Saturday, October 11, 2008

Honda trial new pit light system

Honda trial new pit light system

Honda Racing have begun an evaluation process of their own pit stop light system, with team principal Ross Brawn convinced it can be safer than traditional lollipop releases despite Ferrari's recent dramas.

The Japanese manufacturer tried out their new lighting system at a track for the first time during pit stop practice on Thursday in Fuji, and may even run it in a practice day at the Chinese or Brazilian Grands Prix.

Should those tests go well, and work over the winter is satisfactory, then it could be introduced for races at the start of next year.

Although such light systems have had bad press recently, thanks to Felipe Massa's dramas in Singapore, Brawn believes that when they are fully functioning they are actually safer.

"We've been working on the project for quite a long time now, and our first priority is safety," Brawn told autosport.com. "The second priority is to gain performance.

"We can see a lot of safety benefits from the system. But like any system it has got to be very robust and you have got to be very confident in the technology you are using. It is quite a delicate situation.

"At the moment we are really going through an assessment period. We wanted to do some trialling in the practice days at the race track to be in a good position to make a judgement over the winter about what we want to do."

Brawn believes the system is safer because when it is in fully operational mode it should be impossible for cars to be released from the pits until the refuelling hose has been removed from the car.

"We can see, despite the poor exposure the system has had recently, a lot of safety benefits of the system - because the interlocks you create can, in theory, make it impossible for the car to be released without all the actions being completed.

"But someone has to make the call for whether there is a gap in the pitlane for the car to exit into, and we haven't yet worked out a way to deal with that. We have thought about sensors in the pitlane that sense when other cars are there and things like that, but that is still a human judgement.

"It would still be human judgement if you had a lollipop though. And, with a lollipop, the guy is also trying to make that judgement at the same time as watching all the other activities that are going on with the car. That is where it is more difficult for him.

"If that person is only focused on finding the holes in the traffic in the pitlane, and opening and closing the button when the gaps appear and disappear, then that is in theory a safer system. But we are reserving judgement until we have done all the work."

Ferrari's system had been switched to fully manual mode in Singapore during Massa's disastrous pit stop - meaning the man in charge of triggering the lights was able to release the car before the refuelling hose had been pulled off the car.

As a result of that incident, Ferrari have reverted to a lollipop for this weekend's Singapore Grand Prix.



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