Formula One team Red Bull Racing are unhappy with the current rules surrounding the virtual safety car, according to crash.net.
Drivers Daniel Ricciardo and Daniil Kvyat have both criticised the virtual safety car, demanding changes to its regulations after failing to clinch, a somewhat promising, United States victory.
Australian driver Ricciardo lost out to Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg immediately after the race was resumed from the virtual safety car since then he has said that he was unaware that the race had gone back to racing conditions – allowing the German driver to jump him.
The Red Bull driver also criticised the laws, due to the fact that World Champion Lewis Hamilton could tighten the pack up during the VSC by going ‘four or five seconds’ slower than the set delta time. This allowed the cars behind to catch up with one another, instead of them keeping the same distance between each other.
Ricciardo said ”My engineer came on the radio and said VSC ending and that is normally like a 10-second warning, so I was aware it was going to end soon. I had a look for the boards.”
“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.”
The Red Bull pair are requesting for a minimum speed that drivers must abide by during the VSC period, along with a maximum speed. They believe this will stop cars getting packed together.
Ricciardo went on to explain that ‘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.’
Russian driver Daniil Kvyat believes that the current rules on the VSC can be unfair for some drivers and that the Red Bull team were forced to face the dark side of the VSC in Austin.
Ricciardo performed well on the intermediate tyres in Austin, but not so much on the dry compounds, losing out to the Mercedes team. Kvyat crashed late on after clipping a kerb and spinning.
Both drivers will be looking forward to the Mexican Grand Prix this weekend, hoping for a good result.
