Drivers weigh in on Full Course Yellow regulations

Drivers have weighed in on the new-for-2024 Full Course Yellow regulations, which proved a major talking point after the Penrite Oil Sandown 500.

Initially tested at last year's Gold Coast 500, the FCY was first deployed at the Bathurst 500 in February. Remarkably, the Safety Car had only been deployed in four more races before Sandown.

Sandown was the first Supercars endurance race to use the new FCY rules. While the new system proved a major benefit to safety, there were questions over the length of the Safety Car and FCY periods, as well as the 80km/h speed limit. All told, the field was under FCY/SC conditions at Sandown for 21 laps.

Race Control confirmed to teams on the morning of the Sandown race that the FCY would run for a minimum of two laps, which ultimately allowed teams to pit both cars on consecutive laps, eliminating the need to double-stack.

However, the length of the FCY/SC periods removed an element of “risk” for drivers and teams on strategy, according to Team 18’s David Reynolds. Notably, a late FCY/SC period nullified a bold strategy call by Penrite Racing, which pitted Matt Payne for new tyres late in the race, only to be covered off on the following lap by rivals.

The bp pulse Safety Car was deployed five times following FCY periods at Sandown, and there was only one FCY period for debris.

Speaking on the latest Drivers Only episode, Payne’s co-driver Garth Tander suggested a late Safety Car period, deployed for the stricken Brodie Kostecki car, went for too long.

“Brodie’s car was out of danger [on the run to Turn 6], they recovered the car after the first FCY lap,” Tander said.

“A few cars jumped in because they thought it was going to be a short one, so they jumped in and took the gamble late in the race to put fresh tyres on.

“Then there was a further two laps after that, and anyone that missed the first lap went, ‘Oh, that’s a good idea, let's do that and cover them'. And then the ones that finally went, ‘Oh, now we’re in trouble, we’ve got to cover them off’. Three laps for what I felt like was a one-lap Full Course Yellow.”

Tander added: “This was all done so we could get safety marshals and officials on the track more quickly, because the cars are instantly down to 80km/h.

“It’s so we can get the recoveries done more quickly so we can get back to racing more quickly. But somehow we’re tripling the time it takes to do a minor recovery.”

With an eye on the upcoming Repco Bathurst 1000, Reynolds said: “The way the rule is happening, they do two laps under FCY before they put the Safety Car out.

“It does work sometimes, but not all the time, I think… Brodie was stuck on the side of the track, but we still passed him at 260km/h for a lap before the FCY came out.

“We can’t do FCY for two laps at Bathurst. It’ll be 12 to 15 minutes under FCY. It’ll be twice as long."

The 15-second countdown also brought an element of danger, with Reynolds notably caught out, hitting Will Davison on the pit straight as drivers slowed down to 80km/h at different intervals. The drivers admitted they were looking at their dashes as they slowed down to the 80km/h limit.

On the countdown procedure, Thomas Randle told Supercars.com’s Schick Cool Down podcast: "You're trying to race to the countdown, and obviously some people were putting it on early — majority would, I'd say were [co-drivers] because they haven't done this before.

"We've had a few more chances, we've gone through it a few more times this year as the main drivers. I don't know whether there's a better way. Obviously there was a lot of full course yellow laps.

"I understand the idea behind it and I think it's great in terms of a safety aspect, but whether there's a better way, I don't know the answer to that.

"The thing obviously with this Full Course Yellow is that the risk for pitting early now is massive. Whereas pre-Full Course Yellow, you can pit whenever, and what would happen is you would race essentially to Safety Car Line 2, the one at the pit exit.

"So, if someone pitted 10 laps before you, you're still in the race with that person, or vice versa. What happened to me, and it happened to a few other people during the race, you do an early pit, and if there's a Safety Car, you obviously keep racing until the pit cycle's done.

“But you're racing hard and there could be a massive accident or whatever… you’re stuck between a rock and a hard place."

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