In Sochi, the F2 Sprint Race was suspended after Jack Aitken and Luca Ghiotto destroyed
large sections of the barrier at turn 3. As the barrier needed extensive work to be
repaired in time for the upcoming F1 race, the race was not restarted and, as the rules
demand, the race results were wound back a couple of laps so Aitken and Ghiotto both
got a handful of points, despite being in bits and pieces by the side of the track.
Two race weekends earlier in Monza, a red flag suspended the race and allowed Lance
Stroll to run an effective no-stop race as he could change the tyres during the race
suspension. So while a red flag seems one the simplest
of the many marshall flags – a red flag means the race is stopped – it carries with
it a lot of rulebook quirks that leave people scratching their heads.
So what are the red flag and race suspension rules and how can they so easily twist up
the result of the race? I started watching F1 right at the end of
the 90s, just before throwing a red flag went massively out of fashion. Often a big crash
on lap 1 would result in the race being stopped, the mess being cleaned up and everyone going
back to the grid to have another crack at the race from the beginning.
In fact, back in those days, the teams had a complete spare car made up and ready to
go so even if you did crash out at turn 1, you could be back in your normal grid slot
for the restart. But at the turn of the century, the race director
favoured keeping the race going with safety cars, much to the surprise of commentators
as they got used to the change in philosophy.
TV: Huge accident! Oh my goodness
TV: Rubens' rear wing's off - there goes Ralf Schumacher
TV: And I think they're going to have to restart it
TV: Total carnage! It started with Ralf hitting the back of Barrichello
TV: I don't see a red flag sitation at the moment
TV: Can't see any signs on our computers
TV: that they have the red flags out but surely they must do so.
TV: The safety car is on the circuit
TV: Maybe they're going to try and run it behind the safety car while they clear the mess
Nonetheless, a red flag is still pretty rare, having only been thrown 73 times in F1’s history
Of course, F1 is broadcast live around the
world and ideally needs to stick to its designated time slot and not overrun. Stopping a race
adds a lot of time in getting the race restarted whereas a safety car keeps things running,
is quicker to return to race running from and crucially continues to count through the
laps. So red flags now tend to be reserved for times
when it’s dangerous to keep going or when the race cannot easily return to full active
running. So in cases of extreme rainfall with not sign
of abating, if a barrier needs extensive repair, if there’s debris all over the track that
could cause punctures and damage to the cars, or if there’s an injured driver that needs
attending to – that’s when you’re likely to see a red flag thrown and a race fully
suspended. Since 2015, a red flag has indicated drivers
are meant to return to the pitlane and park in the fast lane (that’s this outer lane,
furthest from the pit stop area) in race order. Before that they used to park up on the grid,
but that just meant teams had to drag all their equipment out again, which is slow.
If any cars can’t make it back to the pitlane due to a blocked track, they’ll be brought
back and slotted into the correct order. If any cars were already in the pitlane when
the red flag was thrown, they too will be slotted into the right order in the fast lane.
But if the car was in the garage, they have to go to the back if they choose to rejoin
the race Controversially, teams can do quite a lot
while the cars are parked up during the race suspension. In fact, there are nine legal
types of work allowed by the cars: Starting the engine, adding compressed gases
into the pneumatics, adding those cooling devices they plonk onto stationary cars, changing
the brake ducts, changing the radiator ducts, changes for driver comfort, repairing accident
damage and changing the front wing setup (but they can’t change the front wing, they can
only fiddle with the existing wing). AND they can change the car’s tyres.
This means, that in the current ruleset where drivers must run multiple compounds per race,
if the red flag comes at the right moment you can switch to the alternate tyre without
ever taking the addition 20 - 30 seconds it takes to make a pitstop.
Lance Stroll did exactly this in Monza gaining about 24 seconds over some of his competitors
by doing zero racing pitstops. There are three possible scenarios in changing
tyres around race stoppages. You could have changed your tyres just before the red flag
- pretty normal. You could change your tyres after the red
flag - in which case you now might be put in a tricky position as the field will be
bunched up and your 25 second stop will cost you a lot more places if you can’t wait
for the field to spread. Or, as is currently allowed, you can stop
during the red flag and lose no time (though if the stoppage occurs in the wrong phase
of the race, you may still need to stop again later).
The rule allowing teams to change tyres during red flag is an old one that existed before
the rules mandated drivers use two compounds of tyre during the race. It pre-supposed a
red flag would likely mean the need to switch to wet weather tyres or that cars might have
damage or puncture concerns. In these cases, such changes make sense.
There’s an argument to ban all of these team interventions, save for things like tyre
blankets and cooling unless there is good reason like a change in weather conditions
or legitimate damage and puncture concerns. This could work, though we have to bear in
mind getting permission for damage worries takes time, something the race organisers
are looking to minimise in getting back to race running.
If we’re good to go racing again, after a ten minute warning, the Safety Car will
lead the car around for a single lap where the cars will line up again on the grid for
a standing start. Of course, if the weather’s still a bit
dodgy, they might do a few laps behind the Safety Car first before lining up on the grid.
And the weather might still be so wet that the race clerk decides to go with a rolling
start instead as after normal safety car periods. If the weather turns out to be too bad, the
race can be re-suspended and the safety car will just lead them all back into the pitlane
again. Now, the length of a race is however many
laps it is designated or 2 hours of active running – whichever is completed first triggers
the end of the race. But the clock for active running is stopped during a red flag and resumed
once the cars leave the pitlane again, so that two hour clock doesn’t keep ticking
down during suspension. However, there is a hard limit on overall
race time of ‘4 hours’. So you can keep stopping the event all you like but once you
get four hours out from the moment the race started, the chequered flag will be shown
and the race will come to an end, even without reaching two hours of running.
Which leads us to… what happens if the race is just stopped by a red flag and not restarted.
Maybe it’s too rainy, maybe it got too dark, maybe time ran out.
Well now we see another quirk of the rules. The official finishing results are not the
running order at the moment the race was suspended. Instead, we have to go back to ‘the end
of the penultimate lap before the lap during which the signal to suspend the race was given’
which is a very confusingly phrased way of putting it.
But this is how it works. If the leader is on lap 50, you look at the results as of the
end of lap 48. But why? Well, it’s for reasons of official time
and record keeping. Think about it like this. The leader completes
circuits of the track. Every other car following them, even lapped ones, are on the same ‘timekeeping’
lap. So as the leader passes the finish straight
to complete a lap, the time for every following car is recorded until every car has passed.
You’ll see this as the timing tower and live timing screen fills up.
Once every car has passed the finish line the timekeeping for that lap is complete and
order for that lap is recorded. So let’s say the leader is on lap 50 when
the race is stopped. Let’s ask: when was the last complete recorded lap?
It wasn’t at the end of lap 49. A lot of cars haven’t passed the finish line to log
their time yet. You have to go back to the end of lap 48 for
the last time every single car passed the finish line. So that’s why that is the official
result on count back if a race is permanently suspended.
And just for clarification, if a car has been lapped, I know it hasn’t completed 48 laps
but it is still recorded as being on the same lap cycle as the leader. If the leader finishes
a race, every car after them will also finish the race as soon as they complete their lap,
regardless of whether they’ve done all the laps. The lapped cars will just be recorded
as +1LAP +2LAP etc. This means, you can crash on a red flagged
lap and STILL score points and be classified as finishing. It happened to Aitken and Ghiotto
in Russia’s F2 sprint race and it happened to Alonso in Brazil 2003 where he finished
on the podium despite his car being destroyed and Alonso himself being in the medical centre
while the podium ceremony was in full swing. It’s also worth nothing that if a race is
stopped before 75% of the race distance is completed, drivers will only score half points,
which is why the records show some drivers with half point totals.
So there we have it. Red flags and race suspensions can cause a fair bit of trouble and disrupt
race results. But we all have to make compromises in how we run races and the real question
is… are we always making the right balance of compromises? And - most pressingly - should
teams be allowed to fiddle with cars during stoppages?