[LM24 Race] Early Morning Safety Car Helped Decide Race

[Holt]

So who remembers the early mourning safety car that separated the two leaders?

Timing and scoring showed the #1 and #2 as separated by 10 seconds in the early hours of the mourning just before sunrise. But a safety car was deployed and according to Allan McNish, it pulled out directly in front of him when he was running 2nd, allowing the leader to sprint ahead 3 minutes into the distance to the next safety car.

This let the #1 Audi receive a free pit stop for tires and fuel. It was held at pit exit until the safetycar train with Allan McNish came by. When the race started again McNish led by a few car lengths but pitted after 2 laps. The #1 thus inherited a free 90 second lead.

So how do they stop this from happening in the future again? John Hindbaugh on Radio Le Mans has said again and again the safety car should pick up the leader and everyone else should bunch up behind.

Some might argue that this hurts cars that are nearly a lap ahead, as it lets everyone else catch up. Or if the leader of a class is half a lap behind 2nd, it would allow him to close that half lap instantly.

But how many times is there a safety car at Le Mans? Once or twice?

I really do think something can be done. A lesser of two evils doesn't have to be the only way here.

Any ideas to stop the above from happening and to keep it fair?

How about some sort of pit speed limiter. Have it where when there is a yellow on track severe enough for a safety car the drivers have 30 seconds to slow down to a max speed of lets say 60mph. Something like a pit speed limiter. Essentially all the cars govern themselves and circulate the track at a slow, safe speed. Why do they need a pace car to lead them? With this method all the cars maintain nearly the exact same track position they had before the yellow.

Once the track is cleared, the drivers are given a 30 second countdown to green.

[gregtummer]

In other threads, people have said that other series have a 60kph limiter that they use during yellows. I would be okay with that.

I don't want one safety car though. Someone making up 8 miles because of a caution isn't fair.

[gregtummer]

Also other classes could get screwed if the safety car picked up the overall leader.

Situation: GT-PRO Leader right in front of overall leader. GT-PRO second place right behind overall leader. Full course caution. Now the GT-PRO 2nd place car gets screwed if the safety car picks up the overall leader.

[Holt]

I agree, one single safety car that picks up the overall leader is certainly just another "lesser evil"

Self limiting speeds to me seems the best solution. The cars retain the same track position and won't get bunched up for a dangerous restart

[gregtummer]

If you go with the self limiting speeds, then the question becomes, What do you do about pit stops?

Do you just let everyone come in and go back out at 60kph to top off with fuel, change tires, change drivers without consequences?

Or do you "penalize" them like they do now by having to wait for the next safety car? Without safety cars, do you make them wait say 2 minutes at the end of pitlane since everyone is only running 60kph?

[Holt]

Originally Posted by gregtummer

If you go with the self limiting speeds, then the question becomes, What do you do about pit stops?

Do you just let everyone come in and go back out at 60kph to top off with fuel, change tires, change drivers without consequences?

Or do you "penalize" them like they do now by having to wait for the next safety car? Without safety cars, do you make them wait say 2 minutes at the end of pitlane since everyone is only running 60kph?

It would be like an American oval race with everyone taking advantage of the yellow to come in and take on fuel and tires. Or they cold penalize the cars who pit with some sort of time penalty. Theres going to be teething issues but so far I haven't seen anything thats a deathblow to the idea

The safety period should last long enough where the entire field has a chance to come in and make their pitstop. 60kph would be too slow, 60mph would be better. 60mph is about 9 minute laps.

A safety car isn't needed, safety crews should have plenty of yellow flags and lights around the area of concern. As long as the drivers follow the speed limit, everyone should be safe

[gregtummer]

I don't know, they are getting better at the 3 safety cars.

They said this year the safety cars have GPS in them so that one queue doesn't go faster than another.

I think the bigger issue is the Porsche Curves. I think they need more places there where they can drag cars behind the wall. They need to find a way to pick up the debris there without putting marshalls in harms way. It seems a lot of the safety cars in recent years have been due to accidents there (not counting the LMP1 monster wrecks).

[m1fcf]

Originally Posted by Holt

The safety period should last long enough where the entire field has a chance to come in and make their pitstop. 60kph would be too slow, 60mph would be better. 60mph is about 9 minute laps.

Then you may as well Red Flag the race, bring everyone into the pits, reset and start again, making the race a series of short sprints between TV Advert breaks. American TV should love that!! Any racing that requires a mandatory full-course caution to avoid people having an unfair advantage just isn't racing in my book.

Sometimes the safety cars fall in your favour, sometimes they don't. I don't believe the safety car decided the race. How about McNish hitting the wall? How about those times when a blue flag is a little late and a car is held up? How about the times when a car might just have missed it's breaking point and falls off the racing line?

[Aysedasi]

We've been here so many times........ Most years have at least one SC period at Le Mans. It affects the race - whatever way you do it it's bound to have an effect. IMO it didn't cause any unjust outcome at all to who was the overall winner.

[CTD]

Originally Posted by Aysedasi

We've been here so many times........ Most years have at least one SC period at Le Mans. It affects the race - whatever way you do it it's bound to have an effect. IMO it didn't cause any unjust outcome at all to who was the overall winner.

I agree!
What decided the outcome was the McNish crash.
A SC is part of motorracing, weather you like it or not. The teams know this, and knows that no one controlls when the SC comes out precisly. Therefor a SC destroying a battle is just what happens.

Besides many of the post in this, and other SC discussions have the same flaw. It forgets that the SC is there to make sure that medics and marshalls can operate quickly and safely!
This would be compromised if a SC waits to catch the Leader, as there will be a longer wait for the medics and marshalls to arrive at the accident.
With a 60km/h limit you would also compromise the safety of marshalls as cars will not be bunched together, creating large gaps of operational time to clean the track. Instead all cars keep the gaps, and the Marshalls will not be able to clean the track swiftly and safely.

[johnh875]

Originally Posted by gregtummer

They need to find a way to pick up the debris there without putting marshalls in harms way.

Good luck with that... Perhaps fishing rods, really long brooms or perhaps Jedi mind skills?

[Adam43]

Originally Posted by Aysedasi

We've been here so many times........ Most years have at least one SC period at Le Mans. It affects the race - whatever way you do it it's bound to have an effect. IMO it didn't cause any unjust outcome at all to who was the overall winner.

I agree. It is a necessary evil.
The 60kph (or mph) thing is fine for the race positions, but one of aims of a SC is to create a large gap between cars coming by so that the marshals can do their work.

I suppose you could get clever and have them all bunch up behing the leader and then spread out again by variable limiters and GPS measurements made when the SC came out! Although that probably a little to complicated, may take too much time to set up and is further complicated by pit stops.

[Lasse]

Originally Posted by gregtummer

In other threads, people have said that other series have a 60kph limiter that they use during yellows. I would be okay with that.

This sounds like the best solution. All cars would realisticlly get a chance to pit, as the safety car periods usually are long at Le Mans.

While this incident didn't directly decide the race, it had an indirect effect imo. The #1 car got a free pit stop, and with the time the #2 lost here, it would have been running with a clear lead and could pit without loosing the lead at the time of Mcnish's accident. That would mean Mcnish would be in control and would put the pressure on the #1. I thought it had a big strategic effect on the race.

[CTD]

Originally Posted by Lasse

This sounds like the best solution. All cars would realisticlly get a chance to pit, as the safety car periods usually are long at Le Mans.

While this incident didn't directly decide the race, it had an indirect effect imo. The #1 car got a free pit stop, and with the time the #2 lost here, it would have been running with a clear lead and could pit without loosing the lead at the time of Mcnish's accident. That would mean Mcnish would be in control and would put the pressure on the #1. I thought it had a big strategic effect on the race.

As both me and Adam highlight.
The thing that the SC does is create large gaps of operational room for the marshals to do their thing. Something a speed limiter wouldn't create.

[The Badger]

Originally Posted by gregtummer

In other threads, people have said that other series have a 60kph limiter that they use during yellows. I would be okay with that.

I don't want one safety car though. Someone making up 8 miles because of a caution isn't fair.

Why cant they deploy a few safety cars , main car picks up the leader , and then retire the other sc as the field lines up behind sc 1 ?

[Lasse]

In the few cases where the marshalls have to clean up the track maybe, but often at Le Mans they are working on repairing the armco/tyre barrieres, and in those cases it does not matter if the cars are driving by one and one or in 3 big lumps.

[Victor_RO]

Originally Posted by The Badger

Why cant they deploy a few safety cars , main car picks up the leader , and then retire the other sc as the field lines up behind sc 1 ?

Because that might have the effect of ruining battles down the field.

Worst-case scenario: two GTE cars are about 10 seconds apart with the overall leader in-between, the SC comes out and SC 1 picks up the leader and second car in this battle. The first one will get picked up by SC 3 then. If you then pull in SC 2 and SC 3 and allow their trains to catch up to SC 1, then you've given the first car in this battle a free advantage of about 3m30s. You turn a 10-second lead before the SC into a lap's lead after the SC. Which is why I think that Code 60-type solutions are better.

[Spyderman]

Code 60 for me. Lesser of all evils.

[The Badger]

Originally Posted by Spyderman

Code 60 for me. Lesser of all evils.

Whats that all about ?

Dont like races being ruined by the SC , but what to do !!!

[Spyderman]

Originally Posted by The Badger

Whats that all about ?

Dont like races being ruined by the SC , but what to do !!!

Code 60 is the fairest solution. It does not allow lagging cars to gain ground that they have not conquered (a real drawback in the SC solution) and by the same token it does not punish those that have worked hard to gain an advantage.
It allows work to be carried out (the area is yellow lighted/flagged and cones are placed around the offending area), whilst the cars under code 60 go around the designated area

[CTD]

Originally Posted by Lasse

In the few cases where the marshalls have to clean up the track maybe, but often at Le Mans they are working on repairing the armco/tyre barrieres, and in those cases it does not matter if the cars are driving by one and one or in 3 big lumps.

Sometimes the armco is very close to the track, and therefor they need the room to work.
Besides the matter of the point is that you do not have time to judge wether it's enough with just Armco repair alone, or if there is debris on track.

Originally Posted by Spyderman

Code 60 for me. Lesser of all evils.

How can it be lesser of all evils, if it doesn't do what it's supposed to do!?

[CTD]

Originally Posted by Spyderman

Code 60 is the fairest solution. It does not allow lagging cars to gain ground that they have not conquered (a real drawback in the SC solution) and by the same token it does not punish those that have worked hard to gain an advantage.
It allows work to be carried out (the area is yellow lighted/flagged and cones are placed around the offending area), whilst the cars under code 60 go around the designated area

Cones?
For the accident prone corners there is, lets say 6 marshals available to run on track.
Their first objective is to secure the drivers in the accident, and thereafter make sure that the accident is stopped, ei. removing slippery surfaces on track, debris and so on.
Demanding that the marshals should put out cones before securing a driver or stopping the accident is directly dangerous!

As a marshall myself, i know how important it is to know that you have x minutes to work, where there will be no cars!

[Spyderman]

Great! You are entitled to your opinions. It seems to work fine at the 24H Dubai. Until I see otherwise, will continue to support it as the "lesser of the evils".

[Simmi]

Originally Posted by johnh875

Good luck with that... Perhaps fishing rods, really long brooms or perhaps Jedi mind skills?

In terms of the Porsche Curves - I give it five years tops before these are completely remodelled with run-off/gravel/tarmac etc. First change will be made to the run-off at Corvette Corner.

[m1fcf]

Originally Posted by Simmi

First change will be made to the run-off at Corvette Corner.

That may be coming sooner than you think... With the limited French I have, I was able to work out from my Chef de Poste that Karting Alain Prost is having some major works done to it, resulting in it moving north by enough to remove the Marshals compound behind Poste125 (the kink just after the point where the DW retired)

If they are moving/developing the Karting circuit, then maybe they will work on the main track as well.