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We need to stop seeing cars racing while debris are on track

Formula E showcases racing cars on twisty urban tracks. Contacts, accidents often happen. It is then frequent that pieces of cars fall on the track while the cars are still able to race. If debris on track are not exclusive to Formula E, it has a unique way of dealing with them.


Kazlu

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For a little over a year, I have been part of a team animating a French-speaking podcast about Formula E. We have begun to build a small community to share our passion of motorsport and emotions provided specifically by Formula E. It is an enriching experience and the occasion to share good moments.

More and more often, those good moments are ruined by the incomprehension, the fear and the outrage I feel in front of my screen. I am following other motorsports and I am used to seeing accidents on track that leave traces. It is usual then to see the race being be interrupted. For example, through the intervention of a safety car that imposes a reduced speed to race cars to allow the track to be cleared and fit for racing again in safety conditions everyone agreed on from the start. But not in Formula E. No, most of the time in Formula E, debris stay on track and the races goes on. It is almost systematic. This trend reached a peak during season 8 finale, in Seoul, when a car got stopped in an escape route (that is what it is for) a dozen meters away from the track. After a few laps, the procedure that should have led the the evacuation of the car taking seemingly too much time, the race director took the decision to lower the yellow flags and have the race resumed under normal conditions. Had another car gone off the track in the same spot, instead of being able to use the escape route to slow down, it would have collided with the first one. Fortunately, it did not happen.

Let us come back to a more recent past. At the time I write down those lines, a little over 48 hours have passed since Hyderabad E-Prix, fourth race of season 9. And we reached a new level. This time again, debris went on track and the race went on uninterrupted. Debris stayed there. But this time, they caused damage. Here is a non-exhaustive list of a few facts that happened during this race:

- Lap 2: after a contact, Edoardo Mortara loses his front wing, that gets stuck under his car. Mortara keeps driving.

- Lap 5: Edoardo Mortara loses his front wing on track. It gets on the racing line. It will be signalled by yellow flags and evacuated a few laps later without race interruption.

- Lap 15: Jean-Eric Vergne overtakes Sébastien Buémi and drives on a piece of debris while going off the racing line.

- Lap 18: Norman Nato pits to replace a punctured tyre.

- Lap 23: Jake Hughes crashes into a wall and retires from the race.

The Mortara case: 3 laps happened between the moment the front wing of the Maserati slipped under the car and the moment it went on the track. 3 laps during which the car raced while dragging an unattached wing. If we should praise the quick intervention of the marshals to evacuate the wing once it went on the track, several cars still went very close to this wing at high speed. The race direction could have elected, for example, to raise a black flag with an orange disk as soon as Mortara's front wing went under his car to make him pit for repairs. That would have allowed his team to remove the wing under his car. But they did not.

The Vergne case: Pieces of car that get on track are torn apart carbon fragments. These are sharp objects. This time, Vergne luckily did not see any consequences after driving on the piece of debris, but his luck could have been different. The race direction could have raised a yellow flag to signal the debris, of even triggered a full course yellow imposing a reduced top speed to the racing cars, leaving time for marshals to retrieve the debris. But they did not.

The Nato case: Have I already told you that pieces of car that get on track are sharp carbon fragments? At this stage, and as far as I know, the cause of Nato's puncture is unknown, but there are usually not many on-track elements that can trigger a puncture...

The Hughes case: The most telling case of all. We found out after the race that a piece of debris damaged a mirror of the McLaren that went off a few laps later, getting stuck behing Hughes' steering wheel and blocking it. Because of a piece of debris left on track, Jake Hughes crashed into a wall. Thankfully, that happened on a corner exit, at low speed. What would have happened if the steering wheel got stuck while entering a fast corner at 200 kph?

The race direction have a series of tools allowing them to intervene and make the track fit for racing again after an incident: Yellow flags, full course yellow, safety car, race interruption through red flag. Then why not use them to briefly suspend the race, just enough to remove the debris from the track? I am not inside the race director's mind. I can only guess the logic is to let the drivers race without interfering with the competition. Except, like in the Jake Hughes case, not using the full course yellow procedure once in a while to remove debris ended up causing a forced intervention of the safety car to evacuate Jake Hughes' car, which had a way bigger impact on the race.

Mister race director Scott Elkins, what are you waiting for before acting? Ladies and Gentlemen of the FIA, wait are you waiting for before acting? What is it going to take to make you understand that letting cars race while carbon debris are on track is extremely dangerous? Granted, motorsports are dangerous by nature, but is that a reason to not try to reduce the risk when it is so easy? Do we have to reach yet another level and witness injured or dead drivers, marshals or spectators so that the issue is finally addressed? In addition to being a security issue, it is also a distorsion of competition since drivers can no longer choose where they position their car on the track (you have to avoid debris to avoid retiring). We are watching Formula E for the competition, the challenge, the nice move, the stroke of genius. Not for seing drivers risk their lives because of something stupid. Please, Ladies, Gentlemen, tackle the issue and make sure this competition we love can happen in acceptable safety conditions again. Let us give way to competition, nothing but competition.

I will finish by adressing my apologies to Jake Hughes, whose name I shamefully used for a questionable pun, while he is precisely the one whose life has been the most at stake in this race. Jake Hughes' place is in a race seat, on track, and I wish he races for a long time.

See you on the next starting line. Crossing our fingers.

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