Discipline, Justice, Fairness, and Other Concepts

[schomosport]

And exacerbated by flawed flag marshalling. My recollection of 2000 Qualifying is something like:

Course car: Yellow at Surtees for KM's stranded car on the apex - and next lap or two round Red / Yellow / Red around Surtees with the safety/snatch (not sure which) car stationary in front of the KM Dallara after which I took a very late turn into the pitlane after another car and parked up in the pitlane fully expecting to incurr the wrath of CoC for my late turn in. The car I had followed in toddled down to the end of the pit lane, waited for green and rejoined qualifying. In the meantime other cars continued to circulate. Maybe the two reds were a hallucination?

Me I didn't bother to re-join, qualifying was finished for me anyway because the car was sick but hey, lets have some consistency at the marshalls posts and from those monitoring from race control. Once a red comes out, anywhere on the circuit and rightly or even wrongly if issued by mistake (!!!) surely it should be fully progressed to 'stop racing and re-assemble' - or how are we who are so often accused of flouting flag signals to know the difference? And what were the observers seeing and reporting back to CoC? - there's no hiding place round the Brands Indy.

No I didn't have the pleasure of seeing CoC but based on my experience I can fully understand why some were more than a bit dis-chuffed at being called up themselves. And apologies to anyone who got caught out because they overtook me at the wrong time since I was travelling so much off of race pace.

[tristancliffe]

I never saw the red flags in practice, just safety car boards. I was one of the cars that continued, at massively reduced pace, for a few laps. On subsequent tours I didn't see any red flags either. I didn't see a safety car either though!!

When I saw everyone diving into the pits I had a damn good look for visible red flags, and couldn't see any then. So I determined that the influx into pitlane was a coincidence rather than a requirement.

I was not called to the CotC for doing so.

[andrewcliffe]

I was camped between Paddock Hill and Druids, but the commentator was somewhat confused about whether the session was under yellow cautions or had been red flagged.

[Cscott]

I agree that the flag system was floored at Brands, I saw the yellows and safety car boards (and having never having raced under safety car conditions was just a little excited ) and adjusted my pace accordingly, a lap later and still no safety car but then I happened upon the red flags on the back straight so pulled into the pits to be greeted with my dad saying "What are you doing?, is there something wrong with the car?" I told him the session was over only for him to point out the green flags and cars proceeding at racing speed, this only added to the confusion started way back when the drivers briefing ended about 5mins before the start of the session! Oh well, its all good fun.