Should a GP start with one car in the grid?
Discussion
The Hungaroring GP saw the bizzare sight of one car on the grid, while all the others piled into the pits for dry tyres. Pit lane discipline was largely lost, and a Haas/Alfa collision saw the Haas retired. The start is by far the most dangerous part of a race,as the earlier race start had shown.
Surely the Race Director, Michael Masi, should have cancelled the start and called for another parade lap? I presume he has that power? Stop the start procedure, red flags all around the course, start again!
John
Surely the Race Director, Michael Masi, should have cancelled the start and called for another parade lap? I presume he has that power? Stop the start procedure, red flags all around the course, start again!
John
Rules are rules. If a standing start was indicated and all but one of the drivers went into the pits then the standing start still applies. It would have been interesting to see what would have happened if all drivers had gone into the pits. In that instance I can imagine that the Race Director would have enforced another parade lap and a standing start once all competitors had sorted out their tyres. On the other hand, what would they have done if Hamilton had jumped the lights for a false start? Would they have applied a penalty?
SiH said:
Rules are rules. If a standing start was indicated and all but one of the drivers went into the pits then the standing start still applies. It would have been interesting to see what would have happened if all drivers had gone into the pits. In that instance I can imagine that the Race Director would have enforced another parade lap and a standing start once all competitors had sorted out their tyres. On the other hand, what would they have done if Hamilton had jumped the lights for a false start? Would they have applied a penalty?
Masi explicitly said that they still would have gone through the light sequence even if all cars were in the pit lane. 
tapkaJohnD said:
Surely the Race Director, Michael Masi, should have cancelled the start and called for another parade lap? I presume he has that power? Stop the start procedure, red flags all around the course, start again!
John
You can't just alter rules on the hop, based on events happening live. John
Rules are there to be followed for a reason.
You can only reflect back and think
"Maybe we should change the rules for next time"
And objectively look at if that's the right thing to do....
The problem with another parade lap, is that many of the cars would have been in the wrong order as a result of the pit stops.
Anything other than what they actually did, is going to have been worse in practice.
About the only thing that would have made the situation more equitable, was to wait another few seconds on the pit lane exit light.
I still find it amazing that, in such changeable weather conditions, the teams didn’t send spotters out around the circuit to deliver weather and track condition reports back to the race engineers and strategists.
Anything other than what they actually did, is going to have been worse in practice.
About the only thing that would have made the situation more equitable, was to wait another few seconds on the pit lane exit light.
I still find it amazing that, in such changeable weather conditions, the teams didn’t send spotters out around the circuit to deliver weather and track condition reports back to the race engineers and strategists.
Sandpit Steve said:
I still find it amazing that, in such changeable weather conditions, the teams didn’t send spotters out around the circuit to deliver weather and track condition reports back to the race engineers and strategists.
Do they have to have the wheels on a certain period of time before the parade lap begins like they do before a normal race start? kambites said:
Sandpit Steve said:
I still find it amazing that, in such changeable weather conditions, the teams didn’t send spotters out around the circuit to deliver weather and track condition reports back to the race engineers and strategists.
Do they have to have the wheels on a certain period of time before the parade lap begins like they do before a normal race start? 51.3 of the latest (2021v11) sporting regs, which have annoyingly renumbered almost every article!
https://www.fia.com/sites/default/files/2021_formu...
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