The virtual safety car (VSC) definitely throws jeopardy into races, but it does not do virtually what the safety car does. Would it not be more balanced to have a minimum of at least one full lap? Yes, this would dampen the jeopardy effect but what happened to Lando Norris feels like a chance card in Monopoly. – Kyle<\/p>\n
Lando Norris’ bad luck with the virtual safety car at the Spanish Grand Prix has certainly focused attention on the ways this can disrupt races.<\/p>\n
The VSC has always had issues – it freezes a race rather than resets it, which can be a bit boring compared to an actual safety car – but it has the benefit of minimising disruption when a track hazard can be cleared relatively quickly.<\/p>\n
It has long been an opportunity for someone to benefit over a rival, because making a pit stop under a VSC takes significantly less time than under racing conditions.<\/p>\n
But usually this has been in cases where one team has changed or deployed its strategy with the express intention of waiting for a safety car or VSC (such as Norris himself in his maiden victory in Miami in 2024), and benefiting over a rival who has run a more conventional strategy.<\/p>\n
That sort of thing is considered fair game. What happened to Norris – a driver lost a race win because his specific track positioning at the time of a VSC meant he alone was unable to pit under it – is, to the best anyone could remember on Sunday, unique.<\/p>\n
The media are not privy to conversations in drivers’ briefings, and Norris in particular gets a bit sniffy when information from those meetings leaks out because they are meant to be a safe space where the drivers and FIA can share opinions without it becoming a controversy.<\/p>\n
But it emerged after the race that this issue, as Norris put it, “has been spoken about many, many times”.<\/p>\n
Whether Norris’ misfortune leads to a change, such as ensuring that a VSC is deployed for at least one whole lap, remains to be seen.<\/p>\n
There is no easy answer, because within F1 it’s recognised that safety cars are part of the competitive jigsaw, and can be used to a team’s advantage. And the latest rules have been arrived at after various previous iterations that worked in different ways, such as shutting the pit lane for specific periods.<\/p>\n
McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said: “Offering a personal opinion, I’m puzzled myself as to what’s right. <\/p>\n
“Is it correct to give enough duration such that everyone will have been subject to the same track conditions? So, for instance, the virtual safety car lasts at least one full lap. <\/p>\n
“Or you just keep it in the hands of the Gods, and sometimes you are lucky, sometimes you are not. I’m not sure.”<\/p>\n
There is process for these sorts of discussions – they go to a sporting advisory committee for analysis, before being reviewed by the F1 Commission of teams, commercial rights holder F1 and governing body the FIA.<\/p>\n
That won’t happen quickly – unless it is decided by F1 and the FIA that it is a desirable outcome to change the rules. Right now, the momentum for that does not appear to be there.<\/p>\n
What are the prospects for rookies coming into Formula 1 next year? Many drivers are re-signing long contracts with their teams. Are there likely to be any new recruits? – Mia<\/p>\n
The most likely place for a new driver to come into F1 next season is Haas, where Esteban Ocon’s position looks shaky.<\/p>\n
The two main candidates there are Italy’s reigning Formula 2 champion Leonardo Fornaroli, who is part of McLaren’s driver development programme, and Brazilian Rafael Camara, who is second in F2 this year and part of the Ferrari driver academy.<\/p>\n
Both have tested for Haas and are said to have impressed the team.<\/p>\n
Haas will want a quick driver who brings money, and it’s not clear who the favourite is. Ryo Hirakawa, Haas’ reserve driver and a long-time protege of Haas’ technical partner Toyota, is also in the picture, but considered a less likely candidate.<\/p>\n
Elsewhere, there is talk of Red Bull considering moving F2 championship leader Nikola Tsolov, who is Bulgarian, into their Racing Bulls team.<\/p>\n
To do so, they would have to drop either Liam Lawson or Arvid Lindblad. It’s hard to see how it would be Lindblad, after such an impressive rookie campaign.<\/p>\n
But Lawson has also been doing a good job this year, so it’s not a given.<\/p>\n
At Cadillac, they have Indycar race-winner Colton Herta as reserve. They have been planning for Herta to be in F1 before too long – the idea behind him moving to Europe and doing Formula 2 this year was so he could learn the ropes on this side of the Atlantic and be as prepared as possible for graduation to F1.<\/p>\n
But Herta has had a very difficult F2 campaign this year – his best result is a fifth place and he is 19th in the championship – so moving him up to F1 for 2027 would be a massive risk.<\/p>\n
Ugo Ugochukwu, who won the Formula 3 title in Madrid on Sunday, is another American said to be of interest to Cadillac.<\/p>\n
He had been part of the McLaren driver development programme for several years until they parted ways at the end of last season.<\/p>\n
But even if Ugochukwu’s Cadillac links become formalised, next year is probably too early for him to make F1.<\/p>\n
He’s also extremely tall – well over six foot and much taller even than Ocon, Alex Albon and George Russell, the current tallest drivers – so getting him into an F1 car would not be easy.<\/p>\n
The other teams are pretty much locked down, although it’s still unknown whether Fernando Alonso is going to continue in F1 next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The virtual safety car (VSC) definitely throws jeopardy into races, but it does not do virtually what the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":625258,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-625257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=625257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625257\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/625258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=625257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=625257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=625257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}