It was a marginal call whether to SC or not, which is why I suspect it took a couple of minutes for them to figure out what to do. With no debris, fire etc and an intact car off the racing line this is what double waved yellows are for.

Respect for the flags can be brought back very quickly with a couple of disqualifications.

Or change the rules, if no one wants to follow them, but Indycar / NASCAR style racing is not an improvement - Race 2 at Toronto was more than 50% yellow yesterday.

Disclaimer: I did not see the race yesterday

But regarding driving etiquette in double waved yellow zones, there has to be some responsibility placed on race control to uphold the rules. The drivers have learned that there are little to no consequences to racing at full song through double yellow situtations so they do it (and partially are required to do it).

I am a kart racer and we use local yellows and we are supposed to slow down and be prepared to stop, but there is no enforcement to people who go through at full speed. The drivers learn very young, if they see a yellow and do the reponsible thing (slow down) the guy in front of them does not slow down and they lose a ton of time to the guy in front. If the guy in front gets no penality, guess what the responsible driver does the next time...he blasts through (by competitive necesitity). These are competitive drivers, they need to be held to the rules by race control.

We had a new head starter yesterday, he threw the green flag at anything...guess what, everyone (myself included) was jumping the start because he always gave the green flag and there were no consequences. It is easy to say that drivers should be responsible and respectful of marshalls, but the reality is that they won't if they are not forced to. Because the one guy who is respectful, is the guy who gets left behind.

ignoring double yellows or not, you've got a car inthe middle of a track with F1 cars flyign about. It's just purely irresponsibility not to have a SC. This is how marshals get killed.

They should make a rule that if the racing line has to be crossed by the Marshall insta SC.

What if the Marshall trips on a bump in the track and is stuck on the racing line a few more seconds then need be, all kinds of shit could be let loose.

If a Driver was put in that kind of danger it would be a no brainier to change a rule.

Quote from amp88 :

F1 drivers (and drivers in most feeder series, really) have been trained to expect safety cars in incidents like this over the years, so they've lost a great deal of respect for the flags. If you look at some of the onboards following the spin (when double-waved yellows were being shown), cars are still passing at near racing speed. As I said above, double-waved yellows would be sufficient to recover this car, but only if the drivers respected the flags.

edit: Amazing Reactions by Dino Zamparelli in a Racing Car!!. More like "Dino Zamparelli, the complete twat, ignores several waved yellow flags and nearly plows into the back of the pack".
Pastor Maldonado crashing under red flag

you can't blame the drivers though, the teams will be pressuring them to not lose ground so it ends up a situation where no one is going to slow.

Double waved Yellows should have some kind of speed limit to have any justification otherwise its the same as a yellow tbh.

Quote from Mustafur :

They should make a rule that if the racing line has to be crossed by the Marshall insta SC.

What if the Marshall trips on a bump in the track and is stuck on the racing line a few more seconds then need be, all kinds of shit could be let loose.

If a Driver was put in that kind of danger it would be a no brainier to change a rule.

Motorsport is dangerous, it comes with the territory. RC's role is to determine what is acceptable risk and what isn't. Double Waved yellows should be sufficient because of the description of what it means. You can trip over crossing the road and be in danger. Race control decided it was safe to do what they did without disturbing the race, and nobody was hurt so they weren't too reckless. I'm also pretty sure racing drivers cross the track pretty often under racing situations if the car is broken down etc so don't agree with you there either.

We don't want it going towards a situation where we have more safety cars than we have right now IMO.

Quote from IsaacPrice :

Motorsport is dangerous, it comes with the territory. RC's role is to determine what is acceptable risk and what isn't. Double Waved yellows should be sufficient because of the description of what it means. You can trip over crossing the road and be in danger. Race control decided it was safe to do what they did without disturbing the race, and nobody was hurt so they weren't too reckless. I'm also pretty sure racing drivers cross the track pretty often under racing situations if the car is broken down etc so don't agree with you there either.

We don't want it going towards a situation where we have more safety cars than we have right now IMO.

Racing drivers when getting out of the car tend to go to nearest wall regardless of what side.

Quote from amp88 :

edit: Amazing Reactions by Dino Zamparelli in a Racing Car!!. More like "Dino Zamparelli, the complete twat, ignores several waved yellow flags and nearly plows into the back of the pack".
Pastor Maldonado crashing under red flag

He clearly slowed down for the yellows. The video also shows pretty well what happens if you slow down too much. If it is raining that hard it is dangerous to go too fast but it is also dangerous to go too slow. Even if the rule says you must be able to stop the car on the distance of track you can see I'd still say it is too dangerous to slow down too much. In that instance the track was definitely too wet for racing because of the non-existent visibility.

The problem is that the two waved yellows are maybe used too easily. In F1 we have seen many cases when there is a car way off the racing line and the stewards still show double waved yellows. It diminishes the value when something that should indicate something really dangerous is most of the time just an overreaction.

I think there should be stages of yellows. One yellow when there is car way off the racing track, two when there is a car stopped on the track but not on the racing line and after that the stewards could show the red and yellow waved indicating for the drivers to go really slow. In f1 they could just force that once the drivers see waved red+yellow they could need to drop to pitlimit speed until they see green flag. That would not only keep the speeds the same within the pack (no one gets rearended, no gets punished for slowing down too much) but it would also make it a lot safer for the marshals.

It is just natural that when you see a false alarm going too many times you just get used to that it probably means nothing this time as well. It is not the fault of the drivers but it is basic psychology. It is a known cause for safety failures when you have a system that produces too many false alarms. It has dropped down airplanes, it has caused problems at nuclear reactors and even on your computer if you have windows 8 you get those totally useless alarms about this program is wanting to do x, press ok. First couple of times you probably read what it says but after half a year 99% of people just press ok without reading.

If the marshals can't work on a car off the racing line under yellows, then by logical extension they can't work on a car in the gravel trap either. All these drivers ignoring yellows could just as easily spin off the track as spin into any car stranded on the tarmac.

Safety car for any incident is the only logical conclusion to some of the arguments put forward.

Quote from Storm_Cloud :

If the marshals can't work on a car off the racing line under yellows, then by logical extension they can't work on a car in the gravel trap either. All these drivers ignoring yellows could just as easily spin off the track as spin into any car stranded on the tarmac.

Safety car for any incident is the only logical conclusion to some of the arguments put forward.

Thats all its really about mate.

IMO the car was fine to get taken off with double yellows, no one got hurt. But the what if factor mentioned shouldn't be risked for marshals. They don't get paid millions and arnt superstars living the life for themselves, they are doing this out of purely passion and to help put on a show.

Normally the SC would have been out in this condition. Normally when its borderline, the SC comes out, even when its yeah, double yellows COULD be fine, lets bring out the SC anyway. Just in case.

95% of the time, the marshals will be fine under double yellows on these situations..That 5% isn't worth it for a marshal.

Maybe if we asked the marshals, they would have laughed and said why a SC? Maybe they didnt mind, but for the majority of fans and viewers, no one wants to see a marshal killed.... maybe they wanted a SC and were cursing. Who knows really.

In a high risk environment (an F1 meeting), how much risk is too much? 20%? 5%? 1%? 0.1%? And how does one quantify that in the heat of the moment?

Quote from tristancliffe :

In a high risk environment (an F1 meeting), how much risk is too much? 20%? 5%? 1%? 0.1%? And how does one quantify that in the heat of the moment?

Well for a few years now they have erred on the side of caution...better safe than sorry....it looked like they forgot all that for a moment.
I did not see much actual danger...but did expect a safety car...along with many others.

Quote from tristancliffe :

In a high risk environment (an F1 meeting), how much risk is too much? 20%? 5%? 1%? 0.1%? And how does one quantify that in the heat of the moment?

That's a valid point and I was waiting for someone to say that. Technically I could say not even 0.1% is worth it, but the amount of risk we take in everyday life goes well past 0.1%.

But to your question, I could potentially say, No risk is worth it, allowing you to question, well technically a safety car should be out for every time debris is on the track as a marshal has to run on the course which is a potential risk and so on.

So it would be up to race control, as it is now. As i said, it was fine with double yellows, but for caution and safety, on that corner, at those cornering speeds there's a not bad chance if a driver spins, they could seriously hurt a marshal. But I say that in my chair at home, the marshals were there, they could have been told there's plenty of time to move it etc making it fine.

As a F3 driver yourself, you would have far greater experience than most around here on a high speed race meet. Out of interest, How would you have taken that while racing?

I'm not a good person to ask. Having lost a brother in a road accident, I realise that life is fragile and I have chosen to take the risks of racing (albeit somewhat controlled). I also consider everyone else (marshals, drivers, spectators) to have made the same choice (even if they haven't, or haven't done so consciously!).

So I would be fine to drive past stalled cars at high speed. I don't particularly like the idea of hitting it (or a tractor, or a marshal), but I certainly wouldn't want the race spoilt by that risk - I can choose to slow down, and so can all the other drivers. The marshals don't have to volunteer, and even if they have they don't have to obey the "run across the track and remove that stranded car whilst others continue to race nearby" command. By removing the element of choice, you take the responsibility away from the drivers (or marhals), and hence their decisions about what risks to take become muddled.

For me, racing can be too safe, but I need to expand on that for it to make sense. Otherwise I'd be racing the flimsiest car I could find, in petrol soaked t-shirts, with piles of debris on the track for me to hit, followed by some catch fencing with the finest wire available...

So... I like my HANS device. Everyone should wear one or an equivalent. Even on track days. Hell, if people weren't so bothered by wearing suitable safety wear in a car on a road, I'd say helmets, HANS and harnesses in all road cars. I like my carbon tubs. I like tyre walls. I like nomex. I like yellow flags. I like marshals, and would like them to be able to do what they do with a sensible amount of safety. I like safety scrutineering before a race. I like wet tyres. I like ABS on road cars because I recognise that 99% of people don't know how to drive, they just know how to get from A-B.

But I don't like starting races behind safety cars because someone in an office looking at the insurance document thinks it's too dangerous. I don't like miles of run off. I don't like aborting races because a car has crashed, unless marshals/medics have to swarm around the car. I don't like tracks with so much tarmac run off that it's almost impossible to not be able to rejoin. I don't like that everything has to have blame attached, as if there is no such thing as an accident. They might be foreseeable, but in some things (like racing) that shouldn't mean, to me, that they are entirely prevented.

I've not really got to the bottom of what I think is "acceptable risk/safety" and "unacceptable risk/safety", or why I think it. I'm not thinking it to be different or argumentative, and I know I've got a lot of holes in my logic. But I really don't want things to be too safe. The risk is why I like racing. I love to feel the feeling that having navigated a corner better than ever (and ideally better than everyone else at my level, although that's rare this year), I know I was moments away from a massive accident that could have hurt/cost me but my skill/judgement stopped that from happening. If racing ever just becomes driving around, and the penalty for a misjudgement is just you don't finish... then that's lost a massive part of the appeal. I crushed my T-5 vertebrae last year when I misjudged a braking point at Zolder, took off over a high kerb and belly-flopped back on to the track. It hurt. But I finished the race in a car with bent suspension and barely being able to breathe - whose fault is that? The tracks for not having safer kerbs? The Clerk of the Course for allowing the race to go ahead or continue? Or mine for accepting the risk and making a misjudgement? The latter, of course. I had to be extracted from the car and taken to hospital, which they later invoiced me for. If they'd told me that at the time I'd have taken my chances and got out, given time, myself.

I watch racing for the thrill of competition. I don't like to see crashes. But I want crashes to continue to happen, so that drivers respect the limits, and race hard within those limits. Schumacher (as an example) wouldn't have been half as 'dirty' had he been in a spaceframe car with 200 gallons on fuel in a welded aluminium tank next to his elbows. The balance is making sure that drivers are safe, but not too safe.

With the Sutil incident in question, I would have been totally, 100% happy about the car being there for x amount of time and moved under yellows. Until marshals were expected to run across the track - that is (to my twisted mind and flawed, incomplete logic) too much to expect.

I repeat - I have thought about this and why I think it, and I can't put it into a watertight reasoned paragraph. My logic is full of holes, and I patch them up with exceptions or special cases when they occur to me or are pointed out to me. I am aware I shouldn't be allowed to run a race track! And I know I'm not speaking for everyone.

Awesome way of thinking, I could not agree more.

I suppose Ive over analysed the situation on the weekend with Sutil.

When it comes to me racing (only karting) I'm that kid when getting flipped and concussed, still choose to keep racing in the heats and spending whatever I must to replace all the components for the next heats. I've raced with fractured ribs and slipped discs (just came out of spine surgery from racing ) The way I think in regards to others, I don't want a single mark on others. I guess it probably contradicting. I guess I had that phase where they are racing, or doing flags, they have made their choice to be there, but now I guess I got a very soft spot for others.

Sorry to ask a question directly to you. I felt a open wheel driver can relate more to the GP than myself. Sorry about your brother, I can perhaps somewhat relate with my father. I guess I want the dangerous, risky, silly, life of racing all to myself and let everyone around me race in bubble wrap and caution. Perhaps I just make no sense!

And I only race karts...

So... Mexico coming back, and Will Buxton tweeted this morning about good news coming for American F1 fans. I expect it has something to do with either Alexander Rossi, Haas, or the NJ/NY GP.

Quote from DeadWolfBones :

So... Mexico coming back, and Will Buxton tweeted this morning about good news coming for American F1 fans. I expect it has something to do with either Alexander Rossi, Haas, or the NJ/NY GP.

It's Rossi: http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/115113

Quote from Flame CZE :

It's Rossi: http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/115113

That doesn't sound any good to me at all

Quote from Hyperactive :

That doesn't sound any good to me at all

It could work out well if: a) He brings enough American money to allow Marussia to get rid of Chilton and let him have a race seat or b) if he gets Bianchi's race seat if/when he moves on to his next team in (potentially) mid-2015 or 2016.

Only a week late with the photo.

Quote from tristancliffe :

Only a week late with the photo.

Problem ?

That should be Kimi's P45 there and then. What a dreadful driver he is now.

oh dear, hamilton conspiracy theories coming in

Is Kimi's race engineer actually retarded. Okay, Kimi did a terrible lap but that makes the race engineer triple over-retarded for not sending him out on softs.