F1 has a habbit of "soft" red flags

[WearWoofWobert]

so over the last 2 seasons we've had 7 races with red flags, and 8 instances of Red flags. I believe that 5 of these red flags should not be considered red flags based on the F1 sporting regulations

50.1
If Competitors or officials are placed in immediate physical danger by cars running on the track, and the clerk of the course deems circumstances are such that the track cannot be negotiated safely, even behind the safety car, the sprint qualifying session or the race will be suspended.

Should it become necessary to suspend the sprint qualifying session or the race, the clerk of the course will order red flags to be shown at all marshal posts and the abort lights to be shown at
the Line.

the first incident I have a problem with is the Charles' crash at Monza, where the given reason for the red flag is barrier damage. The problem with this red flag, is that under a safety car you should not be going fast enough to be able to make a mistake that would cause you to run wide at the Parabolica, meaning that neither competitors nor officials are placed in danger and the track can still be safely navigated

The second and third incident that I'm going to bring up is Stroll's incident from Mugello and Max and Lewis' crash from Silverstone, both accidents were red flagged because of barrier damadge. in both cases the barrier damadge was less than in Monza and in both cases there was more run off than at Monza, meaning that neither crash should of had red flags.

The next red flag I'm going to talk about is Max's crash from Baku this year. In this crash Michael Masi's initial response of a safety car was correct, but dangerously late. In this crash you could safely get one of the trucks alongside Max's car and recover it under a safety car, and therefore a red flag is not needed. now some people may feel this would risk a situation like Bianchi’s, however due to the speeds that the cars would be going when they pass the recovery vehicle, even if they hit it they could not end up in a situation where they'd be in able to go under the recovery vehicle enough to put the driver in danger, and all marshals would be working on the other side of the vehicle and be protected by it

The final crash that I'm going to talk about was from last weekends race where Bottas caused a crash by locking up and sliding into Lando Norris. The result of the crash was a textbook safteycar, since the wrecked cars were off the track and there was a clear line through the debris (simmilar to Spa 2012)

Now, it would be easy to say that the frequent red flags are a result of Masi tending to be highly cautious, however at the same time he's consistently been too slow to deploy saftey cars when they're needed (examples include both tyre failures at Baku and last weekends crash where it took 3/4 of the opening lap for him to call for a saftey car. I expect several more unneeded red flags to happen this year, and if Masi doesn't learn to officially deploy the saftey car and ignore yellow flag infringements then we're likely to see a high speed accident involving a stationary car soon.

 

[Benutzername]

I disagree. The red flags were correct, with barrier damages and with that much debris on track there need to be quite a few marshalls on the track - even if they are not anywhere near the racing line it needs to get red flagged. Better be too careful after what happened with Jules Bianchi. Yes, it was wet that day but there always is a chance of some freak failure. Masi was too slow on some occasions, with that I agree.

 

[Jan Larsen]

I disagree aswell. If the barriers needs to be fixed you may aswell throw the red so we avoid cars wasting laps driving around slowly. May also mean a standing restart. Yes its annoying things drag out but the benefits faar outweigh it imo.

 

[daveclifton]

I stopped reading at "habbit".

 

[Antony Snook]

As a fan you don't want to see a red flag or a yellow. It means racing is delayed while something is dealt with like fixing a barrier or moving a car or debris. The rules state the track has to meet safety standards and be race able. So after a big incident you have to get it to code for safe racing. From a purist point of view you don't want delays but its a safety issue. And a chance to change tires or airo parts that are damaged and avoid doing it during race when you would loose positions.

 

[Antony Snook]

One problem is if a barrier is damaged it is slow to fix. I believe this was the problem at Detroit the people who are volunteers to fix the barrier took their time. Like it was a union job payed by the hour. You cant rush it but if its to slow it takes to log. There needs to be a stop watch saying it should be fixed within a rational time frame.