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Can Anything Be Done About Safety Car Regulations?
By Emma Aitken April 29 2008
When the pit lane closed as the safety car came out due to Kovalainen's high speed crash, Nick Heidfeld was in need of a re-fuel. After running on fumes the team had to bring in him and he incurred a stop-go penalty as a result. Heidfeld was not amused. But can a solution be found to this issue?

Do the current safety car pit stop regulations turn Formula 1 in to a lottery? Nick Heidfeld thinks so and I would tend to agree with him. The problem is what can be done about it? 

Under the 2008 regulations the pit lane is closed for the first few laps of any safety car period. The change was introduced in order to prevent all the drivers making a dash for the pit lane when the safety car comes out and, as a result, doing themselves and/or those around them an injury by smashing in to each other. Of course, what happens is that the poor, hapless driver who was just about to come in to re-fuel has to either go round on fumes and a prayer or illegally go in and suffer a stop-go penalty that could ruin their whole race. 

Heidfeld has hit out after being on the wrong side of the safety car pit stop regulations resulting in him ending up at the back of the pack, after a potential top five finish.

He went over the finish line in ninth in the end. BMW did try to pre-empt the safety car by calling their driver in as soon as poor Heikki hit the tyre barrier but Nick was in the wrong place at the wrong time. The German had just sailed past the pit entry when the message came across on his radio and he had to complete another lap. By the time he got round he had collected the safety car and the pit lane was closed. 

“I then tried to save fuel and delay my pit stop, but in the end it was a choice between running out of fuel on the track or getting a stop-go penalty” said Heidfeld. 

“Luck or bad luck should not play a role in Formula 1.”

 He’s absolutely right; it shouldn’t. But it always has done, and not just because of the pit lane closure ruling. Anyone remember the German Grand Prix, 2000? Mika Haikkinen and David Coulthard were scorching away with a 1-2 lead. Then some complete fool who had some issues with his ex employee’s, Mercedes Benz decided he would get his own back by throwing himself across the track, mid race. If I had been David Coulthard that day I would have just ran him over, but that’s just me and I suppose the safety car would have still had to have been deployed to get rid of evidence! DC swerved out of his way of course and the safety car put in an appearance (how ironic, a Mercedes was brought out to get the thing sorted!). All drivers headed for the pits. No one crashed in to anyone as I recall, but Mika and DC could not pit at the same time; the garage wasn’t fit for it, so the unlucky Scotsman had to go one lap further and ended up at the back of the procession behind the safety car. His bad luck was rewarded with some good luck on that particular occasion because not long after the heavens opened and a combination of everyone heading in for wets and the tremendous driving skills of DC did see him claw his way back to third. But it might not have happened that way and the safety car could have seen him stay at the back for the rest of the race.

 Both Ruebens Barrichello and Heikki Kovalainen fell foul to ‘wrong place at wrong time’ syndrome in Australia and paid for it. 

But here’s the thing; as much as I’ve given it some thought, weighing up the pros and cons, I can’t see a solution to the problem. Closing the pit lane when the safety car is deployed does seem a tad over-cautious to me. Formula 1 drivers seem like an intelligent bunch of people to me (though unfortunately I have never met any of them personally) and certainly none of them want to be directly responsible for taking themselves and a fellow driver out while heading in to re-fuel because they weren’t concentrating on their surroundings. I’m willing to bet good money they could cope. So the pit closure aspect is something I feel could be aborted.

There are no plans to though, at least in the short term. But my point is, even if they do change that ruling, the safety car will always be needed and there will always be a driver who is going to come round at the wrong time when the silver Merc puts in an appearance at that driver’s cost. And as much as I have been wracking my brains, I can’t see a way round it. Sorry to be inconclusive, but as Nick Heidfeld will tell you, that’s the luck of the draw!

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