Thank you Sen. Bentsen. I will grant the differences but RB serves to promote a non-automotive product line as does Virgin and unlike the rest of the field. As big a fan as Deiter may be his commitment to the sport is qualitatively different from Williams, McLaren and Ferrari.
They may get no point, but they aren't physically eliminated from the race. No rule says that you have to stay on ther same lap as the leader - to my knowlege. Backmarkers are just a fact of life. Even at Monaco there is some overtaking going on. If it was impossible, there would be no point in organising a GP there, don't you think? Qualif times would stand as results. The need for blue flag is an indication that there something amiss with the competition. A driver is expected to have alternatively 2 sets of behaviours on the track: defend his position and eventually resort to blocking tactics against his close competitors, but give up his lines and let the leaders go by. But since leaders and backmarkers are in the same race, why should a backmarker accept to compromise his own race and to be lapped, without fighting to prevent it? And why the leaders catching up the backmarkers should suddenly find, as a bonus, their progression facilitated by drivers letting them through without defending their position? Do they have blue flag on oval circuits? I don't think so. No blue flags at Indy or NASCAR. Why? Because the tracks and the cars allow overtaking, and it's not a problem. It's mostly in F1, where the aerodynamics make cars very unstable in close proximity to each other, and reduce the chance of overtaking.
I like Branson, however he is famous for NOT putting his own money into such projects, preferring to get recognition for the Virgin brand at no cost to himself. He is afterall a very good shrewd business man. Not that I disagree with all of your post.
William, You simply don't get it. Sorry. You really need to go racing and catch up a car that you are trying to lap and get held up by this car "that is not going to figure in the results of the race" and see how it feels. Sometimes you can even loose the race because of them! Pete ps: I write posts as I would say them, and I swear in this case because this thread is stupid and littered with posts by people that simply are not prepared to understand. The blue flag works if the flag marshals know what they are doing.
Because William there is no PASS. When a leader catches up to a back marker there will be NO position change when he gets passed, thus it makes no sense at all for the back marker to hold him/her up, ie. they gain nothing. Because again there is no position change involved here. Because the circuits are completely different, but I bet when lapping is involved a driver will get black flagged if they held up the leaders. You are wrong. When Indy and/or NASCAR run on non-oval tracks there are blue flags. Even more reason why the person being lapped should allow the person leading the race to move passed. You obviously have no racing experience and I'm sorry to say this as I don't like getting personal, but you are making a fool of yourself. I mean that with all due respect but please think about the fact that there is no position change when a car is lapped, so a pass did not really happen. Best Pete
I mentioned Indy and NASCAR races on ovals. You are wrong: I have held competition licences in Belgium and Britain. I raced in national GT where there is huge difference of performance between different cars, and lapping backmarkers is very common. I have experienced both, as a regular backmarker, and later as someone who had to overtake them when I had more powerful cars.
I believe that the blue flag situation is a joke, I mean how many years of GREAT F1 racing did we witness before them when a driver had to make a pass on his own driving merit? Nothing more than a crutch imo for the new 'whiney baby' drivers we have now.
I think you will find that the blue flag goes back before the begining of F1 (in it's modern form, ie. 1950 on). Anyway I'm out of this thread. If anybody is prepared to actually listen to Branson about motorsport over the development of safety initiatives that have taken many 10s of years to get right ... well sorry they are not worth discussing motorsport with. I cannot imagine how dangerous motorsport would be without the blue flag. Yes cars have mirrors but not all drivers are equal. I also cannot imagine the farse motorsport would become if a lapped driver did not have to get out of the way for the leader ... Enjoy Pete
All motorsports are dangerous, as I'm sure you know, and we all agree that safety is one of the major factors but imo the blue flags are being used as a scapegoat by the current influx of fans aswell as the drivers.
Sorry, gotta throw the BS flag on that one - The blue flag has been around (and obeyed) *forever*. As Pete has said, we're not talking about passing-for-position but rather the "get out of the way of the leaders" usage - As someone said pages back, it's telling you that "there's a race going on, and you're not part of it!" Nothing to do with modern drivers or aerodynamics. Cheers, Ian
Think about it like this... F1 races are distance races. You are racing to the finish line first. The fact that it is held on a circular track is merely due to space constraints. If the race were held in a straight line, then a pass would mean the passing driver never sees the passed driver again. The races are held on a circular track so they can be fit into smaller areas and give fans something to see. In that situation, you need to make some accomodations for catching up with cars you've already passed. Cars which have already been passed should not put up any fight at all because they have already lost the race. There is no possibility to hold up a faster car on an oval when lapped, but you can be sure that if a car does so, it will be penalized. Why on earth should a Ferrari risk crashing to pass a VirginF1 that has already been passed? It makes no sense. You say that the faster cars should work to pass the lapped cars - why on earth would you give the slower cars precedence over the faster ones, especially when the faster car has already beaten and passed the slower one? Moving over may screw up the slower cars race? That doesn't really happen but for a scant few times. Branson whines about it costing them seconds.... F1 races are distance races, not time races. Slowing up to let a faster car through costs him nothing. Saying the slower cars should still be able to put up a fight is like saying it would be OK for a boxer who was KO'ed to get up and recover then go punch the guy while the announcer was giving the results - and your justification is "well if he's a REAL boxer he should know how to avoid a punch". But the competition is already over, so there is no purpose to it. The only reason a lapped car is even in the way is because it's on a circular track instead of a straight line track. Should straight line races (like drag races or top speed races) have a rule that the winning car has to slow up to give the guy he just passed another shot? Of course not. No different on circuit tracks either.
Should faster drivers slow down to let slower cars catch up and then have to pass them again? That is exactly the same as a slower car preventing a faster one from passing when lapped. It's a distance race, not a time race.
Well, the only ones that actually promote a product line are Ferrari, Mercedes and Renault I guess. I know McLaren will be a car manufacturer in the future, but now they aren't. So that means several other teams are promoting non-automotive products and in that way I don't think Branson is unique at all. Mallya has WAY more commitment than Branson in terms of motorsports interests and has plenty of resources to do as he likes, and even he hasn't been able to do much. I don't think Branson is even in the same galaxy as Mateschitz in what he's doing in F1, let alone Mallya or any of the others. Branson will never hoist VirginF1 to the top because he's not in it to win it. He's just looking to turn a profit. We shall see where the team is next year, but I already know - still at the back. This is only Red Bull's 6th season. The first two were mid pack to mid-back. Then mid-pack. Last year they were 2nd, and this year they look set to win. They were a major effort from the start, designed to win. Not so with Virgin... Branson isn't just getting by this year and dropping a ton of money to try to win next. He's just puttering around in the back of the grid and whining that the rules aren't letting him get ahead. No intent to spend signficantly on the car, and he will be out of F1 within 2 more years.
If true, and he can get out showing a "profit", good for him! I thought we'd pretty much agreed that the days of the privateer making big money were gone [EJ was maybe the last?] At least he got a car built and on the grid....... One thing it seems nobody picked up on was the initial call to change the rules came from Lotus & Fernandes - No one seems to be dragging Tony over the coals like Beardy - Is he more of a petrolhead and thence "legitimate"? Cheers, Ian
I knew there was a team I missed. FI fits the Virgin/RB mold. Other than those three the rest either sell road cars or make a (very nice) profit from F1 and have an ongoing stake in and dependance on the sport. Branson strikes me as someone who will bore of F1 before he has time to succeed. I don't know why you think FI is so solvent. All the reports that I've read say that they are having difficulties. When I said that RB is primarily a marketing operation I may have overstated the case. What I will say is that like Virgin and Force India, Red Bull is dependent on business activities unrelated to F1.
Well I do not see why the supposedly 'best drivers in the world' need assistance in passing, simply ludicrous imho.
Oh my god ... I really cannot believe this thread. Lapping is NOT passing. I'm close to asking Rob to remove my access to his site ... this thread simply shows that too many people have no concept of motorsport at all! Pete
You are playing with words: passing or lapping are both OVERTAKING! The argument is why in some circumstances the driver about to be overtaken should yield to someone who already has an advantage. My position is that he should continue driving regardless, and that the onus is clearly on the driver who wants to overtake. He obviously has a terrific advantage, why slower competitors should remove any difficulty from his progression. Blue flags are just used in F1 as another bullying tools against backmarkers and smaller teams to favour the main leading teams. Both Fernandez and Branson are right in my view.
