Yellow flags...

As the debate over Valentino Rossi's yellow flag infringement at Phillip Island continues, a possible solution to avoid future unpunished passes might be the use of GPS.

Rossi overtook Casey Stoner on lap 18 of the Australian Grand Prix, despite waved yellow flags following an incident involving Carlos Checa. Rossi hadn't seen the waved yellow flags but, most significantly, neither had race control and the Italian escaped unpunished - finishing the race in third while title rival Nicky Hayden, directly behind Rossi at the time of the pass, crossed the line in fifth.

Rossi, Hayden, Australian MotoGP Race 2006
Rossi, Hayden, Australian MotoGP Race 2006
© Gold and Goose

As the debate over Valentino Rossi's yellow flag infringement at Phillip Island continues, a possible solution to avoid future unpunished passes might be the use of GPS.

Rossi overtook Casey Stoner on lap 18 of the Australian Grand Prix, despite waved yellow flags following an incident involving Carlos Checa. Rossi hadn't seen the waved yellow flags but, most significantly, neither had race control and the Italian escaped unpunished - finishing the race in third while title rival Nicky Hayden, directly behind Rossi at the time of the pass, crossed the line in fifth.

Race control was only made aware of the illegal pass after the race had finished, by which time it was too late to hand out any type of penalty and race director Paul Butler's only option was to apologise to Hayden. Despite the admission of a mistake, Honda remains outraged and has called for the situation to be investigated on safety grounds.

However, a solution might already be in use...

Since the 2005 German Grand Prix, the MotoGP TV feed has included on-board footage showing the precise location of a rider on the track - in real time - using GPS technology (pictured).

So, why not use such technology to monitor the location of every bike and - when a marshal post reports a yellow flag - have that 'zone' automatically examined (by computer and/or human eyes) for any changes of position between the GPS transmitters? Presumably, it would also be possibly to 'double check' any decision (at any future date) by automatically logging the time and location of every pass made during a race, then comparing them with the time and location of any yellow flags.

The second issue raised by Rossi's Phillip Island pass was when a punishment must be served - and that could well require some form of rule change.

Although the current rules don't explicitly state that a penalty for passing under a yellow flag must be served during the race itself (which raises the question of what would happen if a yellow flag pass was made on the last lap) the crucial wording in the paragraph below seems to be 'further punishment' and 'also' (shown in italics) - which suggests that for a post race punishment to be given, an earlier penalty must already have been in place.

"In case of infringement of this (yellow flag) rule during the race, the rider must go back the number of positions decided by the Race Direction. The penalty will be first communicated to the team and then a board will be displayed for the rider on the finish line during a maximum of 3 laps. If the rider did not go back after the board has been presented 3 times, he will be penalized by a ride through. In both cases, further penalties (such as fine - suspension) may also be imposed. If immediately after having overtaken, the rider realises that he did an infraction, he must raise his hand and let pass the rider(s) that he has overtaken. In this case, no penalty will be imposed."

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