Spa 24h 2019

Congratulations to the Gulf Porsche, great run!

 

Great race, what I can´t stand anymore is some old, wiseguy fella on the commentary box.

 

YES ! porsche won now i cannot wait for Evo cars.Devs please release them soon.

 

Fantastic race, even with the red flags.

To those that are complaining about the red flag and SC because of the rain, be realistic. A lot of the field are AM drivers, and those AM drivers have to pay to race there unlike factory drivers. AM drivers are the most likely to make a mistake in the rain and crash, meaning more time repairing stuff, as well as a big bill for the team having to repair or even buy a new car. This can put off AM drivers then returning, as they would see the fact that the race wasn't red flagged as unsafe, especially with the remaining 60 ish cars on track. Some drivers may not return to the series then because they don't enjoy the fact they have to take such a big risk in the rain and maybe because they simply can't afford it after destroying their car. SRO are aiming Blancpain at the amateurs, and that is who they are going to try and please the most. As Stephan Ratel said, you need to keep the AMs in the series. Manufacturers come and go, but the AMs are the ones that you need to stay as the backbone of your series.

The Daytona 24h got complaints from a lot of the drivers when they were sent racing again in similar conditions, and a lot of the drivers noted how dangerous it was. It's the same for spa, but with even more cars and even more AMs.

 

I don’t understand the complains anyway. It was a drivers request to stop the race! I can remember even F1 drivers retiring from races in wet/dangerous conditions. And I didn’t realize anyone complaining back then saying: come on - risk your life you p***y and entertain me!
I think we had a great race though, enough severe accidents (3Y, Parker, Modena-Porsche). Glad not having any serious injuries.

 

Anyone that complain that someone isn't risking their life enough for their entertainment needs to have a good, hard, rethink on their expectations.

Anyway, this is the first time I ever watched more than 60 seconds of a car race. And of course most of it was red-flag time but I did see some actual racing! Man, there was one guy that slipped between two cars on one corner. Absolutely bloody amazing driving, to me anyway. I swear he couldn't have had more than a few inches clearance in front or behind.

 

The guys in the cars give us a great show but the whole steward-crew with these epic sc fails and the red flag for the whole morning was really really outsanding...NOT! Never seen such a ****show in my whole life. Hopefully they make changes on these places because everybody here would make a better job than these guys.

 

Conditions over there were pretty bad during the night. Standing at Radillon we were really impressed that it´s possible at all to fly up there with that much water on track, 2m distance to the next driver. And all of it at night, were headlights and spray don´t mix very well.

The safety car screw ups are another thing, that was a bit unnecessary from my point of view.

 

During the red flag period one of drivers said he was aquaplaning at 70kph on one corner. That sounds pretty bad to me. Of course they got the crew chiefs together to discuss what to do during the red flag, I would have thought stopping was based on their input. Is there information to the contrary?
As to whether they did a good job or not. How do you actually know? Have you had the information and responsibility for material and lives? If so then I'd like more info on what it is that was so wrong as that was the first race I ever watched more than a few minutes of. I couldn't tell by just watching, except that it seemed like a lot of cars getting damaged to me so I had to rely on the driver interviews and announcers.

 

seroiusly, there was no life risks going outside at 70 / 100 / 130kmh with the rain.
Ther's much more risk in dry conditions where speed is way more high, see the bmw or the bentley accidents for example.

It's a race, if into a corner they can't go over 70kmh due to weather, than they will go under 70kmh, or simply go out of the track ruining their race.
Like always has been.
They are drivers and they are running a races. Running in hard conditions has always been part of motorsport, and it's always been something which distinguishes good drivers from champions.
Mistakes and accidents are part of the race and of this sport, like or not, which absolutely doesn't mean mistake->life riks or injuries risk. Specially at relative low speed, specially into a modern gt car.

 

If they have to go at 70-100 km/h it's not much of a race anymore, is it?

I think they only had 3 options:
1. Stop the whole thing completely -> we would've missed out some great racing in the last quarter of the race
2. Red flag until conditions improve
3. Ignore the weather and keep running

At first 3. seems to be the most appealing, but keep in mind that this would most likely mean that there is 10% racing and 90% full course yellow/safety car.
So there wouldn't have been much racing in that case either.
With 2. people at least know that they can do other things while they are not racing.

 

The bad thing is that in those conditions it´s not the best driver who wins, but the one who takes the highest risks. Not only for himself but also for the other drivers.
With spray at night for example the first driver can take the corner at 130 km/h, second one couldn´t follow closely without driving blind. First guy might evade a stranded car, second driver wouldn´t be capable of evading.

Also you have to consider visibility of the marshals. If they missed a stranded / crashed car, risk would be incredibly high as well.

I am a guy who likes to keep rules at the minimum, but I can understand the the red flag.

 

I know this, but... buh... this is motorsport. That's it.
There's nothing you can do to avoid risks at all.
There are situations where driver become a passenger and ther's nothing he can do. Like or not, this is part of this sport and this happens when you are going into a car or a motorbike.

Because ok, now we can avoid "potential risks" with red flags or sc, and let's say it's fine.
Tomorrow someone can argue that even running in too hot conditions like it was friday or wednesday, can be too risky for the driver because of bla bla bla.
After tomorrow someone other can argue that also running in the night is too risky because of this and that...

I mean, this are some very low example come in my mind. Obviously they are just example, but are you understanding what i mean?
If now we ban (or so...) wet racing due to (false) safety, tomorrow someone will ban this or that because of (again, false) safety... and so on because safety is just an illusion that you can't reach, never. Even more in motorsport, because you already that know that going to 250 / 300 / 350 kmh is simply risky. That's it.

So or we simply accept that "motorpost is dangerous" and leave THE BASICS of this sport unchanged, or we change motorsport into something else. But then let's not complain if motorsport is becoming always more boring and people stop to watch it.

I don't say, "let them run until they die". Motorsport has done huge steps forward from some year to now, risks are very low, death possibilities are very very low if you just think what motorsport was only 30 years ago.
If we talk about safer tracks, cars, tires and so on, ok. That's fine and that's the natural evolution of this sport.
But if we start to cut out side-by-side situations (see F1), small contacts, running in the rain and so on due to """"safety""", imho this is the death of motorsport.

Obviously, this is not "the truth", this is valid for me.

 

Now you're mixing up things.
If a driver is at risk with hot conditions (and that happened in the past already), he put himself at risk mainly.

However with conditions like there were on Sunday morning that's no longer the case, they don't only put themselves at risk, but also potentially the martials.
Depending on who you quote they had acquaplaning at 70-100 kph on the straight and that's at or at least very close to the speed they drive under full course yellow.
If it is not safe to drive at full course yellow conditions then it's not safe to retrieve a car in that weather conditions and that means that driving cars put the martials at risk.
And it's not like we haven't seen that before.

 

I had high hopes for KÜS Team75 Bernhard, but they fell back and ended up in 7th. However the European "safety first" mentality ruined what could have been a memorable race.

 

A quote from Kevin Estre, a driver from the race-winning Porsche

***Kevin Estre took to Twitter during the race to describe the treacherous conditions overnight, writing: “This was the worse conditions I had in my career! Visibility 2m ahead and aquaplaning all the way to Les Combes! Had to drive 140kph down the straight and was still not controlling the car.”

https://sportscar365.com/sro/blancpain-gt/spa-post-race-notebook-10/

 

the hot was just an example.
The meaning of the whole post was another.

 

I can really see your point, usually I´m totally on your side, avoid regulations that limit your personal options.

Just the rain or just at night might be ok, but look at Estre's comment above, things really got bad during the night.
And there are also some rules that are quite sensible in my point of view. At Nürburgring for example the race won´t go live if the rescue chopper can´t operate or if there is a visual gap between the marshal posts. And I´m not sure if only of those was fulfilled during the night.
If a car crashes, it crashes, that can happen. A driver should be aware of this risk and I think no driver will deny it, dangerous conditions included. But if the driver dies due to not getting medical assistance, that´d be unnecessary for me.

 

Bear in mind also that BlancPain series heavily depends on amateur drivers and teams.

 

Right.
But this happens, even worst tbh, also in superprofessional F1.

More simply, it's how and where the whole motorsport is going in last years.