If you watched this year’s Sebring 12-hour, the COTA NASCAR race, the Australian GP, the Texas Indy race and/or most any other pro race lately, you may be thinking that pro drivers have either lost their minds, or completely forgotten how to drive and race! Crash after crash is not what we expect from highly paid, elite-level racers.
Why is this happening? Why are there more crashes than seemingly ever before?
One way to think about this is that the sport has gotten more competitive than ever before, and the pressure on pro drivers is stronger than it’s ever been. It’s win or find another job for many drivers. Team owners and managers are less patient than in the past (with some odd exceptions), with high expectations for everyone. Many of these drivers have come to believe that their teams and sponsors would rather them make a banzai move and crash than come in second.
Based on the number of track limit violations within most series and at many race tracks, an explanation for so many crashes could be how forgiving the circuits are. Add in the relative safety of the design and construction of modern race cars, and drivers feel okay taking huge chances.
Have cars and tracks become too safe? Is it like sim racing where the consequences of a crash are not significant enough (just push the reset button)?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting cars and circuit be made to be less safe! But it may be that this is contributing to the number of senseless crashes.
There are some, particularly champions of the past, who think this is part of the problem. Three-time World Champion, Sir Jackie Stewart had this to say about the 2021 British Grand Prix:
“Lewis' incident with Verstappen was very disturbing for me,” he told talkSPORT. “Frankly, if that had been in my day and well after my day, Verstappen would've been killed. The race track has been made so safe, the run-off areas so big, and the structures that he [Verstappen] finally came to a stop on and even then the g-forces were enormous. I think that was a great example of what Silverstone have done to make the track safer. People are taking more liberties today than they were before because the penalties are not so large… now it's so safe that I think people are taking too many chances. We've got to readdress that and sadly it sometimes takes a big, big action or even a life to make that come to real understanding.”
After watching the endless green-white-checker laps at the end of the COTA NASCAR race this past March, my friend/co-podcaster and race engineer, Jeff Braun. suggested that Cup cars should have their front splitters replaced by dive planes. Splitters have become “chrome horns” and are used to push other cars out of the way. Taking them away and replacing them with the fragile dive planes seems to be a reasonable and effective rule change — the moment there’s any contact, they’ll be knocked off and the driver will suffer with a poor handling car. Drivers won’t take the kind of chances they do now because the risk of losing is greater than what they might gain. Right now, there’s not enough of a downside for a driver to stuff their car inside another when driving into the apex, as the worst thing that’ll happen is there’ll be contact with a competitor and they’ll get the wrong end of the stick.
Change the rules so that contact actually results in heavy consequences. Taking a page from Jeff Braun’s book, rulemakers could mandate more fragile parts on the front of cars. What would happen if F1 drivers knew that their front wings were likely to break off with contact… and the rules didn’t allow them to change or repair them during a pit stop (or, at a minimum, a nose change would take at least thirty seconds)? The cars could continue to be as safe as they currently are in terms of protecting the drivers, but the components that initially come in contact with other cars would be so much more delicate that drivers would take fewer risks.
Exceptionally-special drivers are separated from the averagely-special driver by the ability to assess risk better. Scott Dixon is exceptionally-special, and he rarely initiates a crash. Other drivers seem to find a way to be involved in almost all crashes because they don’t manage risk as well. Making the risk consequences more obvious to them would help.
Some might say that would level the playing field, not allowing someone like Dixon to shine through and win six Indy car championships. Perhaps. But I think the Dixons will always find a way to separate themselves, no matter what.
And what about the fans? They would rather see the exceptional ones shine than crash after crash, especially if that meant they rarely saw the shining passes, strategic moves, and outright driving-at-the-ragged-edge. Despite the belief that fans only want to see crashes, they really want to see good, close, and clean racing. That’s dramatic, that’s exciting, that’s what makes great TV and live spectating.
Have elite pro racers lost their minds, and that’s why there are so many crashes lately? No, they’re doing exactly what every race driver has ever done: take the rules and car to the very limit, and push over it very slightly every now and then to know where that limit is. With few to no consequences, why should they change their behavior?
Race officials play a role in all of this, too. Let drivers get away with a little, and eventually they’ll want a lot. That’s human nature. Well, race driver nature, at least. What makes a top-level pro a top-level pro is the desire to look for every single little edge they can find, and if pushing just slightly beyond the limit is allowed, they’ll do that.
I hate it when officials get too involved in what happens on the track, so I want to be careful what I say here. Ideally, officials would leave it up to the drivers to sort things out on track. However, things have gone too far right now and drivers who cause crashes need more punishment. A five-second penalty, which often leads to losing positions, is not much in the grand scheme of things. How about a disqualification? Too harsh? If officials did that kind of thing for a period of time — maybe even a couple of years — things would change.
Along with stronger penalties, race series need to put full responsibility on all drivers to have contact-less racing, and not just the overtaking car.
It’s long been the rule, guideline, and teaching that the overtaking driver is responsible for making a clean pass. But using all my years of math schooling, that adds up to just one driver being responsible in a situation that involves two or more drivers. What if the rules/guidelines/teachings were that both drivers were responsible? Let me quickly do the math… yes, that’s twice as many responsible people, and that means there’s double the chance of there being no contact.
I’ve seen far too many drivers who are about to be overtaken seemingly take the attitude that it’s not their responsibility to avoid contact, and ultimately they are the ones causing contact. If they had the rule in mind that they were also responsible for a clean overtaking move, there would be less likelihood of a crash.
The bigger problem is that this way of racing wheel-to-wheel — often with contact between the wheels — has trickled down to amateur motorsport. And why not, since their role models have set the tone for all of motorsport.
If you’re not a highly-paid pro racer, do me (and yourself) a favor and don’t simply follow the example set by what you see in F1, Indy car, IMSA and NASCAR. Instead, set your own example. Be a role model for other racers, many who cannot afford the kind of behavior that many pro drivers exhibit. Race fair, know that there are consequences, and drive in a way that there will not be any contact (whether you’re passing other competitors, or you’re the one being passed).
Good point!
I enjoyed this. Do you see this risk-taking behavior and the ensuing crashes trickling down to sport drivers and their track days? Or do the high costs of maintaining and repairing their cars help them stay within safer limits? (I know they do for me.)