Bernie Collins has suggested tyre changes under red flag
conditions in the dry should not count as the driver’s mandatory pit stop for
the day.
Formula 1’s red flag rules were in question at the
Brazilian Grand Prix when Lando Norris lost positions when Esteban Ocon, Max
Verstappen and Pierre Gasly were all given a free pit stop when the race was
red-flagged.
Lando Norris lost out through F1’s red flag regulations
in Brazil
Franco Colapinto crashed behind the Safety Car in the
rain with the Race Director opting to pause the race, calling the drivers back
into the pit lane.
The decision came four laps after Norris had pitted,
which dropped him from first to fourth.
The three ahead of him were all gifted a free pit stop as
they changed their worn tyres for fresh intermediates and did so without losing
the roughly 20 seconds that it takes in total.
Verstappen went on to win the Grand Prix while two
mistakes from Norris dropped him to sixth, all but ending his title challenge
as he trails Verstappen by 62 points.
It’s not the first time Norris has come undone because of
the rule, calling it the “worst rule ever invented by someone” after the 2021
Saudi Arabian GP while this year he said: “It’s not talent or, you know, it’s
just luck. So, just a bit unlucky.”
Collins, a former Aston Martin strategist, believes she
has a solution or at least a partial one as it would not work in the wet.
“Think of it in this wet condition, we’ve had a Safety
Car and everyone’s been driving quite slowly. Everyone comes into the pit lane
under the red flag, even slower than that, they all line up with the pit
lane,,” she explained in the Sky F1 podcast.
“To get those intermediates back to a temperature that
they’re going to be okay on the out-lap is mainly the reason why a lot of
people change the tyres. So that’s why they’re changing it at that point in
time.
“So you can’t tell everyone leave the pit on very, very
cold intermediates, or if in the situation they’re not allowed to change, you
wait longer for them to get back up to the 60 degree that the inters are set
at. So I do appreciate the rules there.”
But, she continued: “I think in dry conditions, one of
the solutions would be not allow that to be your mandatory pit stop. So change
tyres if you want, but that’s not your mandatory pit stop.
“Obviously, in wet conditions, they don’t have a mandatory pit stop so a bit more of an uncertainty there. But I don’t think with the best rule in the world we’re going to get away from being able to change tyres under red flags.
