[Official] Singapore Grand Prix 2022: Grand Prix Weekend Thread - Round 17 of 22

[Akrapovic]

Perez has been given a 5 second time penalty and 2 penalty points on his license. It has been noted that 3 separate breaches occurred. The first on lap 10 has not been punished. The team warned Perez about this after being advised by the stewards.. The second offence on lap 36 was given an immediate warning by the race director. The third time was half a lap later, and was given a 5 second penalty.

Interestingly, this is what the Formula 3 stewards had to say about it.

The Stewards determined that prior to the second Safety Car restart, the PREMA Racing driver fell several seconds behind the car ahead, due to uncertainty about when he could close up, and severely disrupted the cars behind him at the restart – breaching the regulations requiring a gap of no more than 10 car lengths to the driver ahead.

As the penalty could not be served in race, it has been converted to a 20-second time penalty. This demotes Bearman from P10 to P25 in the final classification, promoting Alexander Smolyar into the final points-paying position.

[Greem]

Rules is rules is rules. Except when they're not.

[Akrapovic]

The real question is whether or not any jewellery was involved.

[bjohnsonsmith]

John Lennon said something about rattling jewellery.

[Greem]

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

The real question is whether or not any jewellery was involved.

Of course! #hamiltonsfault

[Richard C]

Maybe Perez provided a Dr's note regarding why he was unable to follow within 10 car lengths?

Richard

[S griffin]

Great win from Checo. Didn't really see what he did on the restart, but either way, he did enough to win it. Quite a poor weekend by Max's standards, that fuel problem in Quali really seemed to put him on the back foot. That move on Norris though was never going to work

Ferrari managed to have a decent race, good chase of Perez by Leclerc. Good 5th by Danny, he obviously made good timing with his change to slicks. Still needs to find more pace though. Good 6th from Stroll.

Hamilton was doing so well, then he let things slip. Russell didn't seem to have the pace this weekend. Maybe changed to slicks a little too early, but he had nothing to lose

Plenty of on the edge driving in the rain, meaning we got to see plenty of slides and the odd incident

[BertMk2]

Originally Posted by S griffin

Hamilton was doing so well, then he let things slip.

I thought Hamilton had a rare duff race. He had a bad start and got bottled up behind Sainz, then got frustrated and made mistakes (so very similar to Max in that respect).

[steve_r]

Disclaimer - I watched the channel 4 highlights and not the full race

Were the race directors again lethargic and slow in making decisions re safety car's and VSC's etc? It seemed that some instances it took a long time for them to pull the trigger despite the immediate and very obvious need in a few instances? This seems to be a bit of a recurring theme this season.

To cap it off, unless the highlights were portraying things wrongly, did they end the VSC BEFORE the marshals had extracted the Williams front wing from underneath the armco, or was this just dodgy editing of the footage shown by channel 4?

[Greem]

Originally Posted by steve_r

Disclaimer - I watched the channel 4 highlights and not the full race

Were the race directors again lethargic and slow in making decisions re safety car's and VSC's etc? It seemed that some instances it took a long time for them to pull the trigger despite the immediate and very obvious need in a few instances? This seems to be a bit of a recurring theme this season.

To cap it off, unless the highlights were portraying things wrongly, did they end the VSC BEFORE the marshals had extracted the front wing from underneath the armco, or was this just dodgy editing of the footage shown by channel 4?

That latter point - they showed a replay from a few minutes befoer, just as the race restarted. FOM feed rather than C4.

[steve_r]

Originally Posted by Greem

That latter point - they showed a replay from a few minutes befoer, just as the race restarted. FOM feed rather than C4.

Ahh that confused me and also the commentators. What happened to "Replay" caption I wonder, or perhaps it was there but the malaise of the soporific race had set in by that point.

[Akrapovic]

Originally Posted by Greem

That latter point - they showed a replay from a few minutes befoer, just as the race restarted. FOM feed rather than C4.

This one confused me. Sky wondered if it was a replay, but it had none of the usual F1 replay graphics. I'm not completely convinced.

[peebee2]

Originally Posted by Richard Casto

Maybe Perez provided a Dr's note regarding why he was unable to follow within 10 car lengths?

Richard

Dr Marko?

[Richard C]

Nowhere else to post this, but I have been using the F1 app all this season. At least I am not force to login to it each time I open it. It is more like the experience of most all other streaming services (Netflix, etc.) in that you login and you are good. But about 1/3rd of the way through the race I discovered that if I were to try to switch to any driver specific onboard, or maybe the data channel, that it would bounce me back to the start of the race. I eventually gave up and just watched the main channel.

I have noticed on occasion that the F1 App is... less than stable. I have had a crash a few times (less so recently). If anyone is curious, I am watching this via an Nvidia Shield Pro (Android TV F1 App) in my home theater setup that I use for all TV viewing.

Is anyone else seeing issues like this?

Richard

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by peebee2

Dr Marko?

I am upset at myself for not thinking of that.

Richard

[chillibowl]

hot take i suppose but the race would have been more interesting if they didnt use the VSCs in favour of SCs and bunched the field up every time there was an off.

obviously this eliminates the 'fairness' and erodes the lead the front runners have earned but its difficult to dismiss the excitement of restarts/mid race resets.

[Tourer]

Originally Posted by chillibowl

hot take i suppose but the race would have been more interesting if they didnt use the VSCs in favour of SCs and bunched the field up every time there was an off.

obviously this eliminates the 'fairness' and erodes the lead the front runners have earned but its difficult to dismiss the excitement of restarts/mid race resets.

Don't disagree. The methodology of going with VSC this year and then a "full" SC seems really strange at times and for me, draws the whole process out into a much longer timeframe on each occurrence. No doubt there's logic behind the approach but there have been a number of times this year where it is obvious that a full SC period is needed, and time is wasted tooling around under VSC conditions, waiting for it to get "real".

Like I say, no doubt there's a reason for doing it that way but it seems strange every time.

[PhilipR]

It seems the VSC is too analyse the issue and then they deply SC if they need marshals on the ground to remove cars or debries. I think the idea is under VSC cars are in different parts of the track and whilst you need a delta of 40% of a green lap, drivers can chose to do this by averaging the speed over a section - as in go faster and then slow a lot to make the delta. Under SC the Safety car bunches the field and can dictate the speed through the area where marshalls are working. I know the process is long and not ideal butrather this than another freak accident where someone gets injured and then we shout on social media how did FIA and F1 allow for that to happen

[GingerPixel]

What if a VSC limited the leader, but allowed the rest of the field to bunch up behind them?

[S griffin]

Originally Posted by GingerPixel

What if a VSC limited the leader, but allowed the rest of the field to bunch up behind them?

Then that would defeat the whole point of a VSC. It would be no different from a full SC

[GingerPixel]

Originally Posted by S griffin

Then that would defeat the whole point of a VSC. It would be no different from a full SC

Yeah I can see that. I suppose my question then is, what is the point of the VSC in its current form (within F1) ?

[S griffin]

To reduce the amount of Full SCs?

[Akrapovic]

Originally Posted by GingerPixel

What if a VSC limited the leader, but allowed the rest of the field to bunch up behind them?

Originally Posted by GingerPixel

Yeah I can see that. I suppose my question then is, what is the point of the VSC in its current form (within F1) ?

So I thought you were joking with the original post lol.

A VSC attempts to maintain the gaps between cars, so that it does not take away an advantage a competitor has built up.

A SC is used when marshals need a gap in traffic to work in, or if the cars need to be taken an alternate route (through a pit lane, over a run off), or if you're going to have a lot of vehicles on track etc.

Neither of these are perfect. But I have no issue with how they used them in Singapore.

I do think F1 needs to change its overly complicated VSC implementation to be a speed limiter like literally every other series uses for a similar setup. Code 60. You go at 60mph. Not 20mph then 100mph. You go 60. Drivers should not be allowed to fanny around under a neutralised track in order to maybe gain an advantage. A VSC is a safety procedure, not one thrown in to make the race more exciting, and allowing cars to speed up and slow down like they currently do makes it more dangerous for the exposed safety team on track.

[Greem]

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

I do think F1 needs to change its overly complicated VSC implementation to be a speed limiter like literally every other series uses for a similar setup.

But... everything F1 does has to be different, and unique. They had the opportunity to use FCY like thousands of other series do, with "hit the pit limiter" as the speed limit, but no. Drive to the delta, speed up, slow down, weave around, put your left leg in etc VSC.

I'd far rather work under the FCY, or in the case of Le Mans/WEC the Slow Zone (which amounts to the same thing but is in a sector) than under a VSC. Even being on track with a full SC can be bloody scary as people hurtle round to catch the train, making the excuse that "I was 0.1s slower on that lap".

Not Invented Here syndrome is strong in F1.

[S griffin]

I'm happy with the VSC. It's better than too many SCs. Gets a minor incident sorted out with the minimum of delay