I think one of the issues was that tomorrow was looking to be no better weather wise than today.
I think one of the issues was that tomorrow was looking to be no better weather wise than today.
I understand why they did this. It sucks but in a week it will all be forgotten.
Subscriber-unavailabile said:In reply to codrus (Forum Supporter) :
It amazes me the Moto GP guys will run in the rain, talk bout balls of steel
Having raced on 2 & 4 wheels in the rain it's not as big a deal as you think. Especially as most MotoGP guys ride off road as well.
dean1484 said:I understand why they did this. It sucks but in a week it will all be forgotten.
Nobody is going to forget it if Max wins the championship by less than 5 points. :)
Tom_Spangler (Forum Supporter) said:What an embarrassment. I can't believe they are awarding points for this nonsense.
If the F1 circus is so big and unwieldy that it can't handle a one-day delay when they are racing the next weekend, maybe they need to look at improving their logistics. NASCAR does rain delays at least once a year, and they seem to handle it just fine.
Going from somewhere in the South to somewhere in the South is a wee bit different than going from a continent to a different continent...
In reply to Javelin (Forum Supporter) :
It's a 142 miles from Spa to Zandvoort. According to Google, it's 3 hours.
Not sure how many NASCAR races are that close together.
Even the normal schedule of going to Monza isn't that far.
In Formula Yugo 2 laps under green (and yes several debris flags) is an endurance race.
9/30/2021 will be known as the date F1 dropped a flag and its pants on a 2 lap yellow flag “race”.
Tom_Spangler (Forum Supporter) said:What an embarrassment. I can't believe they are awarding points for this nonsense.
If the F1 circus is so big and unwieldy that it can't handle a one-day delay when they are racing the next weekend, maybe they need to look at improving their logistics. NASCAR does rain delays at least once a year, and they seem to handle it just fine.
I'm not defending the FIA's decision, but trying to compare NASCAR races to Spa, in particular is a bit reductive. Spa is a 4.3 mile circuit with right turns and a much higher number of corner marshals than you'd need for an oval race.
the situation sucks: you can't fail to award points for a race weekend in progress, you can't award points for a race that never happened. You're going to struggle to have enough Marshall's and staff for an event on a weekday.
In reply to AaronT :
F1 is a multi Billion dollar enterprise. Stop using volunteer marshals and you can race on Monday.
So anything is excusable. How is two laps a completed race? I've never run in an event that counted a event over at less than half distance.
Rusnak_322 said:In reply to AaronT :
F1 is a multi Billion dollar enterprise. Stop using volunteer marshals and you can race on Monday.
That is something that has always kind of bothered me. I get how cool it must be to have the closest seat in the house, but there's a certain arrogance about a for-profit entity asking people to come and work for free so that millionaire drivers can drive their multi-million dollar cars supported by dozens of staff around a track that's paying millions in sanction fees in order to sell hundred-dollar-plus tickets. I'm as capitalist free-market-y as you can get and generally-speaking all the complaining about "the rich" usually grates on my nerves, but this is one that I don't get...
I was really looking forward to the Max-George-Lewis battle into La Source today. I kind of feel like that was a once-in-a-lifetime chance that we've missed out on
In reply to Wally (Forum Supporter) :
I think it's a started race, and once it's started there are half points available? Gotta get to 75% to get full points.
It's not really logical, I agree. Half or 25% distance would be better, and under green flag conditions. I totally understand the red flag of this race, but I agree that it shouldn't be a points race with two laps under yellow.
In reply to wae :
There are multiple issues with full time marshals. How much can you actually pay people who are only going to be working 65 to 70 days a year? Even if you add in training days and pay for travel days they might be working 100-125 days a year.
At best you are talking about pay in the range of 35-40K annually. What caliber of personnel are you going to get for that?
We are having this discussion becuase one race got cancelled due to weather. When was the last time this actually happened?
Keith Tanner said:I think it's a started race, and once it's started there are half points available? Gotta get to 75% to get full points.
If the race is abandoned with less than 2 laps complete then there are no points.
Tom1200 said:There are multiple issues with full time marshals. How much can you actually pay people who are only going to be working 65 to 70 days a year? Even if you add in training days and pay for travel days they might be working 100-125 days a year.
Also you want the marshals to have experience at that track, they really need to be locals.
IMHO the FIA should pay them for the event rather than relying on generosity, but that doesn't solve the problem that being a marshal isn't their full-time job so you can't demand them to show up the next day.
In reply to Tom1200 :
Er, well, if the caliber of a 40k employee is poor, then a 0k employee must be horrid! Nah, I'm not saying that they need to give them full time employment or anything. But even if it's just for a weekend, why would I work for Liberty Media for free? Don't get me wrong, I do plenty of volunteer work all the time, but an 80 year old Vet doesn't have the means or the ability to hire someone to trim his trees. Lewis Hamilton, Lawrence Stroll, et al don't exactly need charity.
I guess I let my frustration go when Masi stated that the teams also thought they saw a gap on the radar to get some racing in.
Also, the lower end of the track seemed to be less wet and usable for the race.
So just an unfortunate situation all around. The rules worked as they should. Nascar is Nascar and F1 is F1 why does one have to be better? They have their places in the racing universe. Both have been tripped up by a rare situation.
I love Spa and so it hurt to not have a non SC led lap and I just hope next year like most prior years the weather is OK.
I would have liked either Lewis or Max to not have the half point so maybe we could get the WDC decided by a fastest lap, single point!
While it's correct that what happened yesterday is so rare that it barely needs any recognition.
However, since there are standards that cause a red flag due to rain and that there are standards to when they are allowed to have races- they are all within some specific times, and need to be done if there are no lights- the FIA and Formula 1 SHOULD have plans in place to run the race the next day.
Having a race be "completed" based on qualifying is a farce, and this takes out of the championship quite a bit.
Just because that kind of red flag event is incredibly rare does not mean it should not have plans around such an event.
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/talks-rule-changes-belgian-gp-farce/6657080/
Sounds like there isn't a lot of resistance to fixing the rules to prevent that in the future, if that article is to be believed. They do seem to have a rule for all sorts of bizarre and unlikely contingencies, so it would make sense that one should exist for this.
It's not going to be easy to figure out, though. It's pretty easy to just play an extra baseball game next time the other team is in town, but having to get "the show" to the next track in just a few days' time could make it challenging. Especially if there's no promise that the next day's weather will be any better. Running the race later could work, but only if F1 is going to be nearby. They wouldn't be able to fly everything back to Austin, for example, to run that one race.
What about using one of those sprint races in Bahrain on the other circuit for half-points at the end of the season to make up for a rained out event? At least we'd get some sort of race out of it and it would be something the teams could plan for. I don't know what you do about the fans, though. The track already had to spend all the money to prep and staff the place and the drivers and teams are still getting their paychecks, so it's not like there's a whole bunch of money just sitting around to be given back.
I guess the more I think about it, the more I can understand why they never came up with a plan: it's not an easy thing to figure out and it doesn't happen that much! Whatever they come up with, though, it has to be something that isn't so undesirable that there's a huge incentive to let the drivers go out and bang wheels in unsafe conditions. I love watching the drivers battle but I want the days of losing a driver or two a year to remain behind us.
In reply to alfadriver :
I agree that a race by race plan for a postponed race is something that could be looked into.
Not every event can accommodate a rain delay date but worth seeing if a bunch of fans would show up on Monday.
Advan046 said:In reply to alfadriver :
I agree that a race by race plan for a postponed race is something that could be looked into.
Not every event can accommodate a rain delay date but worth seeing if a bunch of fans would show up on Monday.
The thing for me is that they have some kind of standards for running the race- rain, time, light, etc. But if the situation means any of those can't be satisfied, there's no back up plan- other than running two laps behind the safety car, and then letting qualifying determine the points.
This was not the first time there were these kind of conditions- but this is the first time that all of the updated standards meant that the race could not be run.
IMHO, the same would have to apply if the track suffered physical damage that prevented the race to be run- remember last year when the Tuscan track had a problem? They were able to fix it fast- but what if that happened on lap one? And it would take 12 hours for whatever they did to cure?
There are multiple reasons a race would not be able to be run- and as rare as they are, there has to be a back up plan of some type, not just award half points based on qualifying.
I understand that there are a lot of logistics issues and there are rules that state if 2 laps are in that it's a race. I am also all for driver safety so I don't think that race should have been run. 2 laps behind a safety car don't make a race in any way. If that was 2 laps without the safety car I would be ok. There was no opportunity for anyone to change their position. With that I don't understand how you can call that a race in any way.
IIRC Spa took damage during flooding this spring - that's probably where that disruptive patch came from. Had that happened during this weekend, the race would have probably been called off.
I think a straight cancellation is a legitimate option. We've had multiple examples of that in the past two years, including a cancellation on race weekend. It makes more sense in the long run than doing the bare minimum that meets the letter of their rules, especially when that bare minimum is so comically minimal.
codrus (Forum Supporter) said:Keith Tanner said:I think it's a started race, and once it's started there are half points available? Gotta get to 75% to get full points.
If the race is abandoned with less than 2 laps complete then there are no points.
My question mark was not a sign of not understanding, it was trying to explain what the thinking might have been. If two laps behind the safety car counts as "complete", then it's really hard to imagine a lower bar other than "if any cars are on track during the scheduled race period, the race has been run".
I was at Austin a few years back when there were massive rains. It was a cluster - quali was canceled and everyone was sent home, then they held secret quali or something. I just remember going back and forth to the track trying to get a glimpse of a car moving under its own power for practice or quali and later finding out that I'd missed them because I'd followed instructions. But the most memorable aspect of the whole thing was the historic F1 race. I'd found the Spec 911 bumper car support race less than compelling in the past, so I was looking forward to it. And due to the rain they did two laps under yellow. Now I know why. It was a huge letdown.
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