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    Revealed: The American racing concept that Formula 1 should adopt

    By Elizabeth Blackstock,

    8 hours ago
    https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=1N3Gck_0um44itf00
    Spotters are the eyes in the sky for drivers in American motorsport, preventing silly accidents.

    While Formula 1 is undoubtedly the pinnacle of formalized open-wheel racing in the world, there are still plenty of ways the series could learn from its racing cousins — namely, by introducing spotters!

    In short, spotters spend each race spectating the on-track action from a tall location, giving their driver advice on approaching cars so those drivers can make the safest move possible.

    Spotters: American racing’s unsung heroes

    When two-way radio became available to racers in the late 1970s, NASCAR and CART (then America’s premier form of open-wheel racing) quickly installed the technology to allow the driver to communicate to the pit wall.

    But at some point within the first decade of two-way radio communications, a team somewhere began to experiment. They’d place a crew member out at a section of the track not visible from the pit lane. That crew member would then radio into the driver and team to pinpoint something on the track.

    At first, spotters reported fairly simple information, like incoming weather or crashes on the track.

    By the mid-1990s, though, NASCAR had begun to standardize the use of spotters, who had become integral parts of the team. These spotters can be stationed at one or multiple points around a track depending on its size and shape, and they not only instruct drivers about approaching cars, wrecks, or passing attempts, but to also help formulate strategy or team up with other spotters to relay key information to their drivers that may be withheld from the other spotters around them.

    Though the role is often a thankless one, it does provide ample information to drivers in order to help them race competitively and cleanly.

    More American innovations to bring to Formula 1:

    👉 The NASCAR mindset Formula 1 needs to bring to intentional contact

    👉 Why so serious? Four valuable lessons F1 can learn from polarising NASCAR series

    But why doesn’t Formula 1 utilize spotters?

    While some people have argued that spotters in F1 are pointless because F1 doesn’t race on oval tracks, that’s not quite true; both NASCAR and IndyCar utilize multiple spotters during road course events.

    Plus, pit wall technology in Formula 1 is often more robust than that found in IndyCar or NASCAR; engineers can tell exactly where the competition is at on track, while automated marshaling systems provide instant data to drivers.

    Still, F1 could very well benefit from spotters, even with all of its higher-tech solutions.


    A spotter likely would have noticed Max Verstappen’s erratic driving during the Hungarian Grand Prix, for example, and could have warned Lewis Hamilton about the fact that the approaching driver was not necessarily racing with his full wits about him.

    A spotter may not have been able to prevent a collision between Lando Norris and Max Verstappen at the Austrian Grand Prix — but perhaps that spotter could have informed one or the other driver that the competition was driving angry.

    It could also help with extremely minor things — pointing out debris on the track, finding a dry line on a damp race surface, and so much more. All on top of giving drivers that little extra bit of help when it comes to putting together a race for the win.

    Read next: Royalty, women, Americans: Eight Formula 1 drivers who also competed in the Olympics

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