Determining piit lane speeding

[Jungles]

Just read this: http://en.f1-live.com/f1/en/headlines/news/detail/...

Seems pretty ridiculous. Surely there are better methods for determining whether a driver has broken the speed limit?!

Edited by Jungles on Friday 2nd October 12:46

[Nick M]

Loads of Gatsos down the pitlane ??

[Munter]

So you shortened the pit entry Vettel. Have another fine for that....

I'm sorry but using one ofence to say you should not be punished for another offence..... Well it doesn't seem the best plan to me.

[andygo]

Thought he said that cutting pit lane entry was allowed or that several people were doing it?

[llewop]

time between 2 points seems pretty simple way of measuring speed

.... that Vettel admits cutting the corner and shortening his entry route doesn't change things. They will have known where the speed check was and should have allowed for that: if it really was a problem then they would have got everyone for the same reason!

[Jungles]

Munter said:

So you shortened the pit entry Vettel. Have another fine for that....

I'm sorry but using one ofence to say you should not be punished for another offence..... Well it doesn't seem the best plan to me.

It wasn't an offence though. His entry line was legal, otherwise the FIA would have punished him doubly for it.

The only sin that Vettel has committed is that he seems to have cut the entry curve more than the other drivers did, while still keeping it legal. Plenty of drivers push the legality of the rules to the limit and get away with it, even if they don't all do it all the time. Vettel was perhaps stupid, but didn't actually do anything wrong (unless you ask the FIA, of course).

Edited by Jungles on Friday 2nd October 13:02

[Munter]

Jungles said:

Munter said:

So you shortened the pit entry Vettel. Have another fine for that....

I'm sorry but using one ofence to say you should not be punished for another offence..... Well it doesn't seem the best plan to me.

It wasn't an offence though. His entry line was legal, otherwise the FIA would have punished him doubly for it.

So it's ok to drive outside the limits of the track and gain an advantage? He obviously went somewhere others didn't to trip the speed limit. He's as good as admitted it was a deliberate action to cut the corner...if that wasn't to gain an advantage...

[sleep envy]

Munter said:

So you shortened the pit entry Vettel. Have another fine for that....

I'm sorry but using one ofence to say you should not be punished for another offence..... Well it doesn't seem the best plan to me.

surely the penalty stops people gaining an advantage in the pitlane by shortening the entry so the fine stands?

would be the same if a drive straigh lines a chicane

[Jungles]

The thing is... he wasn't driving "outside the limits of the track". If he did, I will reiterate, the FIA will have penalised him for it separately.

Pretty much the worst thing he did was to maximise his opportunity within the rules. The line he took was legal, therefore no penalty. FIA's speed measuring speed is retarded, therefore penalty.

[llewop]

Jungles said:

The thing is... he wasn't driving "outside the limits of the track". If he did, I will reiterate, the FIA will have penalised him for it separately.

Pretty much the worst thing he did was to maximise his opportunity within the rules. The line he took was legal, therefore no penalty. FIA's speed measuring speed is retarded, therefore penalty.

I don't follow your logic: the pit lane is defined by the line....therefore the distance, measuring time between the two fixed points is probably as good a way as any given the environment: with the various radio systems etc and rapid changes in speed of the car entering, it may be radar etc is not reliable - cutting 2 beams will be. He cut a corner ffs!

Okay marginal gain probably (in which case why bother!?), but then he must have cut it finer than anyone else since no one else got caught: they pushed the limit too far and got caught; take it on the chin Seb and stop whining!

[loggyboy]

I guess the usual 10%+2mph doesnt apply in F1!

[DeadMeat_UK]

Presumably he knew how it was measured before the race, and knew the risks of taking a very tight line

[jamieboy]

DeadMeat_UK said:

Presumably he knew how it was measured before the race, and knew the risks of taking a very tight line

Thing is though, if the line he was taking was legal in itself then it shouldn't result in a speeding offence.

It shouldn't be possible to take a legal line between two points which makes it look as though you're speeding when you're not.

[Nick M]

jamieboy said:

DeadMeat_UK said:

Presumably he knew how it was measured before the race, and knew the risks of taking a very tight line

Thing is though, if the line he was taking was legal in itself then it shouldn't result in a speeding offence.

It shouldn't be possible to take a legal line between two points which makes it look as though you're speeding when you're not.

Precisely.

[sleep envy]

maybe they measure time between two points to stop it happening...

[Jungles]

llewop said:

I don't follow your logic: the pit lane is defined by the line

What line are you referring to? I'm, talking about the lines which mark the two opposite sides running along the pit lane. The driving line Vettel took was legal. The FIA did not punish him for the driving line he took.

llewop said:

....therefore the distance, measuring time between the two fixed points is probably as good a way as any given the environment: with the various radio systems etc and rapid changes in speed of the car entering, it may be radar etc is not reliable - cutting 2 beams will be.

Problem with measuring the time taken to travel two fixed points is that it measures only the average speed through the timed segment, not the speed at a particular point in time. It is also a flawed method for measuring speed along a curve. Furthermore, it does not detect incidences of momentary speeding, where while a driver's average speed is legal, their point speeds may not have been legal.

llewop said:

He cut a corner ffs!

He did not "cut a corner". The driving line itself was legal.

You shouldn't mix up the issue of legal driving lines and the limitations of a technical system. Vettel's driving line was legal. But the way the speed-measuring system has been set up, seemingly operates within limits that are different to what a driver may know to be legal. This is the problem: Vettel drove along the pit entry, taking a line which is legal within the rules. The speed-measuring system, which seems to operate under limits different to those of the actual rules about driving, determined he had been speeding.

If the speed-measuring system defines the allowed driving area to be something different to what a driver would understand it to be, then:

• The differences need to be made clear to all drivers: "This driving line is legal in normal driving, but it is not legal when you are in the pit lane". Apparently, this difference is not clear. OR
• The tolerance of the system needs to be broadened. OR
• A new system needs to be introduced (eg. GPS tracking).

Edited by Jungles on Friday 2nd October 14:42

[Munter]

Jungles said:

llewop said:

I don't follow your logic: the pit lane is defined by the line

What line are you referring to? I'm, talking about the lines which mark the two opposite sides running along the pit lane. The driving line Vettel took was legal. The FIA did not punish him for the driving line he took.

Clearly they did. Or this would not have happened. He cut a corner by crossing a line marking the edge of the course. This resulted in teh car arriving at the next timing beam in a time which means had he stayed on the track (within the lines), he would have been speeding, and for that he was punished.

Thus he was punished for cutting the corner and gaining a (all be it small) advantage.

You can't get around it. He drove a shorter line than the marked out track, got caught by a mechanism for a seperate rule, and has been punished.

[him_over_there]

So why was he punished for speeding in the pitlane and not punished for cutting a corner then ?

[Munter]

him_over_there said:

So why was he punished for speeding in the pitlane and not punished for cutting a corner then ?

Probably. And it's just a guess here. Because thats what the computer said he had done and the punishment was a drive through. Which you can't undo after the race really can you.

[zac510]

We need an aerial shot of the pit entry.

It does sound like the right way to measure though. If they had a gatso at the start and a gatso at the end then you could speed in the middle.
But their calculation of time for the track distance was incorrect.