Today was the first attempt at testing the new proposed Safety Car rules. Today’s second practice session was targeted. When the session ended the safety car was deployed and the drivers had their first go at it.

The idea is that the moment the Safety Car is deployed, a calculated minimum lap time is displayed on the drivers dash. They then have 5 seconds to press a button confirming their acceptance and from then on must remain at or below the displayed lap time.

It is a lot to absorb and monitor at the best of times, but when in a technical section of the track or in a passing situation or… you get the picture, it is even more to absorb. Reaction as we expected from the drivers was mixed with of course the exception of Kimi Raikkonen who just seems to go with the flow.

Lewis Hamilton

“It still needs a little more work at the moment.”

Nico Rosberg

“It’s a bit strange because you have to look at your dash quite a lot and at the same time you’re probably going to be passing the incident and everything.

“But we really need to find something to improve the current thing — it could be a step forward, we will see.”

Sebastien Bourdais

“We will see how it plays out.”

Kimi Raikkonen

“I think it could be a good solution because it puts everyone in the same situation and that way, you can’t be penalised just by unfortunate circumstances.”

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We’re getting closer to a revised Safety Car rule. What is being said is that the new system may be given a trial run during the Friday afternoon practice session and also the Saturday morning practice session at the upcoming French Grand Prix. The current safety car rule has been so controversial of late because of it’s ability to penalize drivers who may be low on fuel.

The new idea is suppose to prevent the cars from racing around the track to get to the pits when a dangerous situation is on the circuit. If a speed limit is imposed and it is slow enough, the speed issue is now a non issue.

Steve Nielsen, sporting manager for Renault says that pit lane will not be automatically closed upon deployment of the safety car, but instead, drivers will have to record a minimum lap time 20 per cent slower than the average time from free practice on their first tour after deployment of the Safety Car. This is rumored to include a software addition to each car’s standard ECU.

“He will get a time displayed on his dash, which he is not to go faster than. They then have five seconds to press a confirm button to show that they’ve seen the signal and from that stage onwards they’re governed by the target lap time. That will ensure that all the cars go at a relatively slow speed.”

The trial is to simply be a demonstration to the drivers to see how the system will work and to receive input.

Nielson goes on to say that if successful it will be incorporated into the rules as a proper regulation, but believes it should wait until 2009.

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Two on track problems have raised their heads this year and one for now has been resolved. The first, driving slowly on in-laps during qualifying to save fuel. The other is the time the pits are closed when the safety car is out.

Australia is where crap hit the fan. Rubens Barrichello had to enter the pits when closed or run out of fuel, and Heikki Kovalainen dropped places because he had to delay his stop. Some say he had locked up a podium finish until the delayed stop. F1 teams calculate just about everything that is possible to calculate in a race plan, but can’t calculate when a crash will occur and the safety car appear, so why should drivers/teams be penalized simply because a crash occurs?

For safety’s sake, a rule must be in place somewhere. Rescue vehicles and people on track with F1 cars flying around at full speed to get to the pits makes no sense, but neither does penalizing a driver who is almost out of fuel, or pit strategy thrown out the window tossing a driver back a few places.

There have been positive discussions with the FIA and now it’s time to take concerns to Charlie Whiting, race director. This meeting will now take place at the Spanish Grand Prix.

My take has always been to just have the entire incident area a ‘yellow’ area and give it a wide berth. It has always made sense to me. Let the drivers drive fast everywhere else (out of sight, out of mind) and pit when they want to without compromising safety and without the possibility of drivers getting a stupid penalty.

Mark Webber:

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