@@MrVsGaragefrom what i heard, the team had left their stations and were celebrating among themselves. and apparently she did ask over the radio how many laps were left. i agree that it's not the team's job to tell her the race is over, but i also don't think they're entirely without blame here.
The flag wasn't waved correctly, either. The panel wouldn't have been as much in the way if they waved the flag correctly. This is why I am a big opponent to letting VIPs wave the flag. It's the most important flag. We wouldn't let VIPs wave yellow or red flags, so why are they allowed to wave a chequered flag?
"Aseel Al-Hamad, Board Member of the Saudi Arabian Motor Federation" was credited as the flag waver. It showed them on the coverage at the start of lap 13
It looks like they don't train them at all, obviously they should spend 5 minutes with a marshall who checks they do it right, but I get the feeling F1 isn't going to say no to people with wallets...
I do think that the team has to bear a bit of blame for this. In the broadcast, they showed Pin asking the team if the race was over and she didn't get a response because everyone was celebrating so she assumed that it was the final lap. I get that the teams can just not tell the driver things but in this situation, if Pin was told that the race was over, she most definitely would have slowed down.
yes true, my viewpoint was that while this would have solved it, they shouldn't have to. I do agree though it's pretty weird to not want to congratulate your driver on the radio
It’s not going to alter the final season results, but the perfect season possibly is gone.. However looking at it from the stewards position, looking at the flags is the first thing you are taught on your first track day. I wish this was more of reprimand vs grid penalty. Or at worst, it should be a grid penalty for next race since it was technically a post race infraction.
The team not congratulating her is an absolute dick move. The Flag was not waved correctly when she passed. It's an F4 learner series. The whole race was full of little and big mistakes by the drivers, with half of the mistakes not penalised. You have a race engineer for a reason, and you have to trust that person to the core. Absolute unprofessional dick mive from the team
Was it mean-spirited or incompetence I wonder? Perhaps something went wrong with the lap count on her team's side and the engineer also thought the race was still on.
@@101jir Her Team was actually celebrating, and the first Reaction of her Race Engineer when he realised was: "What are you doing?". So even when they noticed that they had messed up, they acted as if it was her mistake.
Not sure if it was dick-ness, or just silly-ness ... but totally team error as well. TV was showing them all celebrating and hugging while the girl was still flooring at 250km/h on the track.... 1 minute later, "Dori what are you doing?" ... she should have seen the flag yes, but for various reasons she didn't and was right in responding "you didn't tell me!"
If you watch footage of f1 race finishes from around 2016 they used to display a checkered flag on the light board on the gantry above the finish line. The 2016 Spanish gp finish is what springs to mind as a good example
I think if I remember correctly, for 2019 a chequered light panel was *the* official signal showing the end of the race, not the flag itself. It reverted back to the flag in 2020
FIA be like: *driver overtakes off track* - I sleep, 10s penalty within a few laps *driver cannot see the checkered flag* - real shit? 20s hours after the race is over
I too noticed the flag was behind the screen. I also noticed the "Celebrity Flag Waver" barely wriggle the flag at her waist height, when the official FIA flag waver stretched out & down (probably so the drivers could actually see the flag under the flashy light board thing), so the FIA obviously knew about the problem. Therefore, I am of the opinion that Dorianne Pin was ripped off, dealt with very harshly, & is owed a race win & an apology by the FIA.
To answer your question, her race engineer. Should have said checkered flag instead of cheering and asking what are you doing and the race director to not use the board.
@@Peterraawwrr I have watched the race, yes they some radio issues but at the flag the all pit crew took off the headphones and at the extra lap the team asks what she is doing and she angrily says "you didn't tell me" and the dude apologises to her.
Traditionally, at the end of a race yellow flags are waved by every marshal post after cars cross the chequered flag, signalling cars to slow. So it just gets rid of the uncertainty regarding this issue.
Yeah that one was brutal… another awful accident was the driver who went under a barrier and got decapitated with his headless body still buckled to the seat… absolutely horrific
This is the best video I've seen on this topic. Now I'm a UK marshal who sometimes gets to wave the chequered flag. At my circuit we have the flag, a big board over the gantry, a repeated chequered flag and flag board at post 1. Before any activity happens each day the Chief Flag marshal and Clark of Course drive a slowish lap of the track with all posts waving yellow flags and board flashing yellow. To check they're happy with manning and that flags and boards can be clearly seen. No perfect as they're often in a normal car rather than low slung formula car, doing 40 rather than 200. Also Flag Marshals are encouraged to think like a driver when flying a flag and think where a driver will/won't see the flag when they wave it. With all that said every weekend at least 1 driver will miss the chequered flag. At my circuit the procedure is that the start line flag reports car 101 has taken the flag twice. Race control orders red flag immediately as car 101 has taken the flag twice. They also ask pit marshals to invite the driver to race control to see the Clark. When the driver goes up to race control the Clark asks them why they missed the flag. If they're contrite and say they lost track of lap number, didn't spot it for some reason, say sorry and promise to do better. They'll be sent on their way. If they come in spitting fire and saying its everyone else's fault, they're getting a penalty.
Also at chequered flag incident marshals will move a little away from their posts and wave to or applaud drivers to show the race has ended. Not as obvious as every post showing chequered but I've seen cars pull up when they see the waving marshals
This is how I'd like things to be done. If the clark and driver can just talk and understand each other everything becomes a lot easier. Most people don't want to do anything wrong... obviously if something major goes wrong there should still be a punishment even if its unintentional so people learn, but in this case if someone is apologetic I don't see why they need to be penalised
Good thing I don’t live in England and live in America where Motorsport is much better policed. If you don’t do your job correctly, yeah, I’m blaming you. What kinda long winded shit did you just type out. I don’t think you do anything in racing, I think you sit on your couch and type. I actually race in real life and have real world evidence on this topic and everything you said is a giant lie. F off
Having raced for 45 years in lower formulas (no radios, no electronic sign boards) it is possible to miss the flag, especially if racing with another car. The checkered flag in turn one, along with marshals waving at you is usually a safe sign that you missed the flag. Usually the embarrassment alone is enough that you only do it once. Here in the US we are introducing Flagtronics, an in car flagging system. However, actual flags, when used correctly, should be sufficient. The penalty should have been to work a corner for a race - and the penalty for the checkered flag waver the same😀.
This is really wierd from a team point of view. Every single time I've won a team game, whether online or irl, I congratulate my teamamtes or say something to celebrate. But yet the race engineer is dead silent for when she wins a race? If mic isnt broken this is really odd behavior.
exactly and the rumor is that her mic was not working, we know that the engineers was working as he asked her what she was doing after she passed the checkered for the 2nd time.
@@nathangamble125 not having the checkered flag visible is BS. If the checkered Flag had been visible she would've had a chance to see it. This is a massive FIA L and now people just blame Pin for it. Yes the engineer could've said something and congratulated and point it out to her the race is over. He didn't though for whatever reason and given the ruleset doesn't state the driver needs to be told via team coms that the race is over there is no reason to blame them. The FIA is responsible for making sure all flags and flag boards are easily visible from the the track If they fail to do that they are a safety liability.
I agree with the video. Officially speaking, it's the race organizers job to tell the drivers when the race is over. If they fail to this due to a badly placed light board or Tim Cook levels on flag waving, that's on them. The race organizers should take it seriously and assess where they messed up, but instead they are shifting the blame elsewhere. Regardless of the rules, this is dangerous and it should be brought up with the teams that they should make sure their drivers know when the race is over.
Nice analysis! If I were her I'd definitely feel aggrieved over this. Seems like one of those perfect storm situations where every one of the potential mechanisms which could have prevented it happening totally failed to materialise.
Things falls through the cracks some times, it happens. But if some of those cracks are caused by the organiser then it's unfair to punish the driver this much. Definitely aggravating!!
@@MrVsGarageI watch a lot of aviation investigation type videos and they often mention the 'Swiss cheese' model, where you have a load of slices of Swiss cheese and sometimes you can see all the way through the holes and then an incident happens. This video really has a very similar tone to that genre and it's kept me glued, even though I don't really follow F1 at the moment (last time I did was when working for a composites company in the first turbo season, the things I saw there 😳)
Drivers rarely actually see the flags and that is why light boards were put in and they also get a message on the steering wheel display. I am not sure if they have this on F2 but they do on F1, WEC and GT cars.
Considering those cars move at 150+mph, I'm not surprised they don't see the flags. It's the same reason why high speed trains don't use line-side signals, instead relying on lights inside the cab...
@@mastertrams Many years ago they stopped using the pit boards they use to hang over the wall on the start / finish straight because when you are moving at 90 meters a second drivers had no chance seeing them although I do notice a pit board come out now and then and I suspect it may just be a push or hold message so they dont have to use the radio where the other teams and us can hear them.
@@irrationalgeographic9953i believe pit boards are also still used to communicate if there are issues with the radio. For example if your driver can't hear you you use the boards to signal when he should pit. Not sure about that tho, i don't work in that field so i can't say for certain
@@irrationalgeographic9953 they still use those, but the radio is two ways and the messages they need to give today are longer due the complexcity of the cars. Drivers do see the flag, people have good vision on moving objects.
@@Heksu99 The whole reason the electronic trackside flags were brought in and the following year the FIA making it mandatory for wheels to display flag status was because of the increasing complaint from drivers that they could not see trackside flags and the increasing number of rather scary incidents due to that fact. Granted at track like Monaco not seeing trackside flags are not a big issue due to slower speeds combined with marshal stations being prominent and close to the track.
I was watching and am rather PO’ed that Doriane lost her victory in this way. One thing I don’t understand is why the LED boards,(I believe the board obscuring sight of the board), don’t show the checkered flag. They display electronically yellow flags, red flags, etc., so is it not possible to have them show the checkered flag around the circuit on the cool down lap? I think she should have her victory reinstated.
It was absolutely a problem she didn't slow down. We are lucky something really bad didn't happen. Blame is a harder call IMO. Feels like a situation where at the minimum no one is blameless
The camera shot of Pulling standing on the grid with Pin driving in from behind made my butt clench. I know she hads been red flagged by then but imagine if she hadn't... 😬
@@kanolightracer5 They better not run on track the moment the leader crosses. The track is still live. The race doesn't end when the leader crosses the line, it ends when the last car on the lead lap crosses. If that last car was nearly a lap down, that's basically a full lap more of racing going on.
@@kanolightracer5or japan 2022 where gasly almost ran into one of the recovery crane vehicle that got ok track before everyone made it into the pit lane
I don't even think we would need to add additional screens along the start finish straight the flag doesn't need to be exactly at the start finish line...
imo the flag board thing should cover the first 3 boards from start/finish onwards still keeps the idea of having the flag near the finish but gives multiple opportunities for the drivers to notice the checkered flag
you didn‘t have to give me van Vuuren flashbacks. I was at the point of almost having forgotten this horrible footage and now it‘s back. Amazing video though, some important talking points in there and still extremely entertaining to watch. Big thumbs up 👍
About the team not getting on the radio but it "not mattering because it could be broken" : The thing is that if the radio isn't broken, Pin expects the team to come onto the radio. If it was broken sure, she's be looking out very attentively for flags, but if it's not she expects to be told anything of importance.
Did the FIA provide a reason why yellow sectors were not applied after the chequered flag, like they do with other junior formula. The same track did use this system for the Formula 2 sprint race the previous day, so was there some reason this wasn't done for F1 Academy?
I believe they have tried the light board flag idea but there was one race where it came on a lap early and therefore the result was taken from the previous lap from that, losing two laps of the race, sadly can't recall which but pretty sure it was in the last 10 years. I also think there may have been another case with some sort of technical glitch, after that they decided to go back to the traditional method. I totally agree though that there should be a light board, perhaps at the bottom of the grid/start finish straight with an 'isolated' flag board with one big button for when the race is over, leaving very little room for human error (FIA would probably still manage it though).
Yeah, found it from F1's article "F1 RULES & REGULATIONS: What’s new for 2020?". They switched back to real flag. I just don't like that they have people who really don't seem to care about what they are doing and that they clearly don't get taught how to wave a flag.
Something to be said about having one guy run the show. Without him it takes a while to get back up to speed. He should've had an assistant at his side for years learning what they could about all aspects, ready to take over whenever needed.
you have to be careful not to flag someone who is still driving. If the winner was just about to lap someone but didn't get them before the line, that person still has to drive the whole last lap
@@MrVsGarage And this is exactly why I think the safety part of the story “it’s dangerous to have a fast car… and people one the track” is not really a valid point if you want everyone to compleet the final lap. Why is her (nr 1) dangerous if it could just as well be someone she was about to overtake. So either it’s dangerous and all drivers should slow down (and you can display flags around the circuit) or, you can have one more fast lap without it being to dangerous, just like the one you where going to overtake on the finish line… (but just was a second to late)
@@IPad-OG fair enough. I suppose it's a question of predictability, people to the side of the track are expecting the backmarkers to still be full pace but if they think the leader has slowed down but they haven't the confusion could have bad consequences. Also if people do more than 1 lap after the flag then it's definitely bad
Why, in this technical age, are red, yellow, blue and black flags shown on the light panels all around the track, but the chequered flag is still waved in one spot that, in this case, is almost hidden?
It actually is an option on certain panel boards, it depends on the software being used. My local track uses boards similar to those, and we display the checkered flag on them during track days
Incidentally, there's another race just this season that has had something similar happen: IMSA 24h of Daytona. The flag was waved early (because the race start had been delayed; they just assumed it'd stop 24h on the dot, but they should have adjusted for an extra warm-up lap, so there technically was still a minute or so on the clock), and "to be safe", the Porsche drove an extra lap at full speed, taking the flag twice. This was done very deliberately and with everyone knowing that the driver had seen the flag first time around. No penalty.
Yeah but things are a little different with timed races. You can have circumstances where it's unclear if the leader is going to get to the line just before or just after time expires so it's kind of expected that if the race is close, you keep racing until it's declared official.
Well that driver's a dick and should have been fined. The chequered flag means the race has finished regardless of how many laps or how much time has been completed or not. Total idiot with no understanding of the rules.
All the timed races I've seen have been the clock winds down to zero and then it's plus one lap next time over the start/finish line. No doubt the Porsche driver was applying this knowledge and making sure he didn't slow down a lap too soon. A sensible course of action given there was some confusion over when the "end" officially was.
@@woopimagpie +1 lap is not at all a universal rule. It sometimes is (sometimes it's also more than +1!), but plenty of races just show the flag first time the leader comes by after the time has run out. Either way, flag counts, so it shouldn't matter. We can see this from results where it was waved too early; the flag is always what defines the end of the race.
I was thinking it was crazy that I hadn't heard about this incident but then I realized I hadn't heard about either of the opening two rounds of this championship at all at any point. So that's not really hitting the aims and objectives of the series if I forget it's even on. I like Dorien Pin, I am familiar with her from the WEC. Glad she's winning even if she isn't.
Still still won at least 1 race this weekend! And yeah I know what you mean, for one of the biggest sports organisations in the world they really aren't great at advertising new things
@@MrVsGarage The lack of promotion of the feeder series in general is rubbish. At least the F1 RU-vid channel does F2 highlights. But then on the other hand if you do get invested in who wins F2 there's no point because they don't make it to F1 unless they are already best mates with one of the manufacturers anyway.
I've flagged many races, tradition for a cool down lap is for the other corner marshal to wave at the cars to say good job and slow down the race is over.
It also happened before in F1 that the checkered flag was waved at the wrong time. Winnie Harlow, and also once during the Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka (2019), that the finish flag was waved on the wrong lap. And quite a few times that the VIPs (or actually the people who instruct them) flag one or more people/cars too late. It is understandable that it is a real and serious safety issue, but proven it is often not the incompetence or inattentiveness of the driver where the mistakes lie, so it can at least be called hypocritical that the penalty is imposed there (too harshly). I had heard about it, but hadn't seen it myself. thanks for the clear video on it.
My question is, with the checkered flag being an important safety system, why is there no redundancy, such as multiple checkered flags? what happens if the waver drops it, or a wind gust pullst it paralel to the ground, or even out of the waver's hand?
It happens quite a bit, just last weekend indycar st pete Scott Mclaughlin was hauling ass in to turn 1 after the race was over but the Crew informed him the race was over. To which his response was "not going to lie I didn't know that was the last lap"
Great video and great presentation! Way nicer to listen to than most of your "competitor's" channels. Thank you very much! Edit: Also wanted to mention: Lewis Hamilton was crawling on an inlap during qualifying in Jeddah and Sargent nearly crashed. Obviously team's fault so the team got a 15.000 USD penalty. In this case the team should've been given a fine as well instead of the driver.
Great video with a lot of interesting thoughts & information. I like your idea of using the overhead gantry at the start/finish to display a Chequered Flag at the end of the race. Especially bearing in mind that the FINISH line is USUALLY BEFORE the START line, having the chequered flag waved at the finish line along with the display screen there showing a Chequered flag & then to make absolutely sure, show the Chequered flag AGAIN on the overhead screen at the START LINE, this would SURELY ensure that drivers COULDN'T realistically miss the end of the race.
When Eastern Creek Raceway (now Sydney Motorsport Park) was built there was a lot of drivers missing flags from the gantry. Usually black flags but also chequered flags. Initially the blame was placed on the drivers, but when it became such a common event it was decided to have an extra flag point for the chequered flag near turn 1 and a second location for the black/meatball flag around the back of the track. All tracks should show a second chequered flag at the next flag point after the finish line.
A lot of people are saying, "her team should've congratulated her." I didn't watch it, and I don't know what systems F1 Academy has in place, but it's possible that the team DID congratulate her, but a radio failure prevented her from hearing. A better argument is, "when the team got no response from the driver upon congratulating her, and when the car kept going at race speed, why didn't they try another channel?" NASCAR has multiple channels for their drivers. Maybe try that? It's not a diver's job to keep track of laps. It's a driver's job to race until the end. When that end is doesn't matter. She wasn't doing it maliciously, so don't penalize her with an in-race penalty. She didn't break a rule until AFTER the race ended. Don't penalize her with something that effects that race.
It's actually not something that's common practice in a lot of places. At my club circuit, we almost never do 'monkey dances' as they're referred to as. It tends to only be something that's done for really big events like IMSA, WEC, F1, Indycar, ETC. Usually we just applaud the drivers or wave as they pass us by on the cooldown lap.
Not the team's requirement, like you said, but if they weren't so busy celebrating, they would have seen Pin going full out on the monitors like everyone else did. Too concerned with celebrating instead of getting their driver back safe, hope they learn from this mistake as well
I’ve raced at several circuits where a second chequered flag was used further down the track. From memory silverstone old start finish straight did this.
Would it really be that difficult in 2024 with all the data available to show the checkered flag on the screens all around the track just rolling out on pace with the winner? just start showing it after the last un-lapped car has passed? Could be an issue with race leader being very close to lapping another car but that same issue arrives on the finish line in those scenarios.
There’s a big issues with 4 things The positioning of the chequered flag in Saudi Arabia. The complete lack of communication between her and her engineer. Her own poor comprehension of how the race ended with Pulling going from 9 tenths behind to being nonexistent. And finally the really poor stewarding to give that poor penalty hours after chequered flag.
I don't know about the regulatory basis (or lack thereof) for the practice, but after F1 races, the marshals always come out and wave *every flag*, making it pretty clear that this is a neutralized circuit. There's only one checkered flag, but that seems like a reasonable signal to send around the track to indicate the end. As a bonus, it's quite fun!
at the 1977 South African Grand Prix a marshall was hit by a car doing 270km/h They couldn't figure out who had died until they did a headcount to see who was missing...
UK flag marshal here. That lightpanel is in such a stupid place, but then bad planning has been something of a running theme everywhere with lightpanels so it's not really surprising. Lightpanels should not be placed directly on the flag-marshal's position, for exactly this reason! They can block sight of the flag, which in nearly every case over-rides the light panel. Chequered flags have always been a bit of an issue, especially if the driver missed it for whatever reason. In just a few short years I've been to so many racing events where at least one driver hadn't noticed the race had finished, usually ones where there's no pit-to-driver radios. There's no way for marshals to really indicate to the driver that he's missed the chequered until race control orders out the red flag, we can't just wave the other colours randomly because that's mixed messaging, and the chequered flag is only issued to the start line with some rare exceptions where one is also issued to post 1. The rest of the posts never have one.
I think the "checkered flag on every light board" solution could still work, you just don't turn them on all at once. You switch them on one-by-one, either just ahead of the finished lead driver, or just behind the last still racing driver. I guess it could still be an issue if the gap between the leader and the last non-lapped car in front is small, but that same issue exists with the real checkered flag (do they wait until the driver in last place passes to start waving? If so, how do they handle that if the lead driver is right behind, say
stunned. I'd have expected that the 'showy' flag wave wasn't the ACTUAL flag wave, the actual one would be THE BIG SIGN. This feels like a 'should never happen' incident and not a blame the driver one at all.
There's no way the radio was working as there's no way she'd have done 1.5 full laps without someone from the team getting on the radio and telling her.
very good breakdown and I actually came to a similar conclusion when I saw this incident, driver holds 0 blame for this IMO, as without the team or flag, its clearly from a driver perspective still full race conditions, having an entirely obscured flag is a race safety issue of its own and if anything whoever failed to make for a safe signaling setup should be punished for this incident instead, as clearly that is not sufficient for high level motorsport and honestly I wouldn't even trust that for MX5 cup cars
Flags around the circuit could work if the flags are able to be sequenced. Have the flags only switch to checker after the last place driver passes. The gap between last and first is usually high enough for this to be effective, isn't it?
Flag board idea is a good one, in addition to one on the line a second before turn 1 would act as a safety net. The flag waving point at the finish line needs to be moved to the opposite side of the track. Coming out of a left hand bend you're more likely to see it on the outside as you straighten the car up.
Put some extra panels on the start/finish line and show the chequered flag or having a bridge with a big panel right over the finish line which shows a chequered flag. Having multiple visual signs to communicate that the race is over seems logical to me
What I don't understand, in F1 after the checkered Flag, every marshal waves every Flag. A tiny hidden checkered Flag is easy to miss, ten yellow, red etc Flags no! Why don't they do the same for Feeder Formulas? Is it some kind of tradition only for GPs?
I believe the marshals also should have also waived a white flag as she entered her last lap? Though given that the view of that marshal is obstructed by the light board, I expect she wouldn't have been able to see that either. I feel like this is on the venue and the FIA primarily, and her team secondarily, but the punishment definitely doesn't fit the crime.
White flags in FIA-sanctioned events indicate a slow-moving vehicle on track, like a tow truck/broken-down racecar. This isn't the case in other, non-FIA events, like IMSA, NASCAR, IndyCar etc.
Marshal here (cars and bikes, including motogp and wsbk, though not F1 as of yet). White is only waved to inform the drivers that they are approaching a slow car. It gives information, not instruction, so it still allows for overtaking.
I think this issue could be avoided by adopting 3 things that are very common in American Motorsports... 1. A flag on the starting stand to indicate the last lap of the race. This would give Pin twice the opportunities to see the flag, and potentially have a white flag flash on her dash like you see in INDYCAR, would be helpful in this situation. 2. Having Checkard flags flash on the lighting boards around the track. 3. Having a dedicated (and trained) professional Flagman would solve the issue, even though you mentioned that the flag was partially obsured by the lighting board, a profession flagman would still be visible beyond the board (as shown during the F1 Race), and the flagman would have been able to notice the board was there and have it modified before the race.
As you set it I was thinking something similar. What do the other flag stations show when the races over? They could put up a yellow or something anything to indicate what the car should be doing at that point since the races over they would want you to slow down. They should be showing a flag in accordance with that.
Set up the flag boards to show a progressive checkered flag. The timing loops know where the cars are. As soon as every eligible car has crossed a mini sector, set the board to checkered. Maybe also send a checkered flag message to the steering wheels.
The digital checker flag could show on the screen once the winner passes that board. It is 2024, we can figure out how to use the transponder to trigger it.
Seems pretty clear to me it was unintentional on her part. Couldn't see the flag due to obvious obstruction, backed by the onboard camera. The relative position of camera and head wouldn't make any difference. Don't forget they are wearing helmets, too! Already restricted visibility.
Agree with you 100%. Although the question of which penalty should be applied is redundant since it wasn't her fault because she couldn't see the flag. So there is no reason she should have gotten a penalty in the first place. The FIA is entirely to blame for this. Who in their right mind would sign off that flag board that blocks the view?
Have the flag board follow the leader around their cool down lap. The first being at the finish line, and as they approach their next board have that turn to the checkered flag, will all boards the leader has passed keep their checkered flag status. That stops people who are half way around the lap when the leader crosses the line from getting confused. The checkered flag can also be overridden by local yellows, if needed.
When considering a penalty the fia is not allowed to make it be influenced by the potential outcome. Nether „it wouldn’t do a difference if there are no point“ or „the gap is so big that the time penalty would also make no change“
the start line isnt the finish line, the finish line is the control line, that being said there is a light panel on the start gantry, normally used for letting drivers know when they have the meatball flag, got a black and white flag, or have been disqualified, that one can also be used to indicate the race being finished
Just like what was said with the fines, if a driver got one, could they afford the rest of the season? The same can be said regarding fighting said penalties. If you want the stewards, or race director to review the penalty you need to pay them up front as a deposit before they will review their decision. In the juniour leagues they can't afford this and so have no way to fight unfair decisions and just have to take it on the chin, so to say, even if the wrong decision was clearly made.
It would also be possible to add a white flag for the beginning of the final lap and/or immediately show a yellow or red flag sector-by-sector (or by timing zones if they need more precision) once there are no drivers still racing in that area.
I swear there is also another panel right beside the start lights that displays a checkered flag picture once the race is over, but it appears that this track either didn’t have that panel or it wasn’t used in this race. Edit: the last time it seemed to have been used was Abu Dhabi 2019
As each of the flag boards can be independently operated then the checked flag or even, flashing yellow and red at the end of the race if you can only have one checkered flag
the panels round the circuit can be localised so you could put checkered flags on only the first 3 boards of sec 1 in gt cars the checkered flag is shown in the cockpit its old tech so easy to do
