About F1

The virtual safety car

The virtual safety car (VSC) slows the whole field down without a real car on track. Every driver has to stick to a target speed shown on their steering wheel display, so the race is neutralised but the gaps between cars stay roughly as they were.

It's used for incidents that need double waved yellow flags and put marshals or drivers at some risk, but don't need a full safety car. A typical example is a car that has stopped just off the track and needs a crane or a few marshals to move it.

How it works

When the race director deploys it, the message "VSC DEPLOYED" goes to every team, and the light panels around the circuit show "VSC". Each car's electronics then work out a minimum time for every part of the lap. That target is a lot slower than racing speed.

Drivers have to stay above that minimum time at least once in every marshalling sector (the stretch of track between two light panels), and at both safety car lines. Their dashboard shows a running "delta" telling them whether they're ahead of or behind the target. Most drivers aim to sit just on the right side of it.

Going too fast is punished by how much and how often a driver broke the target, from a 5-second penalty upwards. Drivers must also be above the minimum time when the VSC ends, which stops anyone gaining a jump on the people around them.

Other rules while the VSC is out:

  • No overtaking, except to pass a car with an obvious problem, or when going in and out of the pits (the same safety car line exceptions as under the full safety car).
  • No driving unnecessarily slowly or erratically.
  • Cars can only come into the pits to change tyres.

Each lap completed under the VSC counts as a race lap.

Pitting under the VSC

Because everyone on track is going slowly but cars in the pit lane are still allowed the normal pit lane speed limit, a stop under the VSC costs less time than usual. The saving is smaller than under a full safety car, since the field doesn't bunch up, but it's often worth around 10 seconds, depending on the track. That can be enough to win or lose a place, so teams watch for VSC periods closely. See strategy under the safety car.

How it ends

When the track is clear, the race director sends "VSC ENDING". Between 10 and 15 seconds later the panels around the track change from "VSC" to green, and drivers can race again straight away. The green lights stay on for 30 seconds.

Since nobody knows the exact moment within that window, drivers can't time a perfect run to the green. Unlike a safety car restart, there's no queue to line up: whoever was in front when the VSC started is usually still in front, by a similar gap.

Why it was introduced

The VSC was brought in for the 2015 season, after Jules Bianchi's accident at the 2014 Japanese Grand Prix. In heavy rain, Bianchi's car aquaplaned off the track under double waved yellow flags and hit a recovery vehicle that was removing another car. He suffered severe head injuries and died in July 2015.

The accident showed that drivers didn't always slow enough under yellow flags, and that there was no way to check. The FIA looked at different options, including the full course yellow used in endurance racing, where every car is limited to a fixed speed such as 80 km/h. F1 settled on a target lap time instead, because it slows everyone by a similar amount on every part of the circuit and can be checked by the car's standard electronics.

The VSC has been part of F1 ever since, and the same system now sets the minimum time drivers must respect when the full safety car or a red flag comes out.