Alex's Lazy Guide to F1 Safety Car Rules

[lordmuck]

So the complete shower that is the F1 rules committee has managed to turn up another trump today; Schumacher has been demoted for overtaking behind the safety car when he, er, wasn't behind the safety car. Let me say up-front, this is a complete pile of crap; it was a valid manoeuvre. But they've found a rule which supposedly outlaws it, 40.13:
"[i]f the race ends whilst the safety car is deployed it will enter the pit lane at the end of the last lap and the cars will take the chequered flag as normal without overtaking."

Just to re-cap what actually happened in the race. The safety car was going around on the last lap, and then indicated - by turning off the orange lights - that it was pulling into the pit lane and that the race cars should proceed:



You can clearly see the lights were off at this point.

The nonsense is that there is this new safety car line, after which racing is supposed to start - it used to be the start and finish line. So, previously, there was no way that the safety car could pull in on the last lap and racing could restart.

The interpretation of the rules is that basically this still isn't the case: no matter what the safety car does on the last lap (and the lights indicate where it's going, not the track status), there can be no more racing. Why is this? Because there's no other option on the last track; the safety car cannot relay back enough information. Either they:

1. Keep the lights on, and don't pull in to the pits (obvious 40.13 violation);
2. Keep the lights on, and pull into the pits (cars follow, race doesn't finish - nice!);
3. Turn off lights, don't pull in (clear nonsense, no racing);
4. Turn off lights, pull into pit (only situation 40.13 can exist)

The problem, of course, is that the rules don't say this clearly. They say, "if the race ends while the safety car is deployed.." - when, of course, the race hasn't ended, making it read like there is an option for the safety car to return to the pit lane without the race ending under safety conditions.

I suspect that Mercedes will win their appeal, and Schumacher will be re-instated. I think the reason for this is not the rules themselves - even though they're dreadfully ambiguous and Mercedes' reading is reasonable - but because Mercedes were given the track all-clear (unless they're lying about that, which is possible).

It would be nice to see the official track timing information as relayed by race control; that should be definitive. But I can't be bothered trying to fight formula1.com - it seems to be enough effort to receive the non-mobile site on my non-mobile browser. But eh.

Update 21:24:

So, autosport.com basically agrees with my assessment of the situation - it comes down to whether or not race control were telling people that the race was finishing under safety car conditions. I went back to have a look at the end of the race just to be sure, and I don't think it did:



On the left, you have lap 77, which was indisputably under the safety car - you can see the gantry is showing the yellow light, and the marshalls are waving yellow flags. On the right is the last lap, with green lights on the gantry and a marshall waving the green flag (just beneath the chequered flag).

Now, according to rule 40.11 (when the track is declared safe and the car called in):
"As the safety car is approaching the pit entry the yellow flags and SC boards will be withdrawn and replaced by waved green flags with green lights at the Line. These will be displayed until the last car crosses the Line."

It's going to be extremely difficult to argue that Mercedes were out of order overtaking a car when the safety car was in the pits and they were waving green flags, not yellow. At a bare minimum, Schumacher must get back his 7th place.