Re: Interlagos (may be a

On 2024-11-11 13:07, Dumas Walker wrote:

Many years ago, when Michael Schummacher was driving and, IIRC, Fernando
Alonso was young, they had a heck of a wet race at the same facility.

 

I remember it because I believe they both crashed out.

 

2003 was pretty bad, cars aquaplaning off left, right and centre. It was
abandoned after 56 laps, and Jordan ended up winning.

 Yes, that is the one I was thinking about.  It was a very wet and crazy
race.
    * SLMR 2.1a * No great scoundrel is ever uninteresting.

The basic issue is that the technology has outstripped safety when there's too much rain.
Yes: they can bolt on the extreme wets, but they throw so much water into the air, that the drivers simply can't see far enough ahead.
I've raced in the wet with far less capable tires than F1 has and without the aero bits that help to throw the spray up even more, and I can honestly say there have been times when I couldn't see anything.
One time, as I was going down the front straight behind to other FFs, visibility wasn't too bad so I could see that they were going to be fighting to the inside as the lead car drove to block off the next guy.
But then the track got wetter, and I lost sight of both of them in the spray...
...until following car suddenly appeared as I was braking down the normal rain line about a car width and a half inside the rubbered in normal line.
He was moving back to the outside to open up the corner after deciding that an inside pass wasn't going to happen, and he couldn't see me behind him...because of the spray.
When we both finally saw each other, I moved all the way to the wall and he managed to leave me a bare (bare!) car's width between him and the wall, to the point that when I returned to the paddock after the race and looked, my left side tires didn't have any of the white paint in the molded numbers anymore.