Safety Car F1: What are the rules? What happened in Abu Dhabi?
The FIA Safety Car plays an important role during an F1 grand prix when required. But what are the rules surrounding how th﷽e Safety Car should operate?
Since 2021 F1 has had two official Safety Cars, one supplied by Mercedes, and one supplied by 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:Aston Martin. The 🎶Safety Cars alternate throughout the season and ar🥀e driven by Bernd Maylander, who has been driving the Safety Car in F1 since 2000.
F1’s sporting regulations stipulate that the Safety Car “may be brought into operatio💎n to neutralise a race upon the order of the clerk of the course” and will be used “only if competitors or officialsꦯ are in immediate physical danger on or near the track but the circumstances are not as such as to necessitate suspending the race.”
Before the race can be resumed, three things must happen.
The cars between the Safety Car and the leader firstly need to🍒 be let through.
Lapped cars need to be allowed to overtake the Safetyဣ Car.
The Safety Car returns✅ to the pits at the end of the following lap.
Each lap completed 🐬under the Safety Car is counted as 🌞a race lap.
The FIA can also call upon the Virtual Safety Car to neutralise a pra♔ctice session or a race.
This is normally used “when ඣdouble waved ye🌃llow flags are needed on any section of track and competitors or officials may be in danger, but the circumstances are not such as to warrant use of the Safety Car itself.”
The Virtual Safety Car - or VSC - was first introduced for the 2015 season after being developed in response to Jules Bianchi’s tragic accident at the 2014 Japanese Grand Prix. Bianchi died nine months after suffering severe head injuries when h꧋e crashed into a recovery vehicle in heavy rain.
The use of F𒁏1’s Safety Car has made the headlines as a subject of great debate and controversy, particularly regarding the handling of race-ending Safety Car periods during the 2021 A𓄧bu Dhabi Grand Prix and 2022 Italian Grand Prix.
The FIA published an updated version of the Sporting Reg✤ulations ahead of the 2022 F1 season that featured a revision to the Safety Car regulation regarding lapped cars.
Article 55.13 now reads: “If the clerk of the course considers it safe to do so, and the message 'LAPPED CARS MAY NOW OVERTAKE' has been sent to all Competitors using the official messaging system, all cars🔯 that have been lapped by the leader will be required to pass the cars on the lead lap and the Safety Car.”
The change replaced the phrasing which read “any” rather than “all” lapped cars are required to overta🍎ke and rejoin at the back of the field prior to the restart. The alteration was made to prevent a repeat of the controversial 2021 title decider in Abu Dhabi.
What happened in Abu Dhabi?
168澳洲幸运ౠ5官方开奖结果历史:Michael Masi left his job as race ♛director after failing to apply the rules c⭕orrectly in two instan﷽ces during a late Safety Car in the Grand Prix.
First, Masi allowed only the five drivers - Lando Norris, Fernando Alonso, Esteba𒉰n Ocon, Charles Leclerc and Sebastian Vettel - sitting between title rivals Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen to unlap the❀mselves.
However, the lapped cars of Daniel Ricciardo, Lance Stroll and Mick Schumacher sitting between Verstappen and C♌arlos Sainz were not allowed to unlap themselves.
Masi ended up forcing a restart on the final lap of the race, which in turn failed to follow the requirement t🌼hat races must be restarted “at the end of the foll🅷owing lap” after the message has been relayed that lapped cars can overtake.
Masi’s handling of the restart directly altered the outco𒁏me of the world championship.
Hamilton had dominated the race and was on course to win a record-breaking eighth drivers’ crown, but th𒁃e last-lap restart handed the advantage to Verstappen, who, on fresh soft tyres, overtook the Mercedes driver to clinch the world title.
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