Leading drivers back Full Course Yellow safety improvements

Leading drivers from Sunday's Penrite Oil Sandown 500 have backed the Full Course Yellow (FCY) procedure's safety benefits following an incident-packed race.

The bp pulse Safety Car was deployed five times in Sunday's race, which was won by Triple Eight Race Engineering's Will Brown and Scott Pye.

The FCY, which was first trialed to positive reviews last year before being implemented for 2024, was a major talking point throughout the Sandown race.

The FCY, like the Virtual Safety Car in Formula One, is used as a means of bringing the race under the control before implementing a full Safety Car.

It prevents a mad rush to the pits and/or back of the train of cars, which often created tense scenes as officials tended to stricken cars or debris.

In Supercars, a FCY period commences once a countdown is indicated, along with waved yellow flag signals and accompanying FCY boards. Drivers have 15 seconds to reduce their speed to a maximum of 80km/h and engage the FCY/SC limiter.

Critically, the pit lane remains open during full Safety Car and FCY periods, and all laps count as race laps. In Sunday's race, teams were able to avoid costly double-stacking scenarios, while others were caught out by the countdowns and dropped down the order.

For Jamie Whincup, who finished second with Broc Feeney, the new procedure was a no-brainer when it comes to safety.

“I think the Full Course Yellow was a really good contributor,” Whincup said.

"It’s probably the best thing that’s happened since the HANS device, to be able to slow the cars down instantly to control the race, to make sure there’s no more danger out there.

“It allowed the racing to pure. There wasn’t half the cars stacking, there wasn’t artificial results up there. It was whoever was the quickest three cars got on the podium, which is what you want to see as a racing purist."

Previous rules allowed drivers to race past incidents to the pits, with Feeney alluding to a 2023 incident at Albert Park where he instead slowed past a crashed car and held up Chaz Mostert, triggering spirited comments from Ryan Walkinshaw.

“I’ve run it a bit before in GT racing,” said Feeney, who also admitted the extended FCY and SC periods played a role in Sunday's race going time certain.

“Normally when Safety Cars come out, and people have called me out before, because you’re going past people standing on the side of the road at 250km/h. I once lifted the throttle going past there and someone tried calling me out about it, because I was holding them up.

“I think reducing the speed when someone’s stopped on the side of the track is a great idea. I think today, giving us two laps to all pit is a good thing, it helps the racing.

PremiAir Nulon Racing duo James Golding and David Russell, who raced from 14th to third, also hailed the system in the eye of safety for drivers and officials.

“I think it’s a good thing. Safety is paramount in motorsport. There’s always that risk there, so as soon as we can reduce that, it’s a good thing," Golding said.

Russell added: “If you’ve got officials and people out there on the track… it’s not just in Supercars, it’s in motorsport in general.

“You might be at the Bathurst 12 Hour doing the same thing when you’re on an in-lap and it’s a Safety Car, and you’re in the race, you’re pushing to get to the pits to get a pit stop done.

“In that position, it's something they’ve brought in that’s a very good thing."