Seven Grands Prix without a safety car: coincidence or logical explanation?

The safety car is so out of use now that she even crashed at Monza! More seriously, this 2024 campaign is indeed marked by a very measured appearance of the safety car on the sixteen Grand Prix already contested. With eight deadlines to go in the championship, it has only intervened on four races this season. A rarity that raises questions.

Si Pierre Gasly ironically says that this phenomenon exists because the pilots are " all well behaved " and that they have " a good rhythm ", we understand that it is not on the side of a calming down of the men on the track that an element of response is to be found.

It might also be believed that the fact that the F1 is coming towards the end of the 2022 regulation era is one explanation. With teams and drivers understanding their cars better, there would be fewer mistakes… but the argument falls flat if we look at the 2021 season, the last year of the old technical regulations, where the Safety Car came out 14 times in 22 races.

In reality, there is no real concrete reason. The FIA ​​has never communicated the desire to use this tool less. Since the 2022 season and after the controversial episode of Abu Dhabi 2021, there has been a tacit agreement – ​​a sort of " gentlemen's agreement » – who wants race management to ensure that a Grand Prix no longer ends under a safety car, preferring a red flag and a new start (even if it means abusing it, as in the 2023 Australian GP). Except that the number of red flags has been falling since the season of the first title of Max Verstappen. So there are no more Safety Cars, no more red flags.

To Daniel Ricciardo, if the safety car appears little in 2024, " it's a coincidence " The Australian doesn't really have a rational explanation for this phenomenon and seems to be quite right. Worse, he hadn't even noticed it.

« If you had told me there was a safety car two races ago, I would have believed you., joked the Racing Bulls driver. Sometimes contact can be ignored and sometimes it can't. I know that from a visual point of view, a safety car in the middle of the race can sometimes add a bit of spice. But when we're in the race, we just try to do what we can and keep our heads. So if you see a safety car at any point, you adjust accordingly.."

Drivers affected differently by lack of safety car

Overall, the teams are quite happy with the fact that the Safety Car is in the garage. It means that there are fewer accidents and therefore less costs for them. That is quite beneficial. However, for the drivers, it can be different. Those who are used to the front of the race are delighted. They are protected from the bunching caused by a safety car and therefore do not risk losing their lead acquired through effort because of an accident.

On the contrary, the drivers in the middle of the pack miss this "free" opportunity to get back into the exhausts of the leaders to glimpse the hope of overtaking them. Beyond the impression on the track, many of them base their strategies on the probability of a Safety Car appearing during a race, like Pierre Gasly.

« This disrupts our statistics, complained the Frenchman. Before every race we say to ourselves that there is such a probability that there will be a safety car. So we try to plan for that eventuality when the pace is not very good, hoping that there will be one. But unfortunately that has not been the case, apparently, in the last seven races. »

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In 2023, the safety car had to intervene twelve times. But of these twelve interventions, six took place at Grands Prix that have not yet been held in 2024. Especially since some are on circuits that regularly require the use of the safety car, such as Singapore, Interlagos or even… Baku. We will therefore have to see if the last eight races will be as stingy with Safety Cars as the first sixteen. We will have a first element of an answer this weekend, in the Azeri capital.

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