Why Formula 1 cannot make the VSC fairer without creating new problems

There’s literally nothing I could do as a driver today to do a better job,” said Lando Norris after being denied a near-certain victory in the Spanish Grand Prix by the timing of a VSC just after he’d passed the pit-entry road. “Pole, led the race, and to lose it for nothing in my control is, I don’t think, how a race should be won.”

But was it unfair? We have to be very careful with that word in sporting terms. He was certainly unlucky. But that’s not quite the same. Random factors are intrinsic to any sport.

By being able to stop under the VSC, the following Kimi Antonelli and Max Verstappen were able to make a 13sec saving over Norris’s non-VSC pitstop a lap later when the pack was up to full racing speed, putting him behind those two rivals on a track at which it was virtually impossible to overtake. Norris was doubly unlucky in that the timing of the rescinding of the VSC came as he was coming in on the next lap.

Sebastian Vettel lost the 2017 Spanish Grand Prix to Lewis Hamilton under similar circumstances. It happens occasionally. Factors outside the control of team or driver can make one driver extremely unlucky and another equally lucky.

The VSC came on lap 14 of a 57-lap race. Charles Leclerc had started on hard compound tyres and so he could not take advantage of the VSC because it would have meant an unfeasibly long 34-lap second stint on the medium compound tyres he’d be obliged to take (because of the two-compound rule). The medium tyre was graining for everyone and did not have a long enough range to make 34 laps and the alternative two-stop would have dropped him behind many of the one-stopping cars with no way of overtaking them. So he was obliged to stay out. Do we say it was unfair that Leclerc’s tyre strategy was compromised by the timing of the VSC?

OK, we are talking only of fourth place for Leclerc (where he finished anyway, thanks to George Russell ahead of him being forced to pit again) rather than a victory. So do we say Leclerc was unlucky to be in a Ferrari which was not as fast as the McLaren on the day? And what of all the other drivers in slower cars? Where does it end? We cannot and shouldn’t legislate for luck.

Inevitably, there have been suggestions about how the VSC could be applied more ‘fairly’, with Norris himself offering that it could remain out for at least one full lap, “So everyone has the opportunity to do the pitstops. Or you just block the pit entry and no one can box apart from if you have a puncture or something. There’s a few things you could do to make it more simple and more fair for everyone, but that’s a bigger discussion.”

There are always unintended consequences to such changes – and Norris even acknowledges one of them. “If it’s raining and there’s a VSC and you’re on slicks, does it mean you can box or not? You know, so it’s a complicated subject.” It is indeed. If we blocked the pit entry for a lap, imagine you are at the changeover point of the track from slicks to wets, you are on slicks and in that extra lap when you are not allowed to pit the heavens open. Anyone in that situation would be grossly unlucky, losing 20-30sec or more, or more likely aquaplaning into retirement. Also unsafe.

“Unfair? We have to be careful with that word in sporting terms”

In the ‘full VSC lap for everyone’ scenario, what if those who’d been able to have pitted immediately and while those who had missed the pit entry the first time were making their way around, a full safety car was needed, compressing the pack up tight? Then they’d be rejoining at or very near the back of the field, a far harsher penalty than that suffered by Norris.

The primary reason for the VSC is safety. The timing of its implementation is also governed by safety. It can only be initiated once the marshals are ready to take to the track. So race control is waiting to see if a stranded car might restart on its own, whether the car is electrically ‘live’ or safe to touch. Until then it’s a yellow flag. Unless it’s an immediate safety car, in which case there will be no VSC.