Former Formula 1 driver Nico Rosberg comes with a number of proposals to tighten the Virtual Safety Car rules. The German shares his suggestions after the Spanish GP. During the race at the Madrid ring, Lando Norris missed out on a win due to bad luck with the timing of the VSC. “Maybe we can drastically reduce the speed limit in the pit lane during a VSC,” Rosberg suggests, among other things.
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The discussion about the role of the Virtual Safety Car (VSC) during Grands Prix has flared up again. The reason is the Spanish Grand Prix, in which Lando Norris probably missed out on a win due to bad luck with the timing of the VSC. The Brit was leading the race when the virtual safety car was deployed after Lance Stroll’s retirement. However, Norris was already just past the entrance to the pit lane. When he was finally able to make his pit stop a lap later, the VSC had already been lifted. His closest competitors, Andrea Kimi Antonelli and Max Verstappen, were able to make a shorter pit stop.
According to Nico Rosberg, it was simply a matter of bad luck for Norris. “That’s just how it goes,” he explained on the F1 Show podcast. “And it’s a matter of give and take with the VSC and safety car interventions. Sometimes you get lucky and sometimes you get unlucky. It’s always terrible when that happens, because he deserved to win, and it’s a shame that he lost the victory just because of a VSC.”
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Two ideas
Although the virtual safety car is still “a great system” according to Rosberg, he does have some suggestions for adjustments. “Either close the pit lane during a VSC, so no one gets the chance to gain an advantage, or why not something like: during a VSC the speed limit in the pit lane is drastically reduced. It’s all about the time you lose during a pit stop,” he lists two ideas. “The problem is that during a VSC the lost pit stop time is much less because everyone on the circuit is driving so slowly. That makes it unfair.”
According to the former world champion, the solution lies in limiting the time gain during a pit stop under the VSC. “If you could find a way to ensure that the time lost during a pit stop under a VSC costs as much time as when there is no VSC, then that could be an idea. You have to slow down the drivers going to the pit stop in some way. Then it’s fair and equal for everyone.”
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