Rock 'n Stroll . . . The Stroller Thread.

That'll have a nice ring to it.

 

First of all as this is the Stroll thread I'll offer congratulations to Lance on a fine podium. Overall he drove well and was able to benefit from the rules as they are written. When the race resumed he put in a solid effort and earned the result (again as per the rules)

On the subject of the rules I did note a number of odd things that I have never seen in almost 30 years of competing nationally and internationally:

1. The closure of the pits during the safety car is something that is normally very clearly demonstrated at PIT ENTRY. Flashing X's on the outside of Parabolica is far from the line of sight of a driver that has committed to entering the pits. There should be a clear sign at pit entry indicating that the pit lane is CLOSED. If a driver commits to pit lane and finds it closed then they should have the option of entering pit lane, driving through it at the pit lane speed limit, and re-joining the track. This is a self-imposed penalty and prevents a last minute and dangerous re-joining of the track if the pits are found to be closed.

2. I am surprised that the FIA does not have an immediate driver communication system to indicate safety car, yellow flags, or pit closures. If they do it is not evident and other series have had this technology for years by way of dedicated dash lights controlled by the stewards. In F1 it should be easy to send a signal that changes the steering wheel readout to display this info dominating the whole screen until the driver manually over-rides the message.

3. The red flag rules are indeed strange. Normally under red flag conditions (in every other series I have ever seen) the cars are not to be touched or worked on. Red flag is like a pause button (NOT A RESTART) to the race allowing safety crews to work un-hindered. As a personal opinion I think the red flag was excessive and an extended safety car would have been ok as there was no on-track debris to worry about. Personal opinions aside, the ability to work on a car under red flag is very unusual especially when that work includes changing of tires which is a performance advantage.

4. Still on the red-flag, the restart of the race with a standing grid again is very strange. Most rule books I have read allow for a reset of the race only if a red flag happens within the first 2 laps. This makes sense because a start line incident can wipe out a lot of cars and the ability to fix or replace cars is valuable to a race that has barely gotten started. In this case the race ran for over 20 laps (enough to issue half points) and should have been re-started single file rolling.

5. Throwing a safety car for the Haas based on its track position was excessive. Why they did not pull it back into the armco opening is beyond me. It seems as though modern F1 is really safety car happy.

 

On your #5 "pulling back the HAAS into the armco"

The HAAS car was too wide to move it backwards between both armco barriers. Hence it posed a safety threat hence the reason for a tow pull hence the safety car.

 

On your #2, teams communicated to the drivers that the pit lane was closed. Lewis was at the parabolica(X-signs flashing already 2x) and his team radio communicated to Lewis a safety car BUT by the time Lewis entered the pit lane entry (ignoring the flashing X's signs 2x) his team told Lewis "ignore the pit lane entry...pit lane is closed." By then it was too late for Lewis.

GIO fell into the same category ignoring the 2 flashing X's at the parabolica.

Everyone else got the message on team radio NOT TO PIT.

 

Absolutely spot on!!
I agree entireley with all the points you have made.
I think the race at Monza became chaotic because of several faults in the organisation.
I am wondering if the FIA will address that.

 

But why the X lights signalling that the pit lane is closed are on the other side of the track, where they can be missed, and not on the pit lane side?

Drivers should really be instructed on their radio directly by race control, and not through the team that may pass, or not, the message.

 

Car recovery and track repair were poor at Monza compared to other tracks.

Also, I don't think Magnussen's car was a major risk.

 

Elton has an history with pit lanes and signs....Canada 2008 anyone?

 

I'm sure it will change.

 

Any car that is still a "risk" at any track at any part of the track needs to be behind the armco or in the pits...
Otherwise, it's a risk according to the stewards

 

+1 I noticed that the cars are so wide that there is barely enough clearance to enter/exit the Monza garages.

 

I think caution was necessary during the Haas failure, let’s remember Jules Bianchi who tragically died during the recuperation Suril’s Sauber with a double waived yellow. At the end of the day the lives of the drivers should rank first when these decisions are made, better to side on the side of safety for the drivers and the marshalls.


Sent from my iPhone using FerrariChat

 

Jules incident was due to a number of factors:

1) a rain soaked track
2) Sutil's recovery by tractor (4000kg)
3) Jules driving too fast under yellow in that sector of track. G-forces at time of impact were over 200g's.

 

Lets be clear about this

 

Can’t believe people here are ready to support even Stroll as long as he’s not in a Ferrari. Has got to be trolling

 

Huh?

There are multiple driver's threads on here. Many of them are not in a Ferrari. Stroll happens to be an interesting personality because of the rich kid circumstances that got him into F1. Makes him definitely a polarized target for better or worse. I think he is cool and I love the fact that he is improving greatly as a driver. Being #4 in the WDC ain't too shabby either. Granted there are mitigating circumstances and all that but that just adds to his panache/myth.

My fav driver is Max and I love Leclerc and I totally admire Hamilton. But what's the point talking about guys every newspaper has a daily headline about? Lance is of the B-team of drivers yet through the unusual circumstances finds himself now in a superb position and that makes him interesting. In addition any driver who attracts haters and fans is more interesting than the also-runs. Who gives a damn about a Kvyat or a Giovanazzi? I don't. Drivers that polarize for whatever reasons are a lot more interesting.

It's F1 after all. Aka a racing soap opera.

PS: I never was a fan of Belmondo Jr. Another rich kid story but the difference is that Stroll can actually drive. He ain't Senna but he ain't BADoer either (a Ferrari F1 driver).

 

There is that notion, among some folks, that if you post about somebody they don't like, you are trolling.

 

Oh please. Really? You don't think drivers are clearly instructed ''at the parabolica, due to line of sight, electronic flags are placed on the OUTSIDE'' during driving briefing and the track walk. It's not like it's new, either...

As for instruction by race control, you assume the few drivers that are deemed so good that they have a superlicense, have eyes in their head and can see brightly flashing lights.

 

on this I agree...they could've left it on the inside of parabolica. It would mean the weirdest of shunts to manage to crash into it parked over there...and by that I mean so improbable it's more likely to win the euromillions and the powerball on the same week, then as you go hand in your ticket you get struck by lighting.

 

True, is if lancelot drove a red car (god forbid) he would be hated by the same that now aplaude him for being useless....wich is perfecly normal in the Troll world.

 

The lights on the outside of Parabolica are just the multi-purpose display things that signal red/green/blue flags etc. From the HAM/GIO cockpit footage I could see them flashing but it wasn't really clear what they meant. I think it would be easy to confuse a flashing 'X' with a flashing 'SC' for example. It's not really clear that they relate to the pit lane at all.

HAM said he was adjusting settings on the steering wheel in preparation for the pit lane entry and stop and he didn't see the lights. He accepted responsibility without excuse or argument. You would hope the drivers would be properly up to speed on the positions and modes of the lights, but it's also the FIA's job to make safety messages clear and unambiguous, and in this case they failed. For two drivers to enter the pit lane when closed says something is wrong and had there been, say, an injured mechanic in the pit lane it could have resulted in a dangerous and unpleasant situation.

AFAIU there is a light on the dashboard that signals Yellow/SC etc, so I'm not sure why they couldn't also have one for a pit lane closure.

 

How you can mistake the SC message on the electronic board (SC written in white) with a big red flashing red cross is beyond me. The drivers get told beforehand that the board also operates as the pitlane entrance light.

It's his own and Mercedes fault.

 

They fully accepted that and moved on.

It would be good if you could do the same.

 

Two teams and two drivers screwed-up; the rest of the field didn't.

 

Agreed.
Everybody makes mistakes sometimes.
Some even make mistakes all the time.