#As I saw someone suggest yesterday f1 needs race director communication to all the drivers

[yesterdayiwrote]

There's been so many hot takes about red flags and lap deltas and VSCs and what was the right thing to be called, but I think the real point has been lost in the noise.

George was calling red, but his main concern seems to be the speed in which they're calling anything. Red flags and VSCs are communicated to the drivers on their steering wheels to tell them immediately to slow and neutralise the whole track. Stroll was 12 seconds behind him and was nearly on top of him before race direction applied any kind of warning or track neutralisation. His race engineer communicated the danger to him before the FIA did.

If you watch the video of George (and it's not an easy watch), he's not only screaming, he's physically making 'come on' motions at his steering wheel, urging it to change and show that some kind of action is being taken.

I keep seeing the takeaway that Stroll was so far behind so there was less immediate danger, and the VSC was fine. But the REAL issue is that a car was lying unsighted on the racing line and it took race direction TWELVE SECONDS to make a call that would give the other drivers warning of there being a potential danger on track. Like George said It's too slow.

There's been so much scrutiny over what is or isnt the right thing to do in situations, and criticism of the wrong call being made, that race direction are taking too long to make what should be a split second decision out of fear of being accused of ruining racing. I would definitely prefer them to over compensate out of urgency than be slow to react and potentially exacerbate the situation.

#f1 #formula 1 #australian gp 2024 #george russell #Twelve seconds is a lifetime in racing terms #And it's far too slow a decision for the severity of the danger to life #As I saw someone suggest yesterday f1 needs race director communication to all the drivers #But it needs communication to be happening much quicker than it is