F1 Safety CarTwo 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:

“As long as the safety car’s out, we just have to make sure our speed past the accident is adhered to. We can’t drive any faster than we normally do around that shunt, so that’s fine – there should be enough safety in place for that area.

“We just need to be careful about where the shunt and yellow flags are. After that, the track is safe enough for us to be flat out so it’s fine.”

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