Because someone waved a chequered flag at Lewis Hamilton on the wrong lap, the results in Shanghai have to be changed. According to the FIA’s Article 43.2 of the Sporting Regulations, “should for any reason the end-of-race signal be given before the leading car completes the scheduled number of laps, or the prescribed time has been completed, the race will be deemed to have finished when the leading car last crossed the line before the signal was given”. This means that Kamui Kobayashi’s last-minute overtake on Jules Bianchi does not count, the race having been declared at 54 laps.
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Who was holding the finish flag?
It was noted that there were a lot of spurious blues at the wrong times too.
So, back to flag school!
I noted those BF issues as well. The problem with the modern system is their race control follow a moving map display and start calling each of the blue flaggers (they all have headsets) and start calling out stations and car numbers to begin waving the blue flag and which car numbers to target. They also inform *other* stations and list other car numbers which may be lapping in other sections of the track – all this over an open land line net and this can be confusing as well. It’s noisy (less so this year) and many of these people do this once a year, perhaps a couple of times per year at most. They see two or three cars come into view and as *instructed* – begin waving the blue flag not recognizing the fact that the leader has already passed the lapped car somewhere before their station. Many flaggers in non traditional racing countries lack car/driver recognition skills and this is the downside to the F1 system that unlike other racing series where the BF is an ‘advisory’ flag – in F1 it is a ‘command’ flag and thus they need some way to get these stations in these countries up to speed so to speak. Most other traditional racing venues – the BF personal turn down the volume on the headset and use the mark one eyeball. To me – its a silly system as they don’t help the flaggers during practices so the flaggers are on their own until qualifying and the race where they are commanded to wave the flag instead of relying on their observational skills. This is where the mistakes happen as they feel intimated to wave the flag as soon as the cars appear instead of actually processing the information right in front of their eyes and seeing Hamilton is now in front of a backmarker. I understand why F1 does what they do with this system but these are the pitfalls. They would be far better off using the flashing blue light on the dash they proposed several years back but never implemented. As an aside – the BF is there because of FIA rules but the actual command point is the blue LIGHT and it is this system that gets you a penalty if you ignore three blue lights. In some counties the command is from race control and in other locations it is a second person at the station with a control box pushing buttons whom is usually the most experienced person at the station.
They could have flagged after a couple of laps and no one would have really cared…
Very true, unfortunately.
I agree with r.bartlett, not exactly unpredictable is it. Compared with any other season,no big deal on reliabililty… getting better after just 4 races. So much for regs changes. The biggest factors have been negative: issues of rule-breaking, and the lack engine noise, the latter is hardly 100% in favour of.
The pinnacle of motor sport … hmmm.
I wish this had a notice “spoiler alert” because they don’t show the F1 races live in Korea anymore! Oh well. I should have waited to read it. LOL
My sympathies to Mr. Kobayashi, and kudos to Mr. Hamilton.
“A change in the result…” is not equivalent to a spoiler alert?
[OT]
Hi Joe.
I loved this from Ron about the Fallows thing: ““He’d got no lawful right to change his mind in that way”.
Want to remind people about the Adrian-Newey-to-Jaguar thing? Pot, kettle, etc.
Did Newey actually sign a contract with Jaguar? I am not sure he got quite that far although your analogy is a good one
I believe he did.
Sine all the drivers were still racing over the last two laps, why should Kamui Kobayashi’s last-minute overtake on Jules Bianchi not count? Once again ridiculous bureaucracy rules the day, and the season is just starting. I hope Mercedes sort out Rosberg’s car or I fear the worst for the rest of the season. On a more positive note! I could just make out the sound of the engines. Not perfect yet, but getting there!
Gutted for Kamui on that, at least it wasn’t for 13th or higher…
What a cock-up!
The standard of officialdom seemed woeful! In addition, there didn’t seem to be anyone watching qualifying from the stands. The only thing that can be keeping the race there is money in to CVC.
The stands looked half empty during the race. I also noticed the covered up stands, blue tarps or something, that were visible when the cameras were following the cars in the back sections; there weren’t any spectators back there. It was also interesting to note the cameras zoomed in on the cars to, in my view, hide the (mostly) empty stands in other corners. FOM business model indeed.
And what’s with the in-car audio? You could hardly hear the engines. Indycar is doing the in-car stuff WAY better; lessons could be learned.
There was a huge crowd.
Is it possible that the Chinese were sending a message to Japan that they were not very happy with the remarks made by a senior Govt appointed Broadcast Official denying the events that became known as “The Rape of Nanking”???http://ti.me/LSC0LZ….
Sorry that I missed the most exciting thing that happened.
I did catch up on my sleep, however.
Twenty laps of “meh” and my eyelids closed.
I feel asleep again about 10 laps in, and then woke up 2-3 laps before the finish. I think an update to the rules could work ,certainly for this year, with say 20 lap races, that way Hammy will have more time to celebrate his race wins and Merc would be able to run the rest of the season on probably only 2 engines, which would save them a lot of money….
Could it have been LdM? He wanted shorter races….. 🙂
And that means that Ricciardo has no time to overtake Alonso. Hmmm,.
It’s Pele all over again!
Not a rule I particularly like, but I can completely understand it as the early chequered flag could have cause some drivers to slow down and perhaps lose position.
I have to say though the marshals were not doing a great job with the flags in general today as they were often waving blue flags at the wrong cars. Inexperience in the marshals?
Not very professional for a multi billion dollar sport.
If everyone was so quick to put the reason for the very good Bahrain GP down to the new regulations, will they do the same for the utterly boring Chinese GP?
Good thing the engines are so quiet because it made falling asleep during the race rather easy.
This is because no official is waving the checkered flag. So we should skip this article. Everybody knows how many laps should be done. To stop the race we have another flag, the red one. So let the chequered be a formality which it actually is. May give red lights at the finish to signal the end of the race by the official, Charlie Whiting (this man has been there forever! is he 83, like BE?)
Have you ever known anything like this occur before Joe? It’s difficult to know how they got it so wrong with all the technology they’ve got. After all, you count the laps manually and I imagine you got it right. Can you shed any light as to why this happened?
It has happened a few times notably with Pele in Brazil
Wasn’t the issue with Pele that he was a bit late rather than early? I seem to recall he was looking the wrong way, then got shoulder tapped to wave as the third car went past? (my recall may not be perfect, however?)
Cannot recall
“It’s difficult to know how they got it so wrong with all the technology they’ve got” and therein lies the answer
Didn´t race director Cooper show the chequered flag one lap too early in Silverstone 1985? As I remember Piquet was slipping from third to fourth and Berger out of the points because of that error.
The fact that they have this written into the regulations is quite amusing. Almost like they are expecting a level of incompetence!
I’ve seen the same thing happen at a few other races – some local bigwig or ‘star’ gets to wave the flag and the marshall behind them starts to say “You’d better get ready to …” and, oh dear, their waving it!
What is the procedure? A direct instruction from Charlie, or is the flag man simply issued with the flag early on and he counts so many laps then waves like mad?