I’m trying to understand what exactly happened in the Abu Dabi F1 2021 Drama, but as someone very new to racing I don’t seem to understand what exactly happened. I keep hearing lapped cars were allowed to unlap, but as someone who hasn’t seen that match or any for that matter, I don’t exactly know what that means.
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Lapped cars are cars that are a lap or more behind the leaders, either due to lack of pace or additional pitstops or mechanical problems/accidents. They’re typically shown a blue flag when a faster (typically unlappped) car approaches them telling them to move aside and let the faster car by.
When a safety car comes out – in the case of the track being unsafe for any reason – it’s to slow the cars down. The cars form a line behind the safety car, but this can mean it’s a mix of lapped and unlapped cars in the ‘queue’. This can be a little dangerous – having faster and slower cars mixed together on a restart – and also it prevents cars on the same lap racing each other.
So, often the race control will indicate the lapped cars can overtake the safety car and the unlapped cars behind it, proceed around the track, and rejoin the queue of cars from the end.
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