29/10/2023
NEWS STORY
Drivers claim that rule mandating a minimum time, aimed to prevent them backing up on track, is causing the sort of pitlane chaos witnessed in qualifying.
As it happens, Max Verstappen, George Russell and Fernando Alonso, who were all investigated for impeding in the pitlane, were subsequently cleared with the stewards effectively arguing that though the rule is creating the issue there is currently no alternative.
In their findings, the stewards admitted that incidents occurred as a direct result of the implementation of the minimum lap time between SC2 and SC1 which was designed, "correctly so, in their view", to avoid the dangerous backing-up of cars on the circuit during qualifying.
"We note that there are contrary requirements on drivers in that they must respect the minimum time, in this case 1:36.0, as they are attempting to create manageable gaps to cars in front, yet they are also required to avoid unnecessarily stopping at the pit exit or driving unnecessarily slowly," said the stewards.
"It was also particularly noted that the race director accepted that these contrary requirements exist," they added. "All parties including the stewards are firmly of the view that it is better to have the potential of cars backing-up in the pit lane or at the pit exit, instead of the potentially dangerous situation of large speed differences on track."
"We all actually slow down at the end of the pit lane to create an eight second, six-to-eight second gap to the car in front," said Carlos Sainz. "You expect everyone behind you not to overtake you because they also need to open an eight second gap to you.
"The biggest thing we got rid of is the dangerous situation, especially in the last seconds, not necessarily here because the last sector is pretty low-speed, but in Spa for example sometimes we will have difference of speed between the cars that will be crazy," he explained of the other reason the rule was introduced. "It's been quite a good solution for that.
"On the other hand, it has created other problems that are not great, obviously the end of the pit lane. But this is, I think, the least of the problem.
"The biggest one that I found myself quite a lot in is whenever, especially in Q1, you've got two cars that are in a different sequence, and if you get out of the pit and you pass the Safety Car Line 2 at the same time as a car out on track, then you are basically done. Both of the cars are respecting the minimum lap time and you cannot open the gap, you just have to fight the car like I did in Qatar with Fernando or your lap is done."
Other than not wanting to run in the dirty air of another car, drivers need the gap in order to generate maximum heat into their tyres ahead of their flying laps.
"I don't think it's tyre related unless we would qualify on harder tyres," argued Sainz. "We could do a lot faster out laps and obviously the minimum lap time doesn't come into play.
"But the problem would still be there because there's too many cars for the six-to eight second gap that every car chases. If you multiply 20 cars by eight seconds, you're always going to have traffic at some point in Q1 or Q2."
"It's all imperfect at the moment," agreed Max Verstappen. "We need to come up with something else, but it's hard.
"Everyone is trying to make a gap now in the pit lane, which is the only place where we can do it, so I don't really understand how you can be impeding someone.
"I think we have to be a little bit more lenient with that, knowing it's a safe environment, I mean, we're driving really slowly."
"We need to sit down and find an even better solution for next year and for the future," said Sainz. "We're still not happy with the situation in the pit lane, so we already had a couple of ideas to improve it for next year, but it needs some change in the regulations and stuff like that. That requires a different year and a change from the FIA also."
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