[WEC] The ACO's Safety Car 'Overhaul'

[Adam43]

So it’s not the way they will always play it. Just an option. Cool.

Although I already thought they had this as an option!

[Gerard C]

Originally Posted by Steve McQ

Exactly this. Direct to SC always creates some minutes of hazard with guys still going at almost racing pace to close the gap with the SC on track while they are not fully aware of what's going on. Always a bit dangerous.

Agreed. But its the rule. And not a bit dangerous, a lot imo.

[RL17]

Incidents this year were on going to FCY as there’s a window of a couple of seconds.

Why not just go FCY and have the option of green or SC? A car stopped on track that then gets going.

Eduardo tells them and countdowns etc

VSC comes on just as a gaggle of cars near the pit entry could be dangerous. Judging where to bring out SC when 75% or so of field are stopping or about to stop isn’t going to be easy.

[Akrapovic]

https://en.endurance-info.com/auto/a...back-withdrawn

Safety Car procedure to be shortened after the drop back withdrawn.

Maybe this will stop the gaslighting from people who claimed it wasn't as long as it was.

[RL17]

Not really shortened - the end but has been shortened but they had previously lengthened the start bit to avoid the need for emergency pit stops during the SC period.

Both the regs and the SC periods are still too long

[tomcug]

Originally Posted by RL17

Both the regs and the SC periods are still too long

So how would you do it? I think this updated system is ok, no one gets disadvantaged by SC like it was happening in the past and at least it will be a bit shorter due to no class split.

[RL17]

I wouldn’t bother going down to just 1 SC when incident over/cleared and then a complicated pass around (with teams deciding) just to release 62? cars over the line with all 3 categories mixed up- just going to create another incident & SC.

Keep 3 SCs - Race control to use a light for cars eligible for pass around (plus list on cars to all teams) and don’t allow/wait for cars to line up - more like Bathurst. New VSC pit entry option at start pretty good option as does not penalise cars running longer stints (don’t use if need immediate SC).

[RL17]

Looking at 2 LM 2023 SC periods:

Not that much coverage on the TV stream but

Period after midnight:
Merge started shortly after incident clear announcement with approx 15.05.50 to go and finished (green) 14.42.20 - so took 23 mins 30 seconds.

Lap times for 112 10m 39s, 113 7m 54s & 114 (fast lap pre-start) 4m 53s (these pretty much total extra time).

So in this case new SC procedure took an extra 18m 30s approx (so over 3 SC periods totalling 3 hrs 1 min it’s getting on for best part of an hour).

Laps pre lap 50 restart were 7m 43s, 8m 51s, 9m 6s (fall back lap) and then 4m 53s (fast SC lap).

So although the fall back only takes around 6 mins starting from start of Mulsanne, backing them before hand means that lap is 9m or just under 8 mins (7m 54s) for the nighttime one.

Must admit it’s boring waiting on course for restart as those laps with single SC (merge and pass and then fall back) are slow but you get much better racing (much better on TV as class battle Hypercar all together) and safer on restart. Lap 50 starts with all 10 or so hypercars within 8 seconds or so.

Total field took approx 1 min 20 sec to cross start line so class battles would be lost amongst lots of interclass clashes and dives - so maybe they should have left alone for another year?

[RL17]

PS Forgot to add that the totally separate fall back for Garage 56 could have been made quicker by an instruction to that car to join head of GTE Am column after they fell back past it

[Steve McQ]

Originally Posted by tomcug

So how would you do it? I think this updated system is ok, no one gets disadvantaged by SC like it was happening in the past and at least it will be a bit shorter due to no class split.

Sorry but you are wrong, someone having a 3 minutes lead on the following car will get the hardwork wiped out completely by these rules. They are as unfair as they were before, but longer. And BTW, the fact that the procedure can't be called during the last hour shows in itself that it is unfair. It is far tougher to gain 3 or more minutes than 1 or 1.5. To allow some to not lose 1 minute, we are no allowing others to win more than 3. Is this justice in racing ? I don't think so.

If you are building a horribly complex procedure like it is now, make sure it is REALLY fair for all. Not shift unfairness some place else.

[Adam43]

But what is the alternative then to make it fair? I’m stumped.

I think the reason for not using it in the last hour is more to do with the proportion of the remaining race time that it takes to do the procedure rather than any “fairness”

[PhilipR]

I am ok with this amendment.
It will never be fully fair - you either lose a lot of time or with this new process you can gain a lot of time.
I do like that they do not do the drop down - if you are 3 minutes and 2 safety cars behind the leader I think this is right for you to have to go through traffic meanign the leader can still hold a slight advantage

[Steve McQ]

Originally Posted by Adam43

But what is the alternative then to make it fair? I’m stumped.

I think the reason for not using it in the last hour is more to do with the proportion of the remaining race time that it takes to do the procedure rather than any “fairness”

If it's too long then it's no good.

Frankly, there was a ton of other solutions : add another safety car to reduce time lost to something like 45" at most (seconds you can regain later with another SC period or with strategy flexibility anyway under FCY); use a "safety car jump" to allow selected cars to jump one SC to regain track against a car it was fighting with before; relaunch the race 1 or 2 sectors after the pass around has been granted so that not all the time is regained etc...

[Adam43]

That’s OK, but now we have opened up the procedure having a different impact each time. So it remains not ideal, just in a slightly different way. I can see why they are trying to minimize judgement calls. They already have it with when and exactly what flavor. This would introduce more variability with which cars are selected and how far the cars have got after the green happens.

I’m not claiming it is perfect. Just if we accept that we need SC

[RL17]

Still a lengthy process and sticking 62 cars in a line with all the categories mixed up will possibly create more SCs following incidents before Dunlop