Romain Grosjean has called on the FIA to rethink their policy on blue flags after recent incidents on track.
The Frenchman, who has dealt with the issue on both sides, believes a system based on the comparable lap times between the leaders and backmarkers would be much fairer.
“When the leaders are coming on new tyres or the same tyres and they’re faster it’s easy,” Grosjean said. “I had Vettel behind me and he was about two tenths faster because he was on old tyres and I was on super-softs so of course it would take him 10 laps to close a two-second gap.
“I did a few laps in front and then we had a warning from Charlie [Whiting] and I let him by but it cost us 2.6s in one straight line so that was a lot of time lost.
“You are not happy because you’re fighting to go to the points as well. But they are the leaders… I don’t know. There is no right or wrong answer.”
YouTube: Vettel blue flag – Hungarian GP 2016
The topic of blue flags has rumbled on for quite some time, indeed, while most team radio was quelled, the rant of an angry Ferrari driver complaining about the lack of blue flags is aired at every race it seems.
In Hungary and Germany, Grosjean’s Haas teammate Esteban Gutierrez also came under fire from two drivers. Lewis Hamilton gesticulated out of the cockpit as he passed him in Budapest and Daniel Ricciardo sarcastically calling the Mexican his ‘favourite’ over the radio at Hockenheim.
The current system sees every backmarker have a blue light flash on their steering wheel to indicate when a lead car is within two seconds of them, however, as Grosjean’s example proved, that does come with drawbacks.
Some have suggested the maximum gap be cut down to just one second, however, issues with dirty air can sometimes mean staying close enough would be more difficult.
As with most things in the sport, Grosjean believes the blue flag limits needs simplifying: “The problem is that it’s a case-by-case thing and it’s very tricky. It’s very hard to police,” he said.
“I would be in favour of a shorted threshold but as soon as you see blue flags you have got more or less one lap to let the guy by.
“You know you are going to lose a second and a half because of a one-second gap and then half a second being behind but some places it’s hard to get within one second, some others it’s easy.
“It’s never going to be ideal. There are different opinions. Some want to keep the two-second mark, others want to go to a one-second mark. Everyone has got a different opinion.”
In a time when DRS is making overtaking much easier than before, some will take Romain’s comments and think ‘just abolish blue flags altogether’.
Certainly, with a one-second limit already in place for DRS, it would make sense to use that same boundary for blue flags and might just even see the lead drivers have to work a little harder to earn their position.
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