There is no escaping the fact that being a clerk of the course is often a thankless task. Whether that is as Formula 1 race director or officiating at the smallest of club events, it’s impossible to please everyone and, inevitably, someone is left disgruntled. But the role of the clerk of the course is a vital one to enable race meetings to run successfully, safely and fairly, albeit one where any error is in the spotlight.
“You’re building a piece of IKEA furniture under pressure, against the clock, in a shop window where everyone can see what you’re doing,” says British Racing & Sports Car Club chairman Peter Daly, also an international clerk of the course.
It’s a fantastic analogy for the challenge that clerks, and other officials, face – there is simply no hiding from any mistakes made when split-second decisions are taken. And that’s especially the case when the race you are overseeing is in front of a large trackside crowd and is being broadcast live on one of the main terrestrial channels.
That is what happened earlier this month at the Brands Hatch British Touring Car fixture when there were two blunders during the third Ginetta GT4 Supercup race. The first was the inability – whether from the marshals who report to race control or the clerk themselves – to respond to a car off at Surtees.
This was a race held in tricky wet conditions featuring very powerful machines. Given Sam Callahan’s car went off on the second lap and was not exactly a long way from the track, it was somewhat surprising that the safety car was not instantly called. In fact, it was not until the 13th tour, after a near-miss when the battling leaders came across a backmarker heading into that part of the track, that the safety car was finally deployed.
But Callahan’s machine had not suddenly become unsafe; it had been in a potentially dangerous position all along. And it proved to be a quick job for the marshals to retrieve, not a complicated recovery operation for a badly damaged car.
Then, to compound matters, the restart was handled abysmally. For whatever reason, it had not been noted – or acted upon – that the pack had become split behind the safety car, thanks to Colin White slowly travelling around in his wounded G56. Therefore, when the pace car peeled in and leader James Kellett accelerated out of Clark Curve, he came across a gaggle of cars still travelling at slow speed on the pitstraight.
“I don’t know what happened,” said Kellett afterwards. “You can’t overtake on a safety car restart until you cross the line, so I had to back off – no one hit me, but it was messy.”
Fortunately, Kellett and the other leaders avoided them, but it could have been an almighty accident given the speed differentials.
Aside from the most unforgiveable of errors, it does seem wrong to ‘punish’ clerks and perhaps more regular training should be given instead, although we do not want to add extra bureaucracy to an already creaking system
Now, Autosport has written much about the standards of officials over the past year, but the nature of these latest errors once more raises some significant questions. The one that has been aired in some quarters is that, had a driver acted in such a dangerous way, you would expect them to be handed a serious punishment, likely a chunk of penalty points. So, if an official’s actions are also hazardous, what is the sanction for them?
Let’s be clear, I do not advocate stripping officials of their licences for honest mistakes. That would have a chilling effect and be counterproductive, and would only serve to further dissuade the next generation from going on the journey to becoming a clerk.
“The sport is based on volunteer officials giving up huge amounts of their time and there’s growing demand on clerks,” notes Daly. “When you look over the last five years, we’ve lost a number of officials through retirement, through illness, and they bring a big chunk of experience.”
But, despite those pressures, it does not mean that such bungling should go unnoticed or that incidents such as these should be swept under the carpet and forgotten about. Had a driver been injured after striking Callahan’s car or ploughing into one of the slow backmarkers at the restart, we would be looking at this all in a very different light.
Aside from the most unforgiveable of errors, it does seem wrong to ‘punish’ clerks and perhaps more regular training should be given instead, although we do not want to add extra bureaucracy to an already creaking system (note the length of time it took for the British GT Oulton Park race-two controversy to be resolved).
Ultimately, the best way for officials to learn is on the job. We all know how unpredictable and bizarre motorsport can be at times and, the more experience those in race control have of encountering those varying situations, the better equipped they would be at dealing with them.
As in so many scenarios, hindsight is a wonderful thing. And there is no doubt that processes should have been carried out differently in that GT4 Supercup race in Kent.
Lessons must be learned and it is important that all clerks take note from the Brands near-misses – perhaps clerks should even more regularly review tricky incidents away from race meetings. After all, any way of giving them another tool when it comes to building that flat-packed furniture in the shop window has got to be welcomed.
