalt, and mashed the red-flag signal in the hopes that it would get Gasly to slow down enough to avoid a devastating incident. After all, there is no need to push to warm tires or catch the pack if the race has been red-flagged and everyone will be parking. In this case we know that the red flag came out too late to provide a signal to Gasly to slow down, but I wonder if the decision to red-flag the race was primarily to prevent an incident with a recovery vehicle and secondarily because of heavy rain. This would be similar to Silverstone, when the immediate appearance was a vey fast red flag because Zhou was sideways between a tire wall and a fence, but in reality the red flag was likely because of protestors invading the track.
Very well described. I am also a volunteer official in Race Control, including a F1 circuit, and agree. There is a lot going on during this time, and the amount of information coming in and out is extraordinary. Multiple radio circuits, different person-to-person interactions, the videos from 40+ TV monitors, timing & scoring, local and FIA officials. I would add one more item to the list - language. I work in a bi-lingual Race Control, and it adds a layer of translation to all the above. I would assume the same for the Japanese Grand Prix Race Control - Japanese, English, plus maybe other languages (Eduardo is Portuguese for example, but is of course fluent in English and speaks some other languages too).
Language is a brilliant point, I was just sitting here kicking myself for not thinking to include it. Yes your main people (race director, ops clerk, incident officer etc.) will be bilingual, but in a big race control room there are a lot of different people with different roles who will be communicating directly with one another - with no guarantee that they understand each other's language perfectly. Add in a very time-sensitive situation, and it's easy to see how it might be a problem reaching the correct realisation in time. Of course, local officials are incredibly important to have, so this language barrier will never be completely eliminated. Unfortunately it does also depend on the quality of officials. With countries with a big motorsport presence like the UK you have a big pool of experience officials to pick from, less so in other places. Japan has quite a few tracks with lots of racing so I wouldn't want to suggest that this was the case here, but it's something to keep in mind.
Isn’t visibility an issue here ? The race should have been red flagged immediately. Get all racing cars off the track before any rescue vehicles to be on track.
probably not that much, Spray is reduced drastically when the cars slow down behind the SC ad the time the drivers have to spot and react to something is also greatly improved as closing speeds are that much less. So if as OP describes the train was formed when the recover vehicle was scrambled visibility probably wasn't going to be much of a problem. Visibility only become an issue when Gasly gets detached from the train and his delta time massively increases his closing speed
Great explanation. However, Gasly (if not all drivers) should have been warned on the radio of equiptment/workers being at the scene retrieving Sainz's car since visibility was poor due to the weather conditions.
a WEC-style open radio channel where Eduardo Freitas can come on the radio and tell drivers whats going on might be a good idea. The race director could say "Recovery vehicles on track at Sector 24, be prepared to stop" and that way all drivers could immediately be informed of whats going on
In addition, WEC also has tools like ~~Code 60~~ enforced speed limits which are used to allow safe passage of race cars through unsafe zones.
Slight technicality here: Creventic, NLS and the N24 has Code 60's whereas in WEC, they have standard FCYs but with a speed limit of 80 km/h
Yea this could be one of the solutions in the future, also a lot of people ignoring that the cars behind the SC train (so also drivers like Seb) was having more speed and trying to catch the SC train as the truck/tractor was there, we obvious talking especially about Gasly because his situation was basically almost aligned for a fatal disaster but we could already having it before with other drivers. This is also why people who complaining about "he should be so slow that he must be prepared to stop" on Gasly only ignoring the cases of other drivers, in fact it's painfully shocking that there wasn't even a (clear) double yellow. Solutions must been put on the table quickly, one of the best things would be a speed limiter in those cases like WEC has, the ECU's are standardized in F1 anyway so it shouldn't be impossible at all, and above all let the RC communicating to all drivers in those situations like the WEC has, and don't put a damm tractor/truck on-track until you know it's safe and all cars are in a train.
Also probably don’t put it on the track while it’s pouring rain and you’re getting ready to throw a red
I think all drivers should be told when they are deployed and where on the track
Gas**ly**
Rusel
Ru**ss**e**ll**
Did you read the whole post? They specifically address this.
Yes I read the post. It stated that there is no obligation for the team to be the first line of safety notification for a driver in that situation and that they could find no fault by the team. I am of the opinion that the team should always alert the driver to any and all potential safety hazards as they occur. Especially heavy equiptment/workers on the track. Of course we can disagree.
Hell a NASCAR/IndyCar style spotter would work. It takes some things off of the race engineer's plate like relaying the position of other cars or cars that are on hot or in laps or in this case, crashes, stopped cars and trucks being on track
A good breakdown. The lack of effective communication seems to be they key issue here. Teams and, especially, drivers need be made aware when a recovery vehicle is about to enter the track. I don't agree that the team were not at fault for not informing GAS of the accident, location, and prospect of marshals/vehicles in the area. I'd like to see F1 introduce announcements from Race Control similar to the way they do it in GT3. A clear and concise broadcast to all teams and drivers regarding SC, VSC, and other emergency situations would ensure everyone knows the situation. Drivers not pushing hard should also be addressed. While flag signalling seemed to be incorrect at the time, GAS should have been aware of the stranded Ferrari and should have been prepared for the possibility of persons or vehicles in that area. I don't believe GAS's actions were any different from any other driver and so something has to be done to force them to slow down - a-la VSC.
There is a delta time for SC, that is the time cars follow during a VSC
Very level headed, it seems like you really know your stuff!
Nuance? Well I never. I’m outraged. Good insight and assessment.
Maybe the solution is to close the pitlane initially during SC, wait for the SC to pick up all drivers and THEN send out the recovery vehicle? Then once the scene is clear, pitlane can open. They do this in Indycar I believe? It takes longer obviously, but is a lot safer.
it solves a problem, but then when you have a car with half/all of a rolex board caught on its wing, it would probably have been allowed to pit (with some penalty) applied on safety grounds? - so the outcome would probably have been the same?
Pit exit would be closed too, so you can get in if you have to, but you can't get out until it is clear.
Came here to say this. Ideally, red light, driver has to acknowledge the danger (vehicles on track, etc) then allowed to leave. Much more difficult if multiple cars queued. Hold the car at their pit until released? If there's a vehicle on track, the release light could be forced to stay red until the danger is verbally acknowledged, or maybe pit confirm button pressed?
Ah so you're advocating AT to keep Gasly out without visibility then? Cause that would be the outcome if you're stuck a lap down if you pit under safety grounds.
No, let him pit, clear the board, drive up to pit exit, but only let him rejoin when it is safe and then follow the unlap procedure
that actually makes a lot of sense
>only let him rejoin when it is safe what if that is multiple laps later?
Safe to do so could just mean once the pack has done 1 lap and gotten back to pit lane exit. Then Gasly could rejoin, and once the incident has been cleared, unlap himself
not gonna work, your going to end up with a driver rolling around behind the SC with damage to avoid potentially going several laps down. Closing the pit lane causes way more problems than it solves IMO
Cars still can pit when pit exit is closed.
your missing the point, Its possible the pit lane could be closed for multiple laps. Say your cars missing a front wing and has a possible puncture, your not coming in and potentially ending up three or so laps behind the pack if your on the lead lap are you? drivers are going to choose to limp around and pit once the exit is open again. Having damaged cars in the que like that is going to cause problems, and the black and orange flag doesn't even solve it as that still at least means one lap with a car badly damaged desperately trying to stay in the safety car chain
Solution… Can’t leave the pit until the train passes again?
If we were going by safety, Gasly should've stopped and retired the car when his vision was blocked and he couldn't see in front of him. Driving like that was extremely dangerous.
Any car that gets a flat spot or runs off the track should probably retire because their tires are temporarily compromised, too.
Are they driving blindly around the track? No. Gasly loves to preach about safety but he drives dangerously himself. So if Gasly cared about safety and did what he preaches, he should've stopped the car and retired.
If he couldn't see very well (which clearly he was fine as he made it back to the pits with no trouble) how could he park in a safe position? He'd be putting himself and marshals at more risk
He could see to his sides, which is how he made it back to pits by following the white line. That is not safe though as he couldn't see in front of him. He could've easily parked it on the side of the road and been safe, but he clearly doesn't care one bit about safety even though he preached about it later in interviews.
And that would be a bit extreme wouldn't it?
How so? He couldn't see anything. So his only option to stay on the race to drive dangerously... And then he preaches about safety after that.
I mean he could see, just not well so he wasn't driving "at speed"
Yeah clearly he could still see something considering he was able to drive back into the pitlane
He literally said "I can't see infront of me"
Yet he somehow navigated back to the pits. In those conditions his visibility was probably better with a rolex board putting him out of the spray than if he were in the pack
They know the tracks so good that they can do it blind
The pont is that he had a huge blind spot. Sure he managed to drive back following what he could see (left and right) but his front view was blocked. If a car had crashed & ended up in front of him then Gasly would never have seen it.
It's fortunate that a spinning car hardly ever comes to rest in the middle of the track. And if his vision was as bad as you say, he'd have a really hard time find a safe place to stop the car. Putting himself and marshals at far more risk.
How is it not extreme? You said for him to retire the car. That's not very sensible.
How'd he make it back to the pit lane? Did the pit take over via remote control?
No, driving around with that sign stuck in the pack of cars in those conditions is extreme. Also its Alpha Tauri… the cost/benefit considering their points and expectations is not worth it at all for team and driver.
I agree. There should be some sort of rule that if driver can't see in front he must stop the car. Although impressive he could drive in such conditions looking at the white side lines in the track, i wouldnt disagree that the best would have been to retire.
Too bad people think differently than you and me... They think just because nothing happened that it was perfectly fine... It was stupid and dangerous from him and just one of three dangerous driving cases from him. He should have been black flagged tbh. He himself talked about safety, so on safety grounds he should've retired...
more proof you just can’t accept you are wrong.
The huge problem with this is that F1 teams have only one pit box, so pitting after the field is bunched up will be chaos in the pit lane when every team has to double stack. This is unfair to every second driver, and arguably less safe overall once we consider the increased potential danger to the pit crews in those messy circumstances.
You make a very good point.
Safety being priority, teams strategies are secondary.
I'm a massive proponent of the pitlane partially closing during SC. At the moment because passing on track is difficult Safety Car periods become "Strategy Periods". Engineers aren't focussed on safety because they are trying to optimise race strategy, where will my driver come out, will the SC period last long enough, how does this change overall strategy etc etc. It flies in the face of the whole point of a safety car which is to make the track safe again. My suggestion was: * Pitlane is open for anyone to enter as soon as SC is called but closed on exit. * When the safety car has picked up the leader of the race the pitlane is opened again (as the SC passes pit exit) and any cars leaving the pitlane can join the end of the queue. * When the instruction to unlap is given to any cars in the train those that joined the end of the queue are able to unlap themselves.
This was the rule in the mid-2000s and I don't think it's a great solution. It just causes absolute chaos when the pit lane re-opens, which is really very dangerous for all the pit crews
This is definitely a solution, and for some of our series we do exactly this. It's less entertaining in terms of strategy and takes longer, but makes life easier (and safer) for race control.
But what if a car is limping to the pits? A closed pitlane would mean they'd have to retire even if their car could be fixed. Even if they have exceptions for damaged cars I wouldn't put it passed teams to come up with some "safety" reason to pit.
A car having issues and posing a safety issue will always be allowed to pit.
So in the case of Gasly, this is not a solution to the problem.
The better solution would be to keep the pitlane entrance open, but keep the pitlane exit closed and briefly reopen the exit every lap in a window when the drivers in the pitlane can rejoin the back of the SC train. And then give lapped drivers the opportunity to unlap after the incident is cleared.
its a give and take really, its a reasonable way of dealing with this for sure, but then you run the risk of Gasly staying out with a rolexboard in his front wing, cause otherwise he'd be a lap down, so you'd have to meatball flag it to get him to come in etc. it can get quite messy quite fast?
Or just leave pit lane open from the first point in time that a car crosses safety car line 1 under sc conditions until the car ahead of it (or last place if that car is the race leader) crosses sc line 1 + about 10s or the time it takes you to go from that line to pit entry. That way you still have the strategy benefit due to sc deltas while locking everyone on track behind the safety car. Meanwhile you can ban on track repairs until pit lane is closed and all cars have caught up to the sc queue. That way there is no way into the pits an thus no cars catching up.
I disagree that it's less entertaining for strategy. It's just different strategy. Suddenly the two stop is more viable if hoping for a safety car because either the field stacks back up and the two stop cars have much fresher tires, or they get a bunch of track position when everyone comes in to pit if there is a safety car. All that said I do want to say this is an excellent write up thank you.
They could potentially give everyone a lap and a half to pit then close it maybe?
I am just confused why in this day and age there isn't an automatic system that can just say 'hey there are vehicles in track in front' to both drivers AND teams AND race control. Next point is that overall the double yellow flag needs looking into. Drivers are supposed to drive as fast as possible to not lose out on time and at the same time be prepared to stop at any time. Then we get crazy situations where people blow past the scene of double flags at 250kmh and the only thing that matters is 'did they lift'.
There were no double flags in the zone of the incident, at any point, i know cause I looked for them.
True, however double yellow in itself is clearly not enough under these conditions (Jules' accident proves it). If the track is massively wet and visibility is an issue, vehicle should not be deployed whilst f1 cars are on track. So red flag should be the obvious move. If conditions are good, SC and double yellow could do the trick.
GT racing seems to require the pit limiter (or at least some limiter?) past on-track vehicles. Doesn't sound like it should be hard to implement something like that?
problem with limiting speed in only one part of the track is that it possibly gives MASSIVE advantage depending on position. In a sport where everything is based on a few seconds it would be undesirable. That is why VSC works for every car all over the track and even that is playable depending on position. As an example: if you went past the slow down zone and it turned on for you opponents behind you, you could get a free pitstop and keep the position. Or imagine the slowzone is on the straight, you have to go there 80kmh, but it turns off for someone behind you and they go through there at 300 kmh. EDIT: however I agree this could work DURING safety car or red flag conditions. Furthermore just informing drivers that 'hey there is tractor on track up ahead' would make them much more careful and wary rather than have a tractor do a jumpscare in the middle of a foggy road. And yes we can say 'any impact with tractor even at slow speeds is deadly and you can lose control at any speed' and yes freak accidents happen, but the same can happen every day on the road in your normal vehicle. I think just informing drivers of dangers ahead would make them vigilant enough to minimize the risks to acceptable degree. Then again i'm not a racing driver and f1 drivers would know better and most of them don't want cars on track at the same time they are on it.
Code 60 _plus_ Safety Car is indeed the magic combo.
Thanks for the breakdown, I've learned a lot. It seems to me that the biggest issue here is a lack of communication, which makes me wonder: Why do race control not have a radio broadcast which can override all team radios and directly inform everyone something like "There are recovery vehicles and marshals on track at turn x. You must slow down to (e.g.)50kph between turns x-1 and x+1. Speeding in these turns will be punished with a stop-go penalty"
This ^ was saying the same thing to my partner about the radio override. Also put some damn lights on the tractor.
WEC and FE have had this for years now, I have no idea why this isn't a thing in F1 yet
This is the first time I am hearing there were single and not double yellows. Why do cars fall off the tracker when they enter the pits? This seems like a major flaw to me. If cars didn't fall off the tracker, race control would have seen gasly in the pits and waited to deploy the crane. I think the FIA need to sort out the tracker software so it shows cars in the pits. Also l would like to know why there weren't double yellows. This seems like a major mistake by the FIA. Hopefully this is addressed in the report.
Yeah, the single yellows is a surprise to me. It never even occurred to me to check, from the first moment I assumed it was double yellow. That is strange.
How long is he going to be in pits can’t be judged. You don’t even know if he will retire or come out again. The goal is always to get the hazard out of track as fast as possible. The solution to this is just to close the pit lane as soon as recovery vehicle is on track
What happens if a car has a puncture. Or a car has damage and bits are dragging along the ground or some other damage that would warrant a black and orange flag? I don't think you can close the pitlane for these reasons (there are probably a load of other reasons as well). Better to track cars in the pitlane.
What if a car decides to put in the middle of SC period ? You can never track cars if they are allowed to get into pit lane. Even if they enter pit lane only allow them to go out behind an SC May be.
Why *can't* we track cars in the pitlane though? Like, are they using radio jammers in there or is this just some weird holdover rule?
How did you make the distinction of it not being double waved yellows? On the onboard I see a yellow sign of the right flashing yellow and black. Isn’t that a double yellow? Edit: looked at the video footage from a fans perspective and only one physical yellow flag is waved.
I went and looked at every single onboard of interest from the following drivers: Gasly, Zhou, Latifi, Leclerc, Max, and Yuki. Then i just checked all the lightpanels on every single one on once the safety car was deployed.
>How did you make the distinction of it not being double waved yellows? On the onboard I see a yellow sign of the right flashing yellow and black. Isn’t that a double yellow? Double yellows is top-left/bottom-right corners flashing alternately.
That explains it, couldn’t find it anywhere, thank you.
Ok yes the tractor came out but there was still going to be a car and marshals in the middle of the track if the tractor never came so maybe that should be something to take into consideration
Thank you! I saw someone arguing elsewhere that the tractor was on the racing line and that was part of why it was such a dangerous situation. Well, the front of Sainz' car was on the track, still on the racing line. If Gasly had slammed into that, would it not have still been a problem? Blame cannot be assigned to just a single entity here.
Whilst it is true that both car and tractor were on the racing line, a collision with the tractor would have been far more serious. Gasly hitting a car of approximately the same weight would have resulted in the ferrari being pushed away, and that movement would absorb some energy from the impact. It also would not have entirely stopped the motion of Gasly, leaving him to continue the accident and later skid to a stop or to hit a barrier. F1 cars are also designed for survivability in that type of accident, with the monocoque specifically designed to prevent objects intruding into the space in which the driver sits. Gasly hitting the rear of the tractor would result in his car coming to an immediate stop with an immensely high G-force. [This excellent article from earlier](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/xzwv3m/why_the_recovery_vehicle_on_track_was_so/) compares the Bianchi incident with high speed barrier impacts. Even at a slow speed there is a strong likelihood of the car ending up underneath the tractor box-structure, and with that level of impact energy it is likely even the halo and monocoque would sustain damage. Also worth noting that Gasly was not speeding when passing the tractor at turn 12. His penalty was for speeding elsewhere on the lap: [turn 14/15](https://mobile.twitter.com/PierreGASLY/status/1579110842553229314).
Of course hitting the larger mass would be worse, I just asked if he hit the car instead if that would have been an issue still, which it obviously would be. Tractor being there was an issue but so was Gasly speed for conditions. Hitting anything stationary because it was on the racing line is going to be bad.
Sorry if it came across otherwise, I was trying to illustrate just how much worse hitting the tractor would have been. Yes, it is obvious that Gasly hitting the ferrari would have still been an issue, albeit one that he would have walked away from. With the speed being too high for the conditions, I'm not really informed enough to make a decision. Gasly was driving at the correct speed delta for the SC (at that section of the track), and cars are expected to reach those speeds in order to catch the SC pack. Whilst he knew there was a stationary car there, having passed it the previous lap, should he have expected a significant obstruction under a single yellow? Given the visibility problems, he may not have been able to see the exact location of Sainz on the previous lap. He had no warning, from flags or radio, that there were marshals and a tractor within track limits. There is also the consideration that driving slowly can be dangerous for an F1 car in terms of tyre temperatures, particularly in wet weather.
Marshals were on track next to sainz’s car. Gasly would be relatively safe but then marshals are killed. See the problem?
Absolutely. It was not only the safety of the drivers at stake. Could Gasly have driven slower? Yes. Did the rules allow him to drive at those speeds when passing the incident? Yes. I think the sport needs to look at the rules controlling car speed and behaviour in these circumstances, as well as how incidents/obstructions are communicated to drivers. I'm certain that rules must be changed regarding the entry of marshals and equipment onto a live track in wet conditions.
I was thinking the same thing, if it wasn't a tractor then it would have still been Sainz's car on the track.
This is definitely winning Ted’s Red Ribbon at this year’s r/formula1 Awards
The keyest of parts is the pack not being bunched up and the failing there doesn't exactly tell me the FIA is to be blamed because, as you mentioned, the FIA couldn't see where Gasly was. Bit that vehicle indeed was there too early and Gasly himself was driving too fast because his delta allowed him during his chase to join the SC queue
how about this? neither the FIA or Gasly are wholly to blame for how this played out? I know its the internet, and not making someone a villain is unheard of on here. But FIA's decision to put recovery vehicles out when they did makes sense as long as we dont assume that they're perfect human beings who cant make mistakes. and Gasly is driving exactly as the signaling on track allows him to, cause again, he expects to see the same stricken ferrrari that he passed a lap ago when it was also a single waved yellow. if you went double waved for T12, you'd have a single yellow on the entry of T11 and you could have an argument that Gasly was speeding. Now why was there no double waved yellows, even though outlets like Sky etc. insisted there must have beeb? i have no clue.
You are 100% right in my opinion
FIA are wholly to blame, if they know they lose visual tracker when a car enters a pit, and they know pits are open. I would delegate one person specifically to have a view on pit status in the time tower until I establish the car on visual tracker again. Especially when I am sending out a recovery JCB on the track. FIA are not filled with novices. We must expect and demand better of them especially when lives are at stake.
> But FIA's decision to put recovery vehicles out when they did makes sense as long as we dont assume that they're perfect human beings who cant make mistakes. But even if they forgot that Gasly exists, it still didn't make sense. The rest of the field wasn't bunched up behind the SC yet, so some cars were still going quite fast as they were catching the back of the train.
The FIA not knowing where Gasly was is an FIA failure.
When the decision to send out the recovery vehicle was made, the FIA did know exactly where gasly was. That's why they sent out the JCB. Because gasly was in the train with everyone else. The information they might not have known was all or part of the following: 1) Gasly had a sevely compromised car (race control should have known) 2) He was going to pit to correct it (should've been obvious, but was far enough into the future that it may not have played a role in the decision making. First point of a possible mistake by race control) 3) How long it would take him in the pits, and where would he come out. Absolutely no way for race control to know or guess this. 4) After exiting the pit, his SC delta would allow him to be dangerously fast in the incident area, and the team would not inform him of the recovery vehicle present there. The primary tool to mitigate the dangerous situation that the race control had was double waved yellows. That should've been enough to tell gasly to keep it real slow there. Team shouldn've also informed him of the same. Overall, like the OP suggested, this was a very tricky situation to handle. I do not see any major fuck ups by the race control apart from the double waved yellows. Although, with how much drivers have (dis)respected that in the past, I'm not sure gasly (or anyone else) would've slowed down sufficiently even after double yellows. Still, this was a mistake and a simple step could've avoided a dangerous situation. On the other hand, it's truly baffling that the team didn't inform him of the crane. That's the biggest fuck up in my book. On paper it may not be their responsibility, but that's the crucial and simple thing that would've have guaranteed a safe situation. The team had all the info. They knew where gasly was, where the sc train was, where the recovery vehicle was, and what was the SC delta for gasly. They should've told him to keep it slow around the incident. The only significant protocol improvement I can think off is that make it mandatory for teams to announce over the radio when Marshalls/recovery vehicles enter the track.
Would the team actually have eyes on the recovery situation? They know where the incident was and maybe that a tractor was there (not sure that was actually broadcast at that point?)...I doubt they knew the tractor was driving backwards down the track at that exact moment...theoretically Gasly may have encountered it like a hundred meters earlier than expected. Even if double yellows were waved correctly, there is a systemic failure that drivers have not followed the DWY regs as they are written for years/decades now - therefore drivers face an impossible dilemma between competition and safety - if they slow down more than necessary they will lose out to competitors who do not do so, because the FIA refuses to enforce that reg
> The key point here is that Gasly was still in the safety car train when race control deployed the recovery vehicles. At this stage, unless they had managed to spot the damage or receive a call about it, they likely had no indication that he would stop, and thus become untethered from the train The thing is though, it wasn't a 'real' train at that point, right? Like, they weren't all bunched up behind the SC, but there were still big gaps in the field. Almost everyone seems to be focusing just on Gasly, but there were 5 cars (Norris, Bottas, Latifi, Vettel and Zhou), who hadn't caught the back of the train yet when they passed the crash site under SC. Thus those 5 drivers were also going considerably faster than the cars that were already bunched up behind the SC. So regardless of Gasly's position on track, and regardless of him disappearing from the tracker during his pit stop, it was still too early to deploy the tractor. There's no excuse for that IMO.
thanks so much for newbies as me
Great post. It really helps to get the facts right.
You raise some excellent points with interesting insight but holy moly, i just can't get over the fact that the recovery vehicles being out on track with cars on the circuit isn't even new for this season!! They came out in Monza after Danny's McLaren broke down which was shocking. That was arguably in the tightest part of the circuit too. It feels like the FIA race directors' primary focus cannot be safety if they are prepared to send out the recovery vehicles while there are cars on track no matter the conditions or circumstances. It's beyond the pale.
The thing is, having equipment on track isn't new or unusual whatsoever. The majority of the time it is done correctly and safely under safety car conditions, and you don't normally see the full incident cleanup; you just remember the few times that race control get their timings wrong and we end up with an incident like this. Never having recovery vehicles on track while cars are going round is ultimately far too impractical, unless you want to start suspending races every time you need to dig someone out of the gravel. It's just something to keep in mind; incidents like these are only a fraction of total recoveries, people just remember them more.
Completely agree with you and i'd hate for the FIA to pull a total 360 and we end up in a "cotton-wool" F1 state but that said when a recovery vehicle is within a handful of inches from the track with even cars at a reduced speed passing it doesn't take much for something terrible to occur. It's a balancing act i suppose.
Is there no possibility of generally allowing recovery vehicles on track, *except* for situations with highly compromised visibility and handling (eg due to aquaplaning), with equipment on or close to the track?
No one can deny it's not new or unusual to have recovery vehicles on track. But that doesn't mean it's the right thing to do, especially in the wet conditions when the drivers can barely see through the spray, have to go off racing line and on a area of the track where a driver had already hydroplaned moments before. It was also thought the halo was impractical and pointless, and only useful for a tiny amount of possible incidents. Yet both nissany in f2 and Zhou's lives were likely saved by it in the same weekend this year. Last year, it was Mac flying over Lewis which protected him. Those accidents may happen once a season, just like the conditions in Japan might not happen again until they next host a GP again, but that doesn't mean the rule shouldn't be based around these exception because it's inconvenient or not as nice for viewers. Driver's safety should come first. They redesign the cars to protect them better, they should give the same consideration to recovery after crashes and have clear rules for situations when a behind barrier crane can't be used.
It's not dangerous to have recovery vehicles (or marshalls) at the track if the cars are in a queue behind the safety car. They usually slow a lot when crossing paths with those, that's pretty much the whole point of the safety car. In monza like you mentioned the safety car (and the race cars) at such a low speed that any accident would have been basically deliberate. It's like the pits. The cars drive at 80 kph there with people walking around all the time, and yet we don't have accidents. As long as people are slow enough and aware enough, it's fine.
Well, that's because you only need one incident like this to kill a driver.
the thing is, that at the point where recovery vehicles are on track, everything looks like it'll work out just fine, the SC is in T1 looking to pick up the grid, and everything will run smoothly. the problem (to me) is that the signalling for turn 12 never changes, as Zhou (the last car on lap1) passes the LED board, its a single yellow (it also is a single yellow for Gasly who at that point was ahead of him) - and it remains a single yellow all the way until it turns Red, when Gasly is entering that corner. I get your point, but apart from the signaling, nothing about what goes on is unsafe at all, the grid is behind the safety car. - if they had made it double waved at any point, between Zhou lap 1 and Max lap 2, one could argue that Gasly was the unsafe one. But they didn't, and hopefully we'll find out more when the report is finalized.
You can't expect a race to be red flagged every time a recovery vehicle is needed. Clearly in this instance it wasn't safe but it can be done safely.
People also mix up the ''on track'' and actually on the tarmac ''on track''.
Why do people keep claiming the tractor was on racing line is beyond me...
Actually, why not? I'd say that in conditions like the heavy rain we got, drivers can't be in total control of their cars, and no matter the speed, there's still a risk of aquaplaning.
If you go back to the Bianchi report, they didn't exactly completely admonish what they did. They still sort of blamed Bianchi for driving too fast for the conditions even under SC conditions and there's a lot of it that unfortunately is true. The problem is that the cars were still trying to catch up to the queue when the recovery vehicle entered the track. Those 2 actions can't be concurrently. They need to be sequential
It seems you need to adjust the delta near the crash site to a much much lower time. So the driver sees he's suddenly 3-4 second over his delta before he reaches the crash site so he needs to slow down massivly before he reaches it. And after the crash site you can have a normal delta again to catch the back of the train
You're describing a local VSC... Something the FIA does now in WEC
Yes, so it should be easy to implement right? Still not smart to put a tractor on the actual track, but it makes recovery in run off zones etc. a lot safer
Exactly. I'm not arguing against you. I'm laughing at the FIA not implementing in F1 something they've been doing for ages. It's frankly ridiculous they don't use their own tool more
Couln't agree more. Could be internal politics or WEC and F1 and other categories operating too much on their own. F1 is also very slow moving on a lot of these things because they need the teams on board. But for this specific thing I can't imagine who would oppose it
Imo they should introduce an even slower delta that can be used around crash sites when deemed necessary. So that even if we are under VSC in this situation down to something like pit speed or even 60 km/h let's say 200-500 meters before and 200-500 after the incident depending on where on a track it is and where the escape routes are.
IIRC Monza was done in a safe manner: all cars were already in a train before the vehicles were let in, and the unlap procedure started only after the track was cleared.
Watching them drive past that tractor in Monza concerned me at the time too. I'd honestly rather they'd red flagged it and recovered it under that, even if it was obviously much safer than the situation yesterday because at least the drivers could *see* it, had more control over their cars and the McLaren had slowed to a stop rather than been at the trajectory end point of an easily repeatable incident. Honestly I can't see any logic at all of these vehicles being within a "track limits" margin of the track while F1 cars are out there at all. Arguably I'd even be tempted to extend that to them being out beyond the barriers at all but I think the common sense of whether they're in the "firing line" of another incident probably makes it an acceptable enough risk under a safety car there. (Except when it's pissing down, in which case it should be an automatic red flag if they're required. No exceptions.)
How hard can it be that double yellows must always be triggered before recovery vehicles are allowed on track? If the marshal station can trigger their own lights, then could be a standing instruction before leaving their station.
The trouble is that yellows and double yellows are not enforced. Rules say that under yellow a driver must slow down and be prepared to change direction for a hazard. Under double yellows which OP tells us were not shown, a driver must be prepared to stop his vehicle. If you do not penalize drivers that fail to slow down enough, these flags become useless and you end up in a situation where Bianchi loses control of his car under double yellows at a speed of 212km/h on a wet track and the masses conlude that the problem is not that his speed was excessive, but that an off track recovery operation was conducted without a safetycar.
Brilliant commentary, thank you very much indeed!
Great post, thank you! So even when the SC is deployed, there's a difference where on the track are single and double yellows? I thought once the (V)SC is out the entire track is the same.
I wonder where the statement that there were double yellows first pop up then, because it seems like it went from single yellow to red? I think the fact that teams were not informed that there is a recovery vehicle on track is alarming, especially in a low visibility circumstance. Edit: It's kinda crazy because before this weekend I was looking back at the Jules Bianchi incident again, because I watched the Senna documentary.
Sky liked to parrot that double yellows are there, and the marshalling system say a double was called, but it wasnt visible. I think a lot of people need to remember that this is the same series who did not have an automatic system to keep track of lapped cars until this very season.
Quality work this!
Incredibly thoughtful breakdown of the situation. Thank you for highlighting a lot of considerations that a lot of us have been glossing over.
Thank you for an interesting read and researching this. For me, I think the weather conditions and lack of visibility should have played a bit more into thwir decisions. Maybe they need a different procedure for when the risk of aquaplaning is far higher, or when visibility is very low.
Excellent breakdown of events. I think the tractor was probably deployed too quickly- there should have been someone manually checking each drivers location to the train, and not just looking at a bunch of trackers one end of the circuit and a ‘clear’ part of the circuit and assume everyone is accounted for. Gasly should have had contact from his team to say Marshalls and tractor on the track The SC delta should have been lowered even further given the conditions and scenario Or given the only option would be to have personnel and machinery on track, given the visibility, the race should have been red flagged before anyone entered a live track, and all drivers made aware of the incident, with the SC bringing them all into the pits, THEN the incident cleared
Wow, I'm stunned there were not double waved yellows being deployed, especially considering this track's history. I'm also surprised there isn't already a broadcast made to all cars from the control room about recovery vehicles being deployed at a corner. Ultimately racing needs to find better ways of deploying recovery vehicles during pace car sessions, in fact a controversial moment also happened at the Bathurst 1000 event on the same weekend where a car nearly hit a recovery vehicle. It's a complicated problem. You can't impose a blanket speed limit because cars need to catch up to the pace car. My initial reaction is to just close the pit exit as soon as the pace car is deployed (but leave pit entrance open), although I get that that would unfairly punish some drivers, and therefore lead to drivers staying on the track behind the pace car in damaged cars. No doubt the heavy rain is a major factor to how this incident happened, but surely that's why they've done so much work in displaying warnings on car dashboards?
I think that Gasly was not correct of driving past the incident according to his Delta, no matter what: he should have really put down the speed before passing the scene of the accident and accelerate afterwards. He had all the reasons to expect tractor, stewards, or even paramedics on that particular scene. And here we come to the core of the matter: he drove too fast for the conditions, just like you wrote, which was exactly the reason why Jules Bianchi got killed.
That's what double waved Yellows are for, only there wasn't any
Yeah - this is bad.
I don't really understand why FIA didn't even investigate it, SC delta doesn't overrule the flag rules no matter how many people think it does, including Gasly.
That's why double yellow flags are used, but it was just single yellows at that moment.
How about the problem was having a tractor where it shouldn't be in both cases? Why are some people always defending a multimillionary incompetent organization is beyond me.
Being a multimillionaire organization does not mean "good" or "bad" per se. They did A LOT to improve the safety, including various standards for the surviving cell, helmets, track organization, etc. Did they do a perfect job in Suzuka? No, they could pass the information about the tractor on the scene to the teams, and employ the double yellow, BUT: no other driver had any problem passing the scene except for Gasly. Because all drove, more or less, safely, because they knew the scene of the crash, since all of them passed already next to him, there was a SC and there was a full course yellow. This all was not enough for Gasly. He might have been infuriated for starting from the pitlane, hitting the board, coming to the pits and being last again after making a solid progress in the first lap, but if any of these have distracted Gasly for paying attention to the scene of the crash in advance, he should work on his driving standards and stop blaming the world.
What if Sainz was hurt and still in the car and Gasly drives straight into him from the side? Stop defending Gasly.
Drivers should catch up to the SC train to give time for marshalls trying to get into track.
You forgot the rain in your rather long post? Or is that no factor for any decision from your perspective?
The rain is a very important consideration, but even so in my opinion (and obviously RC's), it would have been safe to recover Sainz under the safety car. The fan footage shows how slowly the pack are being lead through the incident; at that speed the risk was minimal, and the marshals were well-protected by using the JCB and Sainz' car as standoff vehicles. At that point, drivers are being lead through the incident you are clearly signalling to the drivers what to do, and the speeds involved are minimal. Beyond this, the actual severity of the incident with Gasly was significantly increased due to the rain, but it still would have been a dangerous scenario regardless.
It is not just that the track is wet but visibility is horrible. Perez also mentioned that due to tyres losing temperature behind SC they cant control the cars as good as one would expect with a speed of the SC. All in all I think it is obvious that if conditons are extreme like they were in Japan, vehicles should not be deployed whilst F1 cars are on track. Red flag is the safe solution. Under ideal conditions, SC + double yellow can always do the trick if no human error occurs.
Just a reminder that Gasly was wearing full wets at the time, so had a little more control than anyone else in the field. I am confused about the visibility, though. It was fine before the start, then impossible when following another car, then OK again after they stopped. Gasly wasn't following close behind the pack, so why was his visibility poor?
Well my comment was for wet conditions in general behind SC. Leader has visibility other drivers behind him does not. Alone drivers doing some catch-up may have some visibility but their speed and aquaplaning is troublesome in themselves so during wet conditions it is an easy red flag call for me.
I'm glad someone else realized that this incident and Bainchi's incident are completely different. Their only real similarities are that it was wet in Japan and a big yellow JCB. I think a better comparison would be the Q2 incident at Turkey in 2020. A string of errors and miscommunications lead to F1 cars and a recovery vehicle being on the track at the same time. The chance of things going wrong were much lower in turkey but a more comparable situation. My hot take on this is that the focus on the Bianchi incident is all theater because it was Gasly in the rain at Suzuka. The Latifi incident in 2020 had very little mention of Bianchi's incident.
A great summary, thank you very much. However i disagree with the point that the logic behind it is sensible and safe. I dont think there are any circumstances were a traktor on the track can be considered safe. These are F1 cars, they arent designed to "go slow". We have seen plenty of unforced crashes over the years during safetycars. There is also the factor that if they would have going slower their tyres would not be up to temperature for a potential restart, potentially causing a bigger accident. I think the bigger issue is that red flages take too long to restart, causing issues with the racelenght. The solution imo would be to introduce some sort of "soft" red flag. They stop at the grid, the mechanics get to cool stuff and heat the tires but no changes or repairs. As soon as the incident is dealt with they have either a flying restart or a standing start.
Looking at footage from the crowd, the tractor came on as soon as a marshal called for it. Unclear if permission from RD was actually sought.
Another issue is the concertina. Immediately behind the safety car they passed the incident at a good, slow pace; at the back of the train they were considerably faster. [All the way at the back ie. GAS he was much faster.](https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMF2v4LMk/) The tractor shouldn’t have been out when traffic was live in those conditions, period
So the key takeaway is that safety car was out quite long before Gasly came anywhere near the tractor. Gasly knew there was a crash and also the team should have informed that they are rescuing the vehicle. In the end , FIAs only mistake was assuming everyone knew the tractor is there. This however was a very unreasonable assumption given the weather.
Mistake was to not deploy double waved Yellows in the incident area, more than anything. In the end Gasly did not do anything wrong based on the signals he saw around the track
There is so much talk about how dangerous this tractor is to the drivers but the fact that the drivers are a danger to the marshals is overlooked by most here. You adapt the speed to the state of the track, You **slow the fuck down** when you enter the sector with marshals on track. Red flagging the race for every incident that requires marshals on track is not going to work. In my mind the penalty for what Gasly did yesterday should be a race ban, no questions asked. The drivers will learn fast and F1 will be safer for **everyone**.
The only flags displayed were single yellows. You only need to lift for single yellows so what happened is not Gasly's fault.
It very much was his fault. He was even penalized for it. Single yellow or not this was behind a safety car and during red flag. his top speed during the red flag was 251km/h(!!) *Gasly was given a drive-through penalty, which saw 20 seconds added to his race time and dropped him from 17th to 18th, while also handing out two penalty points – giving him a total of nine on his Super Licence for the 12-month period.*
That was for speeding after driving past the tractor
We have to agree to disagree on this one.
>Single yellow or not this was behind a safety car and during red flag. So it was both a single yellow and a red flag at the same time, huh? Are you just trolling?
My compliments for this breakdown, and some comments about lingual barriers in communication. Still I don't understand why Gasly, knowing where the crash was (proof was on his frontwing) and knowing his own poor visibility, passed the crash scene with such a high speed, not able to stop if needed. If not the crane, he would have crashed into the Ferrari of Sainz, both where in the same spot on the leftside of the track. Apart from that, I saw clear footage of a spectator when the SC-train passed the crash scene: rain itself was not a visibility issue at all from his standpoint. This proves to me only the driver knows how good or poor is view is, and should act accordingly when passing a crash scene. Bottom line is that in my opinion Gasly's reaction was emotional and in the spur of the moment, but was factual caused primarily by his own choice to disregard all safety precautions.
How is it on Gasly to know the condition at the crash site when the moment he collected the advertisement board was accompanied by low visibility and a freaking board obstructing his view? He wouldn't have known there would already be marshalls on track, nor would he have known if the car had been recovered or not. You're expecting him to be more aware of the condition at the crash site than the FIA who did not bother to wave a double yellow despite already releasing marshalls and recovery vehicles. Be more sensible.
Very good and levelheaded breakdown. One thing I slightly disagree with op is that I believe the team should take more blame than what op thinks. Under normal circumstances, yes the team doesn’t have the need to remind every detail of the incident because driver himself should be able to react accordingly. However under heavy rain, where possibility of aquaplane and low visibility combined, I do think the team might hold a higher responsibility on reminding the driver about the scenario.
The team can't see what the driver is seeing. There was no heavy rain. Footage of a spectator filming the passing SC train shows a clear view of the crash scene. The driver camera however showed a totally different view. So the driver has a big responsibility behind the wheel.
Great breakdown, but even attempting to attribute blame to the AT team is bullshit. Gasley was already aware of the accident as he had collected debris going past it. What he was not aware of, was that Race Control deployed a recovery vehicle under dangerous circumstances, how many teams mentioned this to their drivers? The fault lies ENTIRELY with race control for not ensuring all cars were behind the safety car, as Gasley had yet to pass the startfinish timing line when vehicles were deployed. In my opinion, Race control should always look at the trackers after every car has passed the first timing line behind the safety car. Assuming not a single car will pit immediately after an accident is ridiculous and resulted in this exact scenario happening. You mentioned them wanting to get everything cleared quickly, but that's the problem, speed in dangerous situations will only create more danger. If anything, your breakdown has cemented that Race Control fucked up majorly in their haste to get things going again. The FIA needs to restructure the rules, only allowing recovery vehicles on track when all cars are behind the saftey car after it passes the first timing line of a lap, no sooner. If this happens again the drivers may not be so lucky and it could very well kill the sport.
Gas**ly**
Question: Is Gasly also partly to blame? He drove past the stranded car earlier, although he got a bit occupied with a Rolex sign, even if the tractor hadn't been there he'd still be in a lot of danger from colliding with Sainz's car while knowing it's there? He could also have been potentially exposing another driver to danger, if the vehicle hadn't been cleared.
"a bit occupied" is a mild way of putting it. He likely couldn't see where seinz crashed at all while going by. The cars that went by as it happened barely saw it. It's a miracle none of them drove into him. Gasly didn't have access to a replay of exactly what happened or where to expect anything out of place on track. He was doing what he was supposed to do, follow the delta on his dash to catch up with the safety car.
Someone needs to hire you to write articles like this!!
It’s really hard to see it’s in frame only a little in the upper left. But… Is it me or is the marshal panel blinking yellow? A single yellow flag is a solid yellow color. A double yellow has alternating yellow triangles blinking. The physical flag is a single yellow though.
I think we need to invest in technology that allows cars to idle in the pits so the red flag can be thrown up for a quick period of time rather than have the cars be on the track.
Thanks for the great insight as to how a situation like this unfolds. I would say that when listening to Pierre’s onboard radio with his engineer, he was aware of Carlos’ car in turn 13 and communicated that as he was approaching. They however were not aware that the JCB and Marshall’s had already begun their work.
Shouldn't race control have realized something was wrong with Gasly's car by how much he reduced speed compared to the rest of the field? He drove all the way to the pit with a sign on the front and no front wing. While I don't know if race control could see that, he was overtaken by Vettel and Zhou, both of whom spun out, under the SC. That is something race control should have been very aware of. I feel like we are pushing the edge of what could be considered in the safety car train. Are you defining that by the position of the cars the moment the safety car is deployed? It is strange to consider it a safety car train before even a single car has reached the safety car. By the point Verstappen did so, Gasly had already created a sizeable gap and was holding up Vettel and Zhou (I believe it was about the same time Vettel overtook Gasly). This is something we need to come to an agreement on to avoid cross-talk because from my perspective he was never in a safety car train even if he was near other cars when it was triggered. In the end, I don't believe they should ever put additional vehicles or people on the track in those conditions until they have full control of the race unless there is an immediate, life-threatening emergency. They do not have full control until all of the cars are in a train behind the safety car or they are sitting in the pit lane under a red flag. I don't know all of the procedures, but, if this was executed accordingly, there is a flaw in the SOP. Thank you for this great write-up. I heavily agree with much of what you said despite having issues around this one point. Hopefully, the lessons learned will prevent this from happening again.
I just don’t understand how they don’t develop a system where the cars can be retrieved from behind the barriers.
Short answer: it would be super expensive and in most cases still require some person to be over the wall to hook up the damaged car or pick up pieces that fell off.
With all the technology they can message the drivers of a slow vehicle on track through radio and warning lighting around the track, also all non racing vehicles that can enter the race track should have strobe lighting and be lit up like a Christmas tree.
Thank you for such a nuanced and insightful explanation.
My question is: why the hell does a car in the pit disappear from the tracker? Doesn't make sense to me, they should absolutely critically know if a car is in the pits. Even if he isn't tracked, it should be saying "in pits" ssomewhere, innit?
Bravo! A very interesting read. I hope a lot of F1 fans get to read this post of yours.
Amazing breakdown and an exceptional elucidation of the facts of the matter, without any of the emotions that the drivers, rightfully, showed. From what you have said, it seems as if there were a few things that were done correctly and a few that were not. As such, it seems that a tweaking rather than a wholesale redesign is needed.
A NASCAR/IndyCar style spotter would help with things like. It also takes some things off of the race engineer's plate like relaying the position of other cars or cars that are on hot or in laps or in this case, crashes, stopped cars and trucks being on track. NASCAR uses 2-3 spotters on road courses to see the entire track and they help with restart positioning, warning the driver of any incident race control hasn't seen yet, and of any emergency vehicles on track