We're Going To Spa! 2021 Belgian GP

[Circuitmaster]

Bottom post of the previous page:

Can we skip the 'rate the race' thread this week? There wasn't a race.. no need to ask everyone if they agree.

I'm still in favour of half points. I actually think that they should change the rules so that half points are awarded even if zero laps are completed, just to prevent all the practice and qualifying that came before it from being deemed completely pointless.. literally.

[Cheeveer]

Can we skip the 'rate the race' thread this week? There wasn't a race.. no need to ask everyone if they agree.

please! I don't need that kind of toxiticy in my life

[SBan83]

Yeah and how many other global series moved their race to Monday?

Name them:

1.
2.
3.

Don't forget that a lot of circuits run on volunteers. The marshal posts are mostly volunteers who have to work the next day.

Maybe it's time the 'pinnacle of motorsports' has its own dedicated marshall crew? Volunteers are okay for club racing but if that's the reason for not moving a race to Monday like how NASCAR does, then that's reflects pretty poorly for a series like F1.

Anyway, this is not excusable in the slightest. If I were a paying spectator at the track, I'd want my money back AND a free ticket to next year's race or another race.

And how many marshals do you want to fly all around the world? 10? 50? 100? How much do you want to pay them? 1500 a month? That will be 150000 a month, times 12... 1,800,000 a year. Add food, trucks for housing...

Right, it's too much for poor little F1 to pay...let's keep screwing the fans instead. Their money's cheap, isn't it?

How does NASCAR manage it? They postpone races up to Tuesday to get it in even if they have another race that same weekend. I guess those marshalls don't have jobs?

[Cheeveer]

Yeah and how many other global series moved their race to Monday?

Name them:

1.
2.
3.

Don't forget that a lot of circuits run on volunteers. The marshal posts are mostly volunteers who have to work the next day.

Maybe it's time the 'pinnacle of motorsports' has its own dedicated marshall crew? Volunteers are okay for club racing but if that's the reason for not moving a race to Monday like how NASCAR does, then that's reflects pretty poorly for a series like F1.

Anyway, this is not excusable in the slightest. If I were a paying spectator at the track, I'd want my money back AND a free ticket to next year's race or another race.

And how many marshals do you want to fly all around the world? 10? 50? 100? How much do you want to pay them? 1500 a month? That will be 150000 a month, times 12... 1,800,000 a year. Add food, trucks for housing...

sure, I get your point, but...

NASCAR trucks makes it work...

I am NOT saying that American labour laws are good, not even sure that they are into account here, but...

NASCAR makes it work many times every year.

[erwin greven]

NASCAR, IMSA, INDY.... they are all LOCAL series.

Formula 1 is a World Championship.

When the FIA have their own marshals then there will be a condiderable amount of them. I'm talking about 100 or even more marshals, the FIA has to send (fly) around the world. So they have to have shelter, food, everything. Plus all the teams have a lot of personnel who just came back from holiday. I'm don't think i have to remind you all about the pressure on and private lives of those mechanics and engineers of each team. The same will happen to all the marshals. They have to give up their social life at home, to come back at summer for a relative short amount of time. And in the winter they have to find a job... Between the last race and the first of the new season lies some 4 months... You cant keep them in those trucks.

It is not doable. You have to rely on volunteers who sacrifice a full week to do a job that makes motor racing possible. Without them: No race at any circumstance.

I am fully convinced that the FIA did everything to get the race started. But you have to keep in mind, they had the crash of Bianchi, Hubert and also the crashes of this weekend in their mind too. Lando, the girls of Formula W and in the other the feeding series had some massive shunts.

[Mawerick]

Well, I suppose @Star isn't all that happy about this "race" eh?

[SBan83]

NASCAR, IMSA, INDY.... they are all LOCAL series.

Local as in United States, a massive country that stretches across three time zones 'local'. You make it sound like it's a county short track series. It's no easier for a marshall to zip from Alabama to Michigan and so on. But that's obviously that's not what they do. I don't believe NASCAR have a travelling lot of marshalls. They likely hire marshalls who can stay on beyond Sunday. F1 can do that too. We're talking about the holy grail 'pinnacle of motorsport' here after all not a two-bit club racing racket that depends on marshalls who have to show up at day jobs on Monday deciding whether a race can be postponed to Monday or not.

[John]

Besides the logistical issues of the teams having to haul ass to get to Zandvoort, would it even be feasible within the current contract structure of the FIA/Liberty/Local RO to run the race on Monday?

[Manfred Cubenoggin]

Candy-assed bastards!

No excuse for this non-event. Drive to the conditions and if it turns into a lottery, so be it.

[Everso Biggyballies]

But you have to keep in mind, they had the crash of Bianchi, Hubert and also the crashes of this weekend in their mind too. Lando, the girls of Formula W and in the other the feeding series had some massive shunts.

Dont forget also the major multiple car crash (Aitken/Estre/Perera/Rigon) at the recent Spa 24hrs last month

[erwin greven]

But you have to keep in mind, they had the crash of Bianchi, Hubert and also the crashes of this weekend in their mind too. Lando, the girls of Formula W and in the other the feeding series had some massive shunts.

Dont forget also the major multiple car crash (Aitken/Estre/Perera/Rigon) at the recent Spa 24hrs last month

yep. that one was a nasty one too.

It is easy to say, they should have raced. But we can't see how the situation was around the whole track. Bernd Maylander had to make the decision. Spa in the rain is very treacherous. Its an old school track.

And there is another thing: Maybe even some teams had pushed the short race. Haas and Williams both profited from this short race: Williams had two drivers in the points. Haas had two drivers who have barely experience in F1 and in particular in the rain. They definitely don't want to leave Spa with two crashed cars in a series with a budget cap. And for what? 40-45 min or racing? For half points while they barely get points at all?

[John]

Not to race was probably right. Awarding points was not.

[Circuitmaster]

Not to race was probably right. Awarding points was not.

It's very rare that the vast majority of the driver's agree not to race.. usually there are a few saying 'ah, it's not that bad'. Today I only really heard Max say that and he had no one infront creating spray.. so I'm mostly ok with them not running the race.

Any decision regarding points would have pissed people off. George getting nothing after his incredible qualifying, Max losing the opportunity to pull in Lewis.. I'd have felt hard done by. I feel like half points is a reasonable compromise that's not too good or too bad for anyone.

Besides, if they'd started the race, and had five laps of madness at the beginning, it inevitably would have been red flagged due to conditions/accidents, and then half points would have been awarded anyway.. so we reached that conclusion, just without the madness.

Basically.. half of twitter would have absolutely kicked off either way. Yesterday it was the 'how could you let this proceed, it was so dangerous', half. Today it's the 'They're the best drivers in the world, let them race, what a farce, etc etc' half. Bah.

[Picci]

Really don’t know what to say. F1 has in the past started races with similar conditions. Does it mean we should have started today? I don’t know but I have a feeling we could have tried better to get a race started.

For instance they could have considered announcing on Saturday that the race could start earlier in the day on Sunday. I understand the weather wasnt as bad in the morning. We knew what we were getting ourselves into by sticking with the scheduled time.

And with all due respect I don’t understand why we had to wait till 18:17 to run two laps behind the SC. We could have tried this procession some time between 3 and 6pm. At least the fans would have seen the cars going past 44 times instead of twice. Most people felt cheated because it was more than clear that the conditions at 18:17 were even worse than 3pm and that brought about the inevitable feeling that the race started to meet commercial requirements as opposed to any other motivation.

I think some lessons need to be learnt today:

-FiA needs to remember its own rulebook. We still don’t know if the race actually started at 3pm or at 18:17.

-If the race had started properly and Perez scored, it would have created significant difficulty because of the above. In the end it didn’t matter but again here there was too much confusion on the rules.

-We seriously need to understand the role of the extreme wet tyres. We end up never using them because every time they are in play, races get suspended. Mostly because the cars aquaplane anyway. This means the extreme wet is not serving its purpose.

-The complaint we heard most often today was with drivers saying they couldn’t see with all the spray. We’ve raced at Spa many times in these conditions before so what is rendering this a problem today? This needs to be investigated and a solution to be found. Is it the visors? Is it the new generation of cars?

[MonteCristo]

Right, I'm calling it.

Have fun folks.

All I regret ... is the preceeding three hours .

...

Can F1 please get rid of the rain tyres so we all just give up hope of racing in the rain?

If it ever gets wet they always go to SC anyway until it's an inter track. So why bother having them at all?

[Tom]

It feels like at most other tracks they'd have probably risked it but Spa's recent history (some if it very very recent) of some nasty pileups and crashes (which took place even without inclement conditions) probably made the race organisers think twice.