Quote:
Originally Posted by chapo
Why are they allowed to work on the car during a red flag? especially if you caused it?
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Interesting question.
I recall a couple of years ago there was a race that had a red flag and restart. I was sitting there thinking, great Hammy will have to stop after the restart for tires or whatever, so he is screwed and won't win.
Then the announcers explained how the teams could do various things to the cars during the red flag. My heart sank.
Why should a team/driver benefit from that situation whether they caused the red flag or not? In the absence of the red flag, they would have had to gone to the pits for fuel, tires, or new nose, or BJ and a steak.
At least in my way of thinking, this rule just allows the driver/team a huge advantage, like around 30 seconds on track. So if a competitor is having a good and clean race knowing they will gain position when the driver has to pit, they are the ones getting screwed. I think in that race the other drivers had pitted and were just waiting for Hammy to cycle through his pit stop.
I have similar feelings about pitting under Safety Car or VCS. Mainly for fairness.