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Firstly a personal caveat for this post. I fully support the penalties given to Vettel and Stroll, in fact I thought they got off lightly.

The point of this thread is to discuss what could be done in such situations, not simply today. I've seen drivers often pull back on to track where they're parked up side on and therefore have no view whatsoever of what's heading their way. OK, you could argue than Stroll and Vettel could have reversed and altered the angle they rejoined the circuit but that's not always possible. It was mentioned on the Sky commentary that a marshall could have waved them back on when clear but there's no way a marshal should ever be given that responsibility imo.

I guess the team have a view of the tracking screen and could radio but even this is hard to judge as they travel so fast and sitting on the pit wall does not tell you how quickly a car could get going again.

Brundle has driven man contemporary F1 cars and said himself that you have zero side vision.

Any ideas?

It's got to be up to the team to inform the driver over the radio that the track is clear.

In this instance though Vettel should have known without being told, given that it was close to the start of the race and the field was still bunched up. Stroll I have some sympathy with as his car was in a dangerous position.

j man wrote:It's got to be up to the team to inform the driver over the radio that the track is clear.

In this instance though Vettel should have known without being told, given that it was close to the start of the race and the field was still bunched up. Stroll I have some sympathy with as his car was in a dangerous position.

Yes he was in a more dangerous place, but he then chose to move it to an even more dangerous place!

The drivers are in radio contact with their teams, so ensuring safety when their drivers can't see when to re-join from a standstill is clearly their responsibility. Restricting the driver's view in the interest of safety is fine, but it carries a penalty as today showed us once again.

Asphalt_World wrote:Firstly a personal caveat for this post. I fully support the penalties given to Vettel and Stroll, in fact I thought they got off lightly.

The point of this thread is to discuss what could be done in such situations, not simply today. I've seen drivers often pull back on to track where they're parked up side on and therefore have no view whatsoever of what's heading their way. OK, you could argue than Stroll and Vettel could have reversed and altered the angle they rejoined the circuit but that's not always possible. It was mentioned on the Sky commentary that a marshall could have waved them back on when clear but there's no way a marshal should ever be given that responsibility imo.

I guess the team have a view of the tracking screen and could radio but even this is hard to judge as they travel so fast and sitting on the pit wall does not tell you how quickly a car could get going again.

Brundle has driven man contemporary F1 cars and said himself that you have zero side vision.

Any ideas?

I have a question.

If you don't believe the drivers can see if anyone is coming then how can you support a harsh penalty? If they can't see there's nothing they can do to avoid it really?

Whatever way you look at it its just crazy driving, in my view the penalty was not severe enough. Why?

Well remember 8 days ago when the crash at Spa occurred one driver died and another driver is still critical as the result of a T-bone accident. Vettel in the week calls for more safety in the sport. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/49599387 then presents his car across the track to almost perfectly set up an accident.

Coupled with the qualifying fiasco Its the drivers behaviour that needs reigning in, however, I cant see any stewards with the bottle to set the safety agenda. Monza stewarding was a disgrace!

mikeyg123 wrote:

Asphalt_World wrote:Firstly a personal caveat for this post. I fully support the penalties given to Vettel and Stroll, in fact I thought they got off lightly.

The point of this thread is to discuss what could be done in such situations, not simply today. I've seen drivers often pull back on to track where they're parked up side on and therefore have no view whatsoever of what's heading their way. OK, you could argue than Stroll and Vettel could have reversed and altered the angle they rejoined the circuit but that's not always possible. It was mentioned on the Sky commentary that a marshall could have waved them back on when clear but there's no way a marshal should ever be given that responsibility imo.

I guess the team have a view of the tracking screen and could radio but even this is hard to judge as they travel so fast and sitting on the pit wall does not tell you how quickly a car could get going again.

Brundle has driven man contemporary F1 cars and said himself that you have zero side vision.

Any ideas?

I have a question.

If you don't believe the drivers can see if anyone is coming then how can you support a harsh penalty? If they can't see there's nothing they can do to avoid it really?

It's not a case of believe. It's fact. Aside from that, I think that today's two drivers could have hit reverse which would have enabled them to have more off track space to turn in before entering the track. They both simply drove across the racing line at about 90 degrees which is shocking.

I can't believe either of their teams told them to do that.

Asphalt_World wrote:

mikeyg123 wrote:

Asphalt_World wrote:Firstly a personal caveat for this post. I fully support the penalties given to Vettel and Stroll, in fact I thought they got off lightly.

The point of this thread is to discuss what could be done in such situations, not simply today. I've seen drivers often pull back on to track where they're parked up side on and therefore have no view whatsoever of what's heading their way. OK, you could argue than Stroll and Vettel could have reversed and altered the angle they rejoined the circuit but that's not always possible. It was mentioned on the Sky commentary that a marshall could have waved them back on when clear but there's no way a marshal should ever be given that responsibility imo.

I guess the team have a view of the tracking screen and could radio but even this is hard to judge as they travel so fast and sitting on the pit wall does not tell you how quickly a car could get going again.

Brundle has driven man contemporary F1 cars and said himself that you have zero side vision.

Any ideas?

I have a question.

If you don't believe the drivers can see if anyone is coming then how can you support a harsh penalty? If they can't see there's nothing they can do to avoid it really?

It's not a case of believe. It's fact. Aside from that, I think that today's two drivers could have hit reverse which would have enabled them to have more off track space to turn in before entering the track. They both simply drove across the racing line at about 90 degrees which is shocking.

I can't believe either of their teams told them to do that.

I think they got the penalties about right.

Assuming the drivers can find reverse. Half the time trying to get into reverse, the car sits for eons inching forward while drivers try to find the gear, which depending where they are, can be very, very dangerous. Surely there is a better solution. I don't think we have heard it yet here or from the commentators, but this is not the first time and won't be the last that drivers pull out into traffic because they can't see.

The penalty is beside the point - it is a dangerous situation that needs to be rectified.

Penalties justified 100%.
Reverse is not always applicable but is a good solution. If a car sits on the kerb, like Vettels car, it will slowly move until it touched the concrete, then it will move fast forward - exactly what happened with Vettel when he hit Stroll. The same might happen with reverse in some cases. The only thing is to accredit the drivers team to monitor the situation and order to stop or move.

Stroll did say when he moved, he didn't see Gasly. Vettel & Stroll saying they couldn't see any oncoming car. Stroll moved as he knew he was on the racing line & wanted to move out of there quickly but couldn't see Gasly.

As mentioned a few posts ago, it's a worry that we always hear people within F1 talking about troubles finding reverse gear. Surely it should be a given that finding reverse gear should be as easy as any of the forward gears.

I'm reminded of Blinky's response to me in the Hubert crash thread: spotters. May be worth considering.

Neither should have rejoined but as Brundle pointed out they would have had to wait for the whole field to come through in order to be sure it was safe and at that point the race is over anyway. So from Vettel/Stroll's point of view it's worth the risk, maybe they get lucky and the other driver goes to the other side of them.

.

I thought that one of the standard screens the pit crew had was a whole circuit view with ALL the cars showing up due to their GPS markers.

Surely the team radio could have helped get Vettel back on track safely ?

( They use the GPS tracking to warn of drivers coming up behind, why not for a more serious safety reason ? )

Greenman wrote:.

I thought that one of the standard screens the pit crew had was a whole circuit view with ALL the cars showing up due to their GPS markers.

Surely the team radio could have helped get Vettel back on track safely ?

( They use the GPS tracking to warn of drivers coming up behind, why not for a more serious safety reason ? )

Probably quite hard to tell using that if a space is big enough to get back on track in or not. Although I suppose they could just tell the driver where the closest car is.

They should do what Grosjean did in Barcelona; just floor the throttle back across the track in front of the entire field and hope for the best. Seriously, I’ve no idea how he didn’t get banned for that.

As for today; if the drivers can’t see, they need to wait until their engineers tell them there is a gap on the tracker. Pretty simple really.

Option or Prime wrote:Whatever way you look at it its just crazy driving, in my view the penalty was not severe enough. Why?

Well remember 8 days ago when the crash at Spa occurred one driver died and another driver is still critical as the result of a T-bone accident. Vettel in the week calls for more safety in the sport. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/49599387 then presents his car across the track to almost perfectly set up an accident.

Coupled with the qualifying fiasco Its the drivers behaviour that needs reigning in, however, I cant see any stewards with the bottle to set the safety agenda. Monza stewarding was a disgrace!

This is my thoughts exactly, as well as Bottas not being penalised for blasting through yellow flags. Did everybody forget last week already.

Surely with the modern electronics sending virtual safety car data to the driver, it also ought to be possible for race control to tell a stationary spun driver warnings to stay stationary until the track is clear to rejoin the circuit?

Stroll was furious with Vettel for what he did. But ironically, Stroll did the same thing. This means there is something missing in the form of guidance or inability to see sideways because of neck safety gear they wear.

UnlikeUday wrote:Stroll was furious with Vettel for what he did. But ironically, Stroll did the same thing. This means there is something missing in the form of guidance or inability to see sideways because of neck safety gear they wear.

This is never popular when it gets brought up for F1, but a spotter would solve that problem. I know spotters are viewed as some sort of American weakness, but there are times when a driver needs information they just don't have themselves.

pendulumeffect wrote:Surely with the modern electronics sending virtual safety car data to the driver, it also ought to be possible for race control to tell a stationary spun driver warnings to stay stationary until the track is clear to rejoin the circuit?

How exactly would they do that? Vocally to the driver? I don't think lights on the wheel would work. There wasn't much of a gap between cars. The lights would come on the shut off instantly when another car was arriving. Would end up looking like a turn signal. The only clear safe move is to let ALL the cars pass before rejoining but who honestly is going to let that happen. By the time the team realizes he's spun then looks at the other cars on track I feel Vettel has already rejoined. He was hardly stationary. Tough call.

I don't think the practicality of spotters is applicable for F1 - they work well on ovals. How often does a situation like Vettels arise? Teams would need 4-5 spotters at each track and might go seasons without ever needing them.

A small screen with a look right/left button on the wheel. A wide angle UHD camera looking left and right built into the halo?.

Thing is, when you watch the replay, it looks like Vettel stops, looks left and then promptly proceeds to go on the path of STroll. Maybe he looked but could not see anything and decided to take a chance. It could have ended more badly than it did. This is Ascari, cars are flying through there.

With the HANS device, how much can a driver look sideways now? In the way Vettel or Stroll were stranded, I doubt rear view mirrors would've helped even a bit!

UnlikeUday wrote:With the HANS device, how much can a driver look sideways now? In the way Vettel or Stroll were stranded, I doubt rear view mirrors would've helped even a bit!

You can tilt your head pretty well and look right and left. It isn't that restrictive.

Being strapped into the seat - tightly - is what restricts the view - you can't just lean forward to see past a blind spot. That and the head protection. An F1 car will have no visibility at 90 degrees at all.

Even in my own race car, which is a tin top, the thing that restricts the view is the head protection on the seat, rather than HANS.