Why Laurin Heinrich can’t understand the decision that race control went for full-course yellow – and why his rivals think differently
Porsche youngster Laurin Heinrich was disappointed after finishing 19th in Saturday’s DTM race at the Nürburgring: “A podium finish would have been possible“. Because the 21-year-old was the only driver apart from Jack Aitken who had already completed his compulsory stop before the violent Porsche crash on lap 18.
“Jack was in fifth place before – and I overtook him right after the pit stop. I thought: Great, now something is really happening, now maybe I’ll get lucky with the strategy. And then there was a full-course yellow. I didn’t understand the world any more,” Heinrich said.
He can’t understand why race director Sven Stoppe didn’t send the safety car out onto the track: “When it rains, it feels like there are two cars with total losses in the barriers. And for every little thing a safety car comes, but here only full-course yellow comes. “
Why Heinrich can’t understand Full-Course-Yellow
It is customary for Stoppe to play the safety car card during the pit stop window only in extreme emergencies, preferring instead to freeze the gaps and secure the dangerous situation with a double-waved yellow flag so as not to completely turn the standings in the race upside down.
An argumentation that Heinrich cannot comprehend. “It’s totally paradoxical,” says the youngster. “Because this way those who have already made the stop are at a disadvantage. For me it was a risk to change to the slick before the rain. If a safety car had come, the others could have changed to rain tyres and made their mandatory pit stop with it.”
The risk of rain was indeed the reason why almost the entire field had waited at the start of the pit stop window on lap 14, when Heinrich came in.
Three stops for Laurin Heinrich
By the time the entire field had changed to slicks and Heinrich was stuck in 20th place, the rain was getting heavier. When race control sent the safety car out onto the track, the Bernhard team played poker with Heinrich on rain tyres. “I knew I was last anyway, so I took a gamble,” he says. “Then I drive out of the pits: sunshine, no more rain. “
Similar to Rene Rast, who was also playing poker with rain tyres, Heinrich had no choice but to make another stop and switch back to slicks. In the end, he finished in 19th place after three stops.
But what do the other drivers think about the decision of the race control to initially go for full-course yellow and 50 km/h speed on the entire track despite the dangerous situation in the first corner?
Bortolotti and Preining: Safety car was fairest decision
“It was probably the fairest decision to give everyone the chance to make a pit stop without losing the race, as we often had last year. “Also, it possibly saved most of the grid, because under green there would have been a big chance of crashes with 99 per cent of the drivers on slicks.”
Thomas Preining also sees the decision positively. “With the safety car, half of the field would have had a free pit stop, which would have destroyed the race. “
