The Great Run-off Debate - Tarmac? Grass? Gravel? Something else?

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Tom
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The Great Run-off Debate - Tarmac? Grass? Gravel? Something else?

#1

Post by Tom »

Given I'm quite opinionated on this subject, albiet completely ignorant as someone who's never raced anything on any track and hasn't even spoken to any racing drivers about it, I felt that a single topic for this issue (if it is considered one) would be wise.

This has been mostly prompted by Karun Chandok's assessment of Verstappen's penalty last week where he concluded that tarmac is the safest option but he would like to see a strip of real grass just off the edge of all race tracks with any tarmac beyond this.

I think we are generally agreed that, aesthetically, tracks with 'acres' of tarmac run-off everywhere are unattractive and have a general 'car-park' vibe/feel to them compared to tracks with mixtures of real grass and gravel.

In terms of safety, and the statements 'tarmac is safest' or 'tarmac is safer than any other option', I feel there's a hell of a lot still to be proven. In fact, this is the case to the point where I think that the introduction of tarmac to some parts of some tracks (new and old) remains unjustifiable from an aesthetic/character loss perspective.

Having thought about it a little more rationally, I will make some concessions...

1 - A run-off incorporating tarmac or hard-standing is safer than a run-off that is fully formed from real grass, particularly when it has rained or is raining
2 - There are certain corners on certain tracks where tarmac or hard-standing is clearly safer than any other option; a great example is Eau Rouge, which is a corner cars frequently crash at (relatively speaking) and grass/gravel would increase the chances of more serious incidents either through the inability to slow the car down or through causing the car to roll/get air etc
3 - There is a small degree of logic in wanting drivers who are fighting for position to feel slightly less concerned about making a small mistake and getting completely beached in deep gravel, retiring from the race and depriving the viewers of a spectacle.

However, in many other cases the introduction of tarmac, and the complete reliance on it at certain tracks, particularly newer ones, is much less justified and simply creates new and unnecessary issues, with the main and frequently recurring one being 'track limits'.

A great example is Mexico itself. The first corner/chicane has tarmac on the inside, which of course led to that Vettel/Verstappen incident last year. If this area had simply been gravel - not even deep gravel - Verstappen would have been much more impeded in terms of speed and would have rightly lost the place and the retrospective penalty/position deduction wouldn't have been necessary. Vettel's blood pressure would have also remained unharmed. This year, the 'answer' is to put in massive sausage kerbs so that cars must feed around them back to the track. This will now mean cars are punished for missing the corner, and it has a higher chance of avoiding a situation like the one above from unfolding again.

However...if 'safety' is the real motivation behind the use of tarmac, the introduction of sausage kerbs serves to negate this by creating a new 'thing' for F1 cars to hit/crash into and get air off. A car losing it at higher speed (i.e. brake/rear wing failure) on the way to the first corner would get serious air off those kerbs and end up having a colossal accident hitting the barrier upside down or worse, where with either just tarmac or gravel there they would skitter across and still likely impact the barrier but in a way that the car was designed to do so. I should also point out that elsewhere around the Mexico track there is a longish straight with a concrete barrier flanking it directly; there is an access road or something that creates an 'indent' in the barrier and the angle that this rejoins the circuit at is worrying perpendicular. I wouldn't want to see the result of cars getting squeezed or losing control at that particular point. How do these things get through?

Tarmac is almost as useless as grass when it is wet - although it clearly dries quicker - or if a car has lost a wheel/has a stuck throttle/has a brake issue. While gravel arguably increases the chances of a car flipping over, particularly a tin-top, it slows a car that is out of control down more effectively than tarmac does simply because of the physics surrounding friction. Sudden stops are arguably more likely to cause injury to the majority of drivers than a tumble, with the odds of injury increasing slightly for open-top/single-seater drivers of course.

I would be very interested to see the results of a straight poll of all racing drivers about whether they would rather hit a tyre barrier at 100mph or flip-away the same amount of energy. It may tell me I'm quite wrong in my assumptions, or may help back up my points.

I think the best combination of 'run-off' finishing material would be a 3m or 4m wide strip of real grass just off the track, a specified width of gravel just before the barriers, and tarmac in-between. This would, in my (again, uninformed) opinion help reduce the number of track-limit issues/penalities, allow cars that spin off or make a mistake to recover but lose time, and also introduce an element of speed reduction assistance for anything that leaves the track completely unable to make use of its own brakes/wheels/downforce etc.

However, my mind is quite open and I'm literally just an armchair critic with no real world experience, so I'd be very keen to hear the thoughts of everyone else!
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#2

Post by erwin greven »

Gravel or tarmac is a bit of damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Your solution in the pre-ultimate paragraph, is in my opinion also the best solution.

One problem at many venues is that the track is host to more than one series. And not limited to 4 wheel racing. They also host bikes. One of these tracks is COTA. And the safety measures have to fit both types of motorsports.
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#3

Post by Circuitmaster »

Agreed that tracks should have a strip of something undesirable along the edges.. grass, astroturf, sausage kerbs on the slower corners perhaps. Whatever happens after that.. it really depends on the corner. Maybe instead of tarmac or grass, they could just have yards and yards of low density foam or something, to gradually slow the cars down? Trouble is, you'd have to be constantly repairing it.
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#4

Post by kals »

I don't know what the answer is, but there needs to be something lining the circuit that doesn't entice a driver to leave the track. Too often safety is used as an excuse to not resolve something like track limits.
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#5

Post by Michkov »

I heard Alex Wurz mention a while back that a big selling point of tarmac runogg is that it doesn't damage the paintjob of rich trackday driver if they have an off. With racing series being fine with graveltraps.

I'd like to see loose surface beyond the track edge, at least 1 1/2 car widths say 4meters (that is 4.23E-16ly for you non metrics) followed by gravel or tarmac whatever seems appropriate at the corner. That should help drainage as well as grass is permeable which tarmac isn't.
Further high kerbs at the exit and apecies if they are not in the line of fire.
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#6

Post by MonteCristo »

Sausage kerbs and grass or gravel for more than just 4m or so (otherwise they'll just straight line over it without any penalty, and then re-join just as with pure tarmac).

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#7

Post by myownalias »

Paul Ricard has a good solution, it has tarmac run off, however, it is painted with a very course material which causes excessive tire wear, which reduces tire life, mean an extra pitstop or performance degradation.

However, I would like to go old school, white line > grass > gravel.

For a new school solution, how about some sort of electronic solution, if a driver goes all four wheels over the white line, they get an automatic cut in throttle for 2 seconds, but that could be a double edge sword as it could potentially cause a crash!
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#8

Post by John »

myownalias wrote: 6 years ago For a new school solution, how about some sort of electronic solution, if a driver goes all four wheels over the white line, they get an automatic cut in throttle for 2 seconds, but that could be a double edge sword as it could potentially cause a crash!
As lovely has that sounds, we don't need MORE whacky technology. :P

There's plenty of good solutions out there.I'd rather see gravel next to a corner, and if they need a bigger run-off area, then add tarmac or whatever after the gravel. Didn't Suzuka have something like this at the spoon curve a few years back?
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#9

Post by Ian-S »

There's nothing like a few meters of grass to the railway sleeper lined earth bank to remind you of your mortality.

I remember when they moved the barriers back at the Mallory Esses it completely changed everybody's approach to the corner knowing you could just skip across the grass if you fucked up rather than hitting the oak tree.
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#10

Post by Tom »

Thruxton is an awe-inspiring track; as you describe there are some corners (Churches?) where if you go off you will not stop under you hit trees.

I guess logistically incorporating gravel into such a track as Thruxton is inexpedient.
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#11

Post by kals »

Yes but Thruxton has made some changes and they've proven to be problematic.

Maybe we're looking at this the wrong way, or need a fresh perspective.

It seems whatever curbing or edging to a circuit is put down, from sausages to razor tooth run off to low grip asphalt to a change in road surface level (thinking of the inside of the turns at Austin and Mexico), not only are these no deterrent to the drivers but they don't actually affect the performance of the car. Tyres, suspension, flat bottomed race cars, even the drivers should not be able to cope (as well as they do) with the effects of running wide or cutting a corner. Running off line and getting dirt on your tyres seems to be irrelevant nowadays.

Getting to the point, perhaps we should look at the cars rather than just the tracks?
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#12

Post by Michkov »

I quite liked the curbs they had at the Österreichring last year.
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#13

Post by Ian-S »

Thruxton is in the green belt, so they're limited over what they can do, plus as kals has alluded to, didn't the improvements to Church (approved by TOCA and the MSA I might add) actually lead to a worse accident this year?

If TPTB are going to insist on Tarmac run offs then stick 15 foot of grass before it and drivers won't use it, Tarmac does have it's advantages, especially for bikes, there's no doubt about that. Bikes prefer either grass or Tarmac, gravel isn't an option, just look at Leon Haslam's Brands crash for an example of how bad gravel can be.
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