Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsRed Bull Racing

Ricciardo wants Virtual Safety Car improvements

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Daniel Ricciardo has called for improvements to be made to the Virtual Safety Car [VSC] system following events at the United States Grand Prix.

The VSC was deployed early in the race to clear up debris on the circuit in Austin, with the top four - both Mercedes and both Red Bull drivers - all bunching up. Ricciardo was in third place ahead of Nico Rosberg at the time of the restart, but Rosberg drove straight past him as soon as the track went green again.

Ricciardo claims the restart procedure didn't seem clear in the last race and he wants the system to be improved.

"For me, I was just confused when it was green basically, when it ended," Ricciardo said. "My engineer came on the radio and said VSC ending and that is normally like a 10secs warning, so I was aware it was going to end soon. I had a look for the boards…"

Saying there was nothing showing up on his steering wheel, Ricciardo says he later had to guess when the track was live.

"No, normally it does. I have never really had it in the past but I didn’t get anything that race, but I don’t know if that is an internal thing or an issue with the VSC itself.

"With Rosberg, he passed me and then there was another VSC later in the race and I guessed when to go, so you look out for the boards and if they don’t say VSC anymore you just assume you are green. That was all I could really go off, so that was where I was confused, it just didn’t seem clear. I don’t know if other drivers mentioned but I was struggling."

And Ricciardo believes a minimum speed limit would help ensure one slow car at the head of a group can back the rest up to other drivers behind at will.

"I think there is something we could do better. It is the first year of it so we are trying to understand what works and what doesn’t, but it is nice to find little hurdles, it’s the only way we can improve it. We will get more opinions in the drivers’ briefing and get a minimum.

"I know Rosberg caught us as a pack because we were positive, I think four or five seconds slower, so that was already bad and then my biggest one is when he passed me, I didn’t realise we were green."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.