Q: Do you think that Nyck de Vries will survive, or will he be another Dr. Marko casualty?
I’ve seen various thoughts about what to do about track limits, but there doesn’t appear to be a clear solution bubbling to the surface. Your thoughts? And yes, it doesn’t make the sport look good with all of the reshuffling of the finishing order after the fact.
Don Hopings, Cathedral City, CA
CHRIS MEDLAND: I reckon he’ll be lucky to still be in the car in Hungary… No, to be completely honest with everyone, this is what I wrote out initially when I received this question before de Vries was dropped:
I think he’ll get the season but that will likely be it, just based on the way things have gone so far. I know that internally de Vries has really impressed AlphaTauri with his feedback and the car hasn’t been competitive which isn’t his fault, but Red Bull wasn’t expecting too much from Yuki Tsunoda this year and if de Vries doesn’t start beating him I think he only gets one season.
What might change that is if Red Bull drops Tsunoda (it doesn’t really need to keep Honda happy any longer) and brings in Ricciardo next year. Then if it doesn’t deem any of its youngsters to be ready for F1, it could be that de Vries gets a second season.
I could see Ricciardo going into the AlphaTauri, but not this soon, and Tuesday’s news came out of the blue (even though we’ve seen it many times from Marko).
As for track limits, I still stand by the harsh approach of “the line is the track edge, stay within it or get a penalty.” Austria wasn’t a good look, but in a strange way the problem is only having such a bad situation once per year. By next season it’s not so fresh in the mind, whereas this past weekend at Silverstone nobody got a penalty despite three or four drivers being one infringement away from one at Stowe. Drivers have shown it can be done if it has to be, but it’s not the ideal solution.
In an ideal world, let’s have gravel on every exit as a proper deterrent that will hand out a penalty there and then for any errors.
Q: The subject: stacked pit stops, and the question: why?
Many times, I see a car sitting in pit lane, waiting for their teammates to have their car serviced before taking their turn in the same pit box. Precious seconds are lost. Why don’t they just use their own pit crew and boxes? In Canada, Lando Norris deliberately slowed the pace car laps so that Oscar Piastri could get in and out without affecting Lando’s stop, and Lando got an unsportsmanlike driving penalty of five seconds. It can’t be to save on equipment and crew members, Ferrari does this often, and they have no money problems. Is this a necessity for the cost cap rules?
Paul Sturmey, Carleton Place, Ontario, Canada
CM: It’s nothing to do with the cost cap, Paul, it’s just that there’s only one pit box per team, and the pit crew is made up of personnel from both cars. Each team has two garages — one per car — and you’re right that they have people who specifically work on that car as mechanics and engineers, but when it comes to pit stops it’s a mix of the entire team, so that’s why you see the cars being serviced by the same group both times when they stack.
The pit box itself covers pretty much the entire space across the front of the two garages, because you obviously need the room to get in and out of each pit box as well. So there’s not actually a separate box for each car, just one per team, and both cars need to use the same space.
Q: The solution to track limits is electronic proximity sensors on the car and on the track that indicate immediately and accurately when the car has gone over the white line and off the track. IndyCar does this in the Corkscrew at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca. A light or display in the cockpit can alert the driver when they have transgressed, along with a tone in their earpiece. Immediate feedback to the drivers will allow them to learn exactly where the limit is and how to avoid it.
Bruce
CM: I don’t think this is a bad idea at all, Bruce, but the one downside is those sensors can’t tell you why a car was out there. The FIA did do that at certain corners in the past (I actually think at the Red Bull Ring if I remember correctly) but if two cars are fighting through there and one is pushed off, it doesn’t count as one of the infringements that could lead to a penalty. That means you still need to check every alert, which is what took so long in Austria.
Where you’re spot on is the drivers learning exactly where the limit is, because many mentioned the lack of visibility due to the current wheels and wheel covers, so they need to feel where the car is somehow. In that sense I actually think a smaller exit curb could help in Austria too, because they will feel when the left wheels have gone totally across it, and then will know, if they feel the right wheels on the curb, they’ve gone too far. But I have no scientific evidence into how well that would work!