[aashish.shah]

This was a one off case and warrants a Red Flag, the FIA / Marshalls should have taken the call much earlier and could have helped avoid this accident, When the drivers are calling out to the pits complaining about the conditions the FIA should have been prompt on taking the decision.

I believe that the new proposal will affect the sport in a negative way and will lead to reduced viewership.

[Geo_Ipe]

Would Bianchi have been so badly injured had he crashed into the barrier and not the tractor thing ??

Shouldn't the race have been red flagged if such a dangerous piece of equipment was sitting between the track and the barrier ??

Had Bianchi crashed into the barrier and walked away from his car, would all this discussion need to have happened??

Am I missing something here ??

[sudev]

Safety is maintained and / or impacted by combined action of all concerned. Ultimate safety : do not race. Having decided to race do not just think of safety of driver only also think of marshal's on the track / track side doing work to keep the races running and safe.

In many F1 races equipment's and marshals are deployed but races continue. If every time red flag was to be raised on equipment or marshal deployment then we will not have races.

Fact is under double yellow driver made a mistake / error. How this can be avoided in future without coming down in reaction is key to keep the sport interesting.

We are only thinking of F1. Think Super Bikes or Motorcycle races.

[thetinywanderer]

Originally Posted by sudev

Safety is maintained and / or impacted by combined action of all concerned. Ultimate safety : do not race. Having decided to race do not just think of safety of driver only also think of marshal's on the track / track side doing work to keep the races running and safe.

In many F1 races equipment's and marshals are deployed but races continue. If every time red flag was to be raised on equipment or marshal deployment then we will not have races.

Fact is under double yellow driver made a mistake / error. How this can be avoided in future without coming down in reaction is key to keep the sport interesting.

We are only thinking of F1. Think Super Bikes or Motorcycle races.

Completely agree on this one. The driver's know the risk before they get into their cars. They know things can go wrong and they are okay with it.

[Yusha]

Originally Posted by Soumyajit9

What the hell !! Who comes up with lame FIA rules ?
And why employ a person to wave a flag. They could very well put in a LED display inside the driver's cockpit and show red, green, yellow, double yellow, whatever colours they want to show.

There are LEDs on the steering wheel which warn the drivers about the flags The yellow light will come on when the driver is in the Yellow flag zone and red light if the race is stopped.

aashish.shah mentioned that the drivers were calling out to stop the race. This was not the case. All but two drivers wanted the race stopped or the SC. One was Sutil, who crashed and Massa, who is useless in the wet and doesn't like wet races.

My two cents on this unfortunate incident. First off Suzuka has the possibly the best and most experienced marshals. And the Race Control and the Marshals did nothing different that day. Normal procedures were followed by race control and the marshals for car recovery. This is how it is done every time a car goes off and hits a barrier.

Yellows are shown and the car is recovered. Safety car is deployed for debris on track or if the car is in a dangerous position on or off the track.

Its easy to say in hindsight that the safety car should have been deployed or the race should have been stopped.

The track conditions were ok and F1 has raced in worst conditions than Suzuka, for ex. Fuji 2007, Monza 2008 or China 2009.

Jules Bianchi did slow down for the Yellow flags but his car aquaplaned and collided with the recovery crane. If Jules had not gone off then we would just have taken note that Sutil has crashed and that's that.

In my view the best option is to try, in a phased manner, a virtual safety car and see how that works. Covered cock pits and slow zones are knee jerk reactions and have inherent disadvantages.

I hope and pray that Jules Bianchi recovers completely and hopefully race again. Forza Jules!

[Yusha]

Originally Posted by Geo_Ipe

Would Bianchi have been so badly injured had he crashed into the barrier and not the tractor thing ??

Shouldn't the race have been red flagged if such a dangerous piece of equipment was sitting between the track and the barrier ??

Had Bianchi crashed into the barrier and walked away from his car, would all this discussion need to have happened??

Am I missing something here ??

No, he probably would have walked away if the car had hit the barriers.

No. There was no reason to red flag the race at the time. If you study the data before his crash, there is nothing to suggest that the race should have been red flagged or a safety car should have been deployed.

The procedure to recover the car under Double Yellows is in place since the last 20 years and this is what is done.

The last time something similar happened was when Martin Brundle went off in his McLaren and hit a Marshal in Suzuka in 1994. And it wasn't raining at the time.

[thetinywanderer]

The virtual safety car was experimented today in FP1 of the American grand prix. It was just a 1 lap thing though.