Race Car

Contents :

🏎️ Race Car 

🏎️ THE RULES OF RACING

🏎️ Brake-testing

🏎️ Flag Rules:

🏎️ History

Race Car

A racecar is designed and built for speed, performance and competition. Obviously, these cars are mainly made for racing and are usually found at racetracks or racing circuits. ... Among other things, racecars are known for their speed

THE RULES OF RACING

1. The one-move rule

20.4 Any driver defending his position on a straight, and before any braking area, may use the full width of the track during his first move, provided no significant portion of the car attempting to pass is alongside his. Whilst defending in this way the driver may not leave the track without justifiable reason. 20.3 More than one change of direction to defend a position is not permitted. 20.5 Manoeuvres liable to hinder other drivers, such as deliberate crowding of a car beyond the edge of the track or any other abnormal change of direction, are not permitted.

When one driver is completely ahead of another on a straight, they are permitted to make a move in one direction. This move can be of any size, within the track limits, and the move can be made as slowly or as quickly as the driver likes — they can jink suddenly to one side or they can spend an entire straight gradually shifting across the track. This rule is stated under sporting regulation 20.4 .More than one change of direction on a straight is called weaving and is NOT permitted. This rule is stated under sporting regulation 20.3.

The one-move rule holds true whether the defender’s moves are designed to block the attacker or to stop the attacker from keeping in the defender’s slipstream. The precedent for the latter case is Lewis Hamilton’s weaving in front of Vitaly Petrov at the 2010 Malaysian Grand Prix, for which he received a warning from the stewards.

When a defender makes their one move, the distance and closing speed of the attacker may also be considered by the stewards. If the attacker is closing quickly and is only a short distance behind, then they may not have time to evade a sudden move into their path. It is at the stewards’ discretion whether or not to punish late defensive moves under sporting regulation 20.5.

2. Taking the one-move rule to its limits

20.3 Any driver moving back towards the racing line, having earlier defended his position off-line, should leave at least one car width between his own car and the edge of the track on the approach to the corner.

The one-move rule seems totally umambiguous, with no possible gray area to exploit. However, drivers have often bent the rule by arguing that their second move is part of their racing line for the corner that follows the straight. There are two ways in which this can happen.

The first is when the defending driver makes their first move to the inside and then they pull back towards the outside of the track to pick up a more favorable racing line at corner entry.

This move is seen very frequently and is considered acceptable with one important caveat: when the defender moves back to the outside, they must leave at least one car width between themselves and the edge of the track, allowing the attacker to potentially run deep around the outside. This rule is stated under sporting regulation 20.3, which was formally clarified after Michael Schumacher’s controversial defense against Lewis Hamilton in the 2011 Italian Grand Prix.

The second case occurs when a defender moves to the outside then cuts back to the inside to negotiate a kink in the straight. A famous example is Michael Schumacher’s defense against Damon Hill between Raidillion and Kemmel in the 1995 Belgian Grand Prix. Schumacher moved left to block Hill, then immediately turned back to the right to take the inside line through Kemmel corner. Is this one move or two moves? It’s a marginal case, because corners like Kemmel are gradual enough to almost be considered part of the straight, much like the Monaco start/finish “straight”. This makes it difficult for the defending driver to justify that they needed to pull all the way across to hit a traditional apex, but the case is certainly debatable. This is the first (but not the last) case we’ll see of some theoretical gray area in the rules.

3. Racing alongside another car

20.4 Any driver defending his position on a straight, and before any braking area, may use the full width of the track during his first move, provided no significant portion of the car attempting to pass is alongside his. For the avoidance of doubt, if any part of the front wing of the car attempting to pass is alongside the rear wheel of the car in front this will be deemed to be a 'significant portion'.

When one driver is completely ahead of another on a straight, either can move with impunity within the width of track. Things change when there is any overlap between the cars, because lateral movement could cause a collision. If two cars have any parts alongside one another, each driver must respect the space occupied by the other car. It does not matter who is ahead, nor how far they are ahead, they may not initiate a move into the other car. Both drivers have the right to continue driving in a straight line unimpeded. This rule is stated under sporting regulation 20.4.

Situations like Sebastian Vettel driving into the side of Mark Webber at the 2010 Turkish Grand Prix fall foul of this rule; since the move happened on a straight before any braking zone or corner, Vettel is completely at fault.

Theoretically, cases can arise where two drivers simultaneously deviate from moving parallel to the track, causing their paths to intersect. In this case, both drivers would share the blame, but in practice moves are very rarely truly simultaneous.

Very aggressive bullying of another driver on a straight, like Michael Schumacher on Rubens Barrichello at the 2010 Hungarian Grand Prix, is disallowed. In theory, driving sharply towards another driver does not force them to change their line, but humans being humans this will usually induce a flinch response. How aggressive is too aggressive? This falls into a gray area covered by the vaguely-worded sporting regulation 20.5.

4. Entering the braking zone

20.5 Manoeuvres liable to hinder other drivers, such as deliberate crowding of a car beyond the edge of the track or any other abnormal change of direction, are not permitted.

On a straight, a defending driver has the right to suddenly change direction, even using the entire track width if they are fully ahead of the attacking driver. The same right does not apply in or immediately before the braking zone for a corner. Sudden changes of direction just before or within the braking zone are considered extremely dangerous, as they can leave the attacking driver nowhere to go. This rule is not stated explicitly in the FIA sporting regulations, but is considered an “abnormal change of direction” under sporting regulation 20.5

Obviously some change of direction is allowed within the braking zone — the optimal racing line usually involves some amount of trail-braking — so it is up to the stewards to decide what constitutes an “abnormal” amount of movement. In the case of Sergio Perez and Felipe Massa at the 2014 Canadian Grand Prix, the stewards deemed that Perez had made an unusually large change of direction in the braking zone. This was a particularly difficult case to determine, as the normal line under braking curves to the right, and neither driver took a line with uniform curvature (both drivers changed their steering angle at least once). However, careful analysis (posted by reddit user d3agl3uk and reproduced below) showed that Perez was the driver deviating significantly from a normal line under braking.

Brake-testing (i.e., braking earlier than normal to cause the driver behind to take evasive action or crash) is also highly dangerous and frowned upon, but not explicitly mentioned in the FIA sporting regulations.

Flag Rules:

a. Drivers are to obey the flag rules of their racing series. Penalties apply for those who do not.

b. Black flags may be in effect, should a driver views a black flag on their screen, they are to immediately stop their vehicle to prevent disqualification.

c. Blue flags may be in effect, should a driver views a blue flag, they are to allow the following vehicle(s) to pass as they have been lapped.

d. If the blue flag remains, it means a driver must let all cars behind them past. Holding up cars on a lap further in the race than yours may be met with penalties for impeding that driver.

History

In 1895 the first true race was held, from Paris to Bordeaux, France, and back, a distance of 1,178 km. The winner made an average speed of 24.15 kph. Organized automobile racing began in the United States with an 87-km race from Chicago to Evanston, Illinois, and back on Thanksgiving Day in 1895.

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