gravel traps are dangerous. They tend to flip over cars if they go sideways into them at a higher speed. Also you have to consider that the RB-Ring also hosts motorcycle races, where gravel traps pose a significant dranger even when just going wide. Also also cars tend to bring back gravel onto the track when making it out of gravel traps, which often require safety cars and disrupting the race.
grass is a bit better, but has it’s own set of problems. It’s expensive to maintain, and it gets slippery when wet, so it can’t stop an out of control car in the rain. My favourite solution would be to have a strip of grass about a cars width right next to the track, followed by an astroturf runoff.
Could they just put a gravel trap there instead of a run-off area?
gravel traps are dangerous. They tend to flip over cars if they go sideways into them at a higher speed. Also you have to consider that the RB-Ring also hosts motorcycle races, where gravel traps pose a significant dranger even when just going wide. Also also cars tend to bring back gravel onto the track when making it out of gravel traps, which often require safety cars and disrupting the race.
Fair point, maybe grass (or some kind of carbon fibre F1-spec AstroTurf!) or something else that provides worse grip without the danger?
grass is a bit better, but has it’s own set of problems. It’s expensive to maintain, and it gets slippery when wet, so it can’t stop an out of control car in the rain. My favourite solution would be to have a strip of grass about a cars width right next to the track, followed by an astroturf runoff.