2023 Australia Heroes and Zeroes

[Jericoke]

In some ways a much better race than we've had so far this year, and it some ways... a very WTF race.

I think the middle of the race was very much a race for the hardcore fans of the sport watching a chess match unfold amongst a whole train of cars trying to keep in striking distance/out of striking distance, while keeping their tires ready for the final push.  A shame we were robbed of that final push.

Heroes
Max/Perez/Red Bull.  They continue to have the best cars out there, and drivers who know how to use them.  A run away first place for max, a solid push through the field after a nightmare qualifying for Perez, plus the fastest lap (too bad for all the F1 pundits Max didn't get a chance to steal that lap)

Hamilton.  The Mercedes isn't ready to fight the Red Bull, but he did very well holding off Alonso.  Second wasn't a given for Lewis and his team, so well fought.

Alonso.  He's showing that age is just a number when it comes to racing automobiles.  His radio transmissions alone could be put into a master class of autoracing.  Aston Martin has done tremendous work, and he's making sure they are rewarded for it.

McLaren.  Yes, they were lucky how things shook out, but still, solid points from a team that was in danger of becoming a laughing stock.  The best day they could reasonably hope for.

Hulkenberg.  Like McLaren, Hulk/Haas had some luck on their side, but they put in the work to be there when it counted.

Zeroes.

I don't really want to blame any of the drivers for what happened on track.  High speed split second decisions are tough, but I feel like the FIA is more responsible than anyone.  The cars just aren't suited to close driving on narrow tracks which is going to invite incidents.

Gravel Traps.  I just don't see what they're adding to the sport.  They make things dangerous, they slow everything down while things are cleaned up, they aren't any safer than a paved runoff.  I know that people like the 'penalty' of getting stuck in a gravel trap, so why not just replace gravel traps with 'out of bounds' and if a car goes out of bounds, they're disqualified?  Gives you the same effect of a gravel trap, without stopping the race to retrieve a beached car/spend 10 minute sweeping up the gravel.

Red Flag/Restart rules.  I don't know why it seems like the FIA is making everything up as they go.  Does the rule book actually cover anything?  I feel like every time something happens no one knows what's going on. I don't fault the stewards for calling any of the red flags they did, but if they'd gone with safety cars for the first two, I wouldn't have been upset either.  The third red flag just went to show that the red flag/restart rules aren't working.  As exciting as the standing starts are, I think we need to go back to rolling starts

The last safety car lap.  I get that they had to 'finish the race', but the FIA is trying to create a 'greener image'.  What's more wasteful than a bunch of cars making two pointless laps around a track?  Just call it.  It provided nothing to fans, nothing to sponsors, drivers nor teams.  Imagine if something catastrophic had happened, especially since there might have been some jockeying for position after Sainz's penalty?

Sainz's penalty.  Sainz deserved a penalty for what he did to Alonso, but I hate time penalties being applied when the race finishes behind a safety car.  5 seconds normally means 1 or 2 lost places, and sometimes none.  Can we adjust the rule that if there are no more competitive laps run that instead of 5 seconds it becomes 2 or 3 places lost?  (10 becoming 4 or 6 etc.)

Final thought:  I liked how the cars were, for the most part, not teammate to teammate.  Cars were spread out.  Aside from early on with Russel/Hamilton we didn't need to worry about team orders being an issue

[Willy]

A bit of a snore-fest throughout the middle part after the excitement in the 1st few laps and the restart.
Jeri does a fine job of capturing all relevant points once again.
It was not Russel's day as he pitted and dropped 5 places and then a Red Flag negated that stop. Then the candle ignites and he ends on fire.
Alonso showed he is in this for the long run and has a few things to teach the young bucks.
Stroll has started to come into his own.
Perez pooched his race on the 1st lap.
The FIA can't seem to find their collective ass with both hands. What a mess.

[rmassart]

I suppose the reason for running the safety car is in case some driver spins off in that last lap behind the safety car.

Although I don't understand how the final positions are calculated. I understood it goes back to the lap before the final red flag. But why then are both the Alpine cars listed as DNF. I know they took each other out, but that lap should not count anymore....

As for the race itself, the first few laps had the pretence of excitement, but the moment Max cruised past Lewis the race was over. Max was cruising all the way home as if he was out on a leisurely Sunday drive. I suppose it was a Sunday...

[Alianora La Canta]

The FIA broke the regulations in so many places and with such severity that I cannot credibly call this a race. (The rulebook covers every situation that was contested today, and on at least 4 of them the FIA chose to completely ignore what the rulebook said. These included a breach of the time-limit rule that, if followed, would have completely prevented the Sainz, Alpine and Stroll situations by simply not having done the restart where those situations occurred. If the FIA can't be bothered to learn what is in the regulations, why would anyone else bother?)

However, I continue to wonder how many wheat biscuits Alex Albon had for breakfast, because he really was putting that Williams in places it had no right to be able to go successfully.

Although I don't understand how the final positions are calculated. I understood it goes back to the lap before the final red flag. But why then are both the Alpine cars listed as DNF. I know they took each other out, but that lap should not count anymore....

Had the cars completed a full sector before the red flag was called, the positions would have been given as they were at that point. However, it was judged that such was not the case for several runners. This requires the FIA to take results from the last point at which it was possible to get results. Herein lies some contention, as below:

Haas interpretation (for which they brought and lost an appeal): the FIA has a GPS system, it should use it (unless it wasn't working, in which case the race probably ought to have been stopped until it was fixed but at the very least its non-functionality needed to be admitted as a factor in calculating the results). This should also have been used to determine the Safety Car start order.

My interpretation: the FIA has between 16 and 20 mini-sectors for F1 races, which have to be working for the marshalling system currently in place to function. The last one of those that all runners crossed needed to be used, and as far as I can tell everyone crossed where I think the first one is located (the start of Turn 1). The last mini-sector crossed by all cars (or the start/finish line if that is too complicated due to needing to use all the mini-sectors) should be used to determine the Safety Car line up.

The FIA's interpretation: the GPS has historically proven unreliable and therefore cannot be used, and its state of functionality at the time of the stoppage is irrelevant, despite the fact we threw a Safety Car for its non-functionality last race. We can't be bothered to say why the mini-sectors were not used. Therefore we use start/finish line running order last lap, which was the order in which the cars ceased to be under Safety Car command. That order itself should be determined by the start/finish line position on the last lap prior to the red flag.

The Alpines weren't calculated because to be included in the final listings (in any of the above interpretations), a car has to make it back to the pits under its own power (with due allowance for track blockages and the like). Of course, the lap where they crashed should never have happened in the first place, but the FIA isn't one to admit its own mistakes voluntarily.

[John S]

I enjoyed most of the race but fail to see why so many red flags were necessary, to me this rush to keep cars safe from minor perils on track seems to have generated the biggest peril of all when the 2 Alpines collided.

Biggest pleasant suprise I took from Melbourne is that Red Bull may not be invincible on all tracks. 
We may yet have a competetive season to look forward to.

I'd like to pick up on Alianora's point about what constitutes a sector, surely the mini-sectors are for marshalling & flag deployment purpose and not timing. I suggest therefore that only the 3 generally displayed timing sectors should be taken in the context of managing race positions when the Regs are applied for an incomplete start.

Yes I realise that GPS is a valuble tool for lots of reasons, but I'm not sure it was given much thought when writing the rule around race starts or re-starts. Seems to me Haas and others are relying too heavily on ambiguity if no proper definition of 'sector' is in the regs on this matter. I'm sticking with timing sector, shown at every practice & Quali, being a better true distance measure, any other mini sector just doesn't make sense, even SC2 line (and what is the purpose of that anyway?) if no published timing is freely available to us spectators.

 

[cosworth151]

Thanks for the info, Ali. I wish the broadcasters had someone with your knowledge of the rules and ability to explain them clearly. 

As for the FIA, I wonder if it's a case of them not knowing the rules or just not caring about them. I seriously suspect it's the latter.

[lkjohnson1950]

I'm betting the reps from the local car cluba who get to be Stewards for a Day don't bother to study the rules so that they know how to handle these situations. I believe F1 is the only major series that does not have professional Stewards for their events (though I could be wrong about that).

[Alianora La Canta]

I'd like to pick up on Alianora's point about what constitutes a sector, surely the mini-sectors are for marshalling & flag deployment purpose and not timing. I suggest therefore that only the 3 generally displayed timing sectors should be taken in the context of managing race positions when the Regs are applied for an incomplete start.

Yes I realise that GPS is a valuble tool for lots of reasons, but I'm not sure it was given much thought when writing the rule around race starts or re-starts. Seems to me Haas and others are relying too heavily on ambiguity if no proper definition of 'sector' is in the regs on this matter. I'm sticking with timing sector, shown at every practice & Quali, being a better true distance measure, any other mini sector just doesn't make sense, even SC2 line (and what is the purpose of that anyway?) if no published timing is freely available to us spectators.

There are 3 sectors on the track that have full manual and digital checking systems to verify times taken. When you see "Sector 1", "Sector 2" and "Sector 3" in qualifying talk, that's what is meant. They've existed for decades and are generally marked on modern circuit maps.

However, timing is taken on all of the mini-sectors as well (there can be up to 20, although some tracks, like Japan, have only 18). Among other things, they are used to define whether someone went too fast under a Virtual Safety Car. Speed = Distance / Time. By definition it must be possible to use the mini-sectors to determine the time in which cars crossed that point, thus their position. Liberty certainly knows this because it uses the mini-sectors to aid in accurate position tracking on the position boards, and has done since 2017. Liberty is thus able to determine positions by mini-sector. The result is shown on every viewer's TV; Liberty just doesn't show which mini-sectors it's using because it's virtually never relevant*. Why can't the FIA do the same (even if it must do so by copying Liberty's notes)? GPS would only be needed to help verify what the mini-sectors already tell Liberty and only provide a degree of knowledge viewers already take for granted.

It's certainly not a good look for the FIA to be less capable of determining race positions than the average first-time fan sitting in front of the TV. The FIA was supposed to have learned from Brazil 2003 twenty years ago...

If you've ever wondered why a car sometimes slides down the order before suddenly resuming its usual position as if nothing had happened, it is because its transponder wasn't picked up at a mini-sector, and then got picked up at the next mini-sector.

* - When does the mini-sector number become relevant? When Sky and similar full-service broadcasters generate those images of which of 2 cars was faster in particular sections of the track. This would be impossible using only sectors but is nearly effortless when mini-sectors come into play. You'll notice that it tends to be split between 16-20 little sections each time. Well, those are your mini-sectors (If you see more than 20 little sectors, you know that broadcaster was doing something more sophisticated and time-consuming to generate its results).