NewsOnF1 - Be more generous with the Safety Car

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Dear heretic

I was sick and tried of the rival network here in Australia go on about how close the racing in the champ car series is and how many different winners that series has had this year so I decided to watch one of their races. Even though it was a street circuit, I saw more action during that 1 race than I did during majority of the F1 season. The only thing lacking was the brilliant and insightful commentating of Murray Walker and Martin Brundle, had it not been for these 2 men I would have stopped watching F1 mid-way through the season and started following that series.

I wrote to you earlier saying that we need more tracks like hockenheim to see more passing, to build on that ideology, We only see passing at the start coz this is when the cars are bunched up together. We don't see the cars close together over the race distance because of the gap (in speed) between the different teams.
What struck me was surely there is a similar problem with the Champ car series it is almost impossible to have so many cars all powered by different engines to be so close to one another. Well the answer is in the fact that the safety car does almost as many laps as the cars that finish. So my proposal is that Charlie Whiting should be more generous with the safety car, I don't mean to say I want to see 10 consecutive laps behind the safety car, but rather it deployed just for 1 lap at least once every race

This will force 3 things to occur

1) Not only can the race be won and lost at qualifying, starts, and actual speed of pit stops as is the case now but also include timing of pit stop, pit strategy, and Luck (Not that these are not factors at present). Lets say for example MS is on a 2 stopper and Mazzacane is on a 1 stopper, Michael and Gaston have both made 1 stop, Michael has a 27 second lead over the 2nd place man Gaston (I know its hard to believe but bare with me) But For some reason the Safety Car is deployed on Michael's IN lap and he is unable to build up the remaining second or too to pit
and come out in front, Michael pits under safety car conditions while Gaston goes ahead and assumes 1st place behind the safety car. Now I know you might say things like if the safety car was going to be deployed the team would have called him in earlier instead of letting him go on and do his IN lap behind the Safety car

2) This will once again bunch up the cars like at the start and hopefully like the opening laps help us to see some position changes

3) This will also force the teams to recalculate strategies etc

My hope for the following season is that the introduction of the new wing regulations will enable us to see more exciting racing

Secondly I as a McLaren Fan am sick and tried of constantly hearing that the only reason Mika and David win is because of the superior speed the car has and their success has nothing to do with their driver ability. I hate to refer to another sport, but its like in cricket when a bowler balls a bad ball and gets hit for 4 or 6 the commentators often say it was a bad ball but it still had to be hit by the batsman.
Similarly they may have fast cars but they still have to get the optimum setup and drive the wheels off it during the race to finish where they do. Its not like the top 4 drivers are cruising around in 3rd gear and are still pulling away. Besides if speed is what really mattered then why aren't the arrows' drivers on the podium every race, they have shown to be the fastest on all the straights this season, even at the US GP one of the arrows' was nearly 10Km/h faster on the main straight than the McLaren.

The season ended pretty much the way it begun, with a string of M Schumacher wins. What was it that was required this season that produced success, the answer to this I believe you gave sir in your second to last issue. It can be summed up in just 1 word Flexibility. Michael and Ferrari had it McLaren didn't its as simple as that.

I was very impressed with Mika in the suzuka post race press conference, the way he conducted himself helped to ease the pain of the result. Even though he had lost his chance to join that very elite club of 3 championships in a row, he still managed a smile and what was more notable was that fact that he didn't winge about how Michael tried to run him off the road at the start. In contrast we have MS who after WINNING the US GP and putting himself in a commanding position
in the championship still found time to winge about how he was held up by David for a lap or 2. Like Mika said to be a good winner you have to be a good looser

In the future could you please when previewing a GP do what you did in the preview to Monza, That is clearly state where we can expect to see passing (if any).

The following is just a fan's frustrations

I end by saying unfortunately Michael, Ferrari and the FIA were just too strong for McLaren this season.
Why is it that Charlie Whiting warned all the drivers before the Japanese GP that any sort of interference from team mates will be dealt with seriously, The situation was not that much different before US GP, why didn't he say anything then?
Why is it that when it looked like the only way Mika & McLaren could win would be if David were to repeat what MS did to Mika last year in Malaysia.
Why was David disqualified after the Brazilian GP when out of the top 6 only Fisichella's car was within the regulations?

PS Your analysis after the US GP was brilliant, it never occurred to me that Mika was carrying too much wing and as a result of revving the car to the limit his Mercedes Benz engine gave up.

PSS Sorry about the length of this - Faris F - Australia

The Heretic replies:

Yes, I absolutely agree with you: there are many categories of racing where overtaking is not a problem but I suspect that as they also get more sophisticated overtaking will suffer. As you mentioned Australia, have you noticed how much more difficult it has become in the V8 supercars compared to say 7 years ago?

The design of the race track is very important. Ling straights ending in tight corners help but I wonder how long it will be before we have a terrible accident at the high speeds that it causes?

Although I agree that the safety car would make racing more interesting, and I am not opposed to it coming out more regularly, I do not agree with you that this would make it similar to Champ racing. The differences in performance in F1 is so big that I cannot see the racing being close for more than a lap or two after the pace car goes in, and even then there is little chance of seeing any overtaking unless someone gets the restart right (having said that, it will already be an improvement).

It will certainly make pit stops interesting and put even more emphasis on flexibility of team strategy.

Yes, to win a race you need a good driver a good car and some luck. Not one of those can be second rate. It therefore follows that unless a major drama removed all the top drivers in a race, whoever wins deserves to.

Yes, Mika demonstrated why he is a champion when he graciously gave Michael credit. Maybe next year the situation will reverse again and we will see if Michael learnt from it. Also do not forget that Michael has a lot of respect for Mika.

If at all possible I will include my views of where overtaking is possible when I do my normal race preview next year. Just remember - it is getting harder and harder to predict.

Your point on disqualification is valid. One can only assume that it is fair and that we are not aware of all the issues. I hope so anyway - I would hate to see a bias.

Thank you for your kind words on the US GP.

The Heretic