In a rare scenario, F1 has not had a safety car appearance for nine consecutive races since the Canadian GP. During this period, there have been several incident-prone tracks, yet drivers have managed to stay out of the barriers or avoid causing significant disruptions to the race, even after crashing on the track. Fernando Alonso has explained why this has been the case.
Per Motorsport-Total.com, Alonso stated, “These cars are not easy to drive, but I think the problem with these cars also lies in getting the full 100 percent out of them. So when you drive at 90 percent, you are sometimes faster because you don’t put the platform or the floor at an unfavorable angle or ride height.”
: Fernando Alonso theorizes that the current F1 safety car drought, spanning nine races, may be due to the characteristics of today’s ground-effect cars. He suggests that drivers can achieve faster lap times when operating at 90% rather than 100%, leading to fewer crashes. This… pic.twitter.com/TWgcsXpHoo
— F1 Naija (@f1_naija) October 8, 2024
Even The Race highlighted this observation by Alonso, as the Spaniard has hinted at teams and drivers not pushing the limits to the current ground effect cars to get the maximum performance. Driving them at 90% could be faster, stated the two-time world champion.
Usually, a safety car comes out when a car is stranded on track or in the barriers due to a crash, collision, or a reliability issue. That is why, if drivers are not pushing the car to the limit, there is a lesser probability of any reliability issues befalling any of the 20 cars.
Perhaps teams have figured this out and it has resulted in minimal attrition from races. Even at tracks like Spa-Francorchamps, Zandvoort, Baku, and Singapore, there have been fewer crashes or reliability-induced retirements to cause a safety car.
Currently, this is a record streak of nine races without a safety car appearance in F1. With F1 moving to the Americas in late October, it will be interesting to see if this streak ends at any of those tracks.
