Soon a safety car in Cycling?

The organizers of Cycling races, currently meeting in Italy, have studied the possibility of introducing a safety car during competitions, particularly in the event of bad weather.

After F1, soon a safety car in cycling? The idea is being seriously considered by the international association of cycle race organizers (AIOCC), meeting in a general assembly on Thursday and this Friday in Garda Trentino (Italy). Christian Prudhomme, president of the AIOCC and boss of the Tour de France, put this idea of ​​introducing safety cars on the agenda, reports Gazzetta dello Sport, whose headquarters hosted the creation of the association in 1956.

Used in bad weather?

In Formula 1, the safety car enters the track after an accident to take the lead and neutralize the race by setting a slow pace to allow the evacuation of debris or injured drivers. No details have filtered out on its application in cycling but the idea would be of the same order in the event of danger on the roads. This possibility was raised after the fiasco of the last edition of the Three Valleys Varésines in October.

First shortened by thirty kilometers due to weather conditions, the race was finally stopped at the initiative of the runners, including Tadej Pogacar, only 1 hour 15 minutes after the start. Chilled with cold and soaked by the heavy precipitation which fell on Lombardy, they denounced these conditions and dismounted after completing the first lap. “Everyone agreed to stop,” Tadej Pogacar justified. “It was only a matter of laps before someone fell. There were seven punctures in the mock start and on the last descent we could no longer see where we were going.”

The introduction of a safety car was not the only topic on the AIOCC agenda. The organizers had also decided to discuss the potential implementation of capped budgets within the teams in order to avoid too large differences in resources between the teams, some of which are backed by very powerful sponsors (Emirates, Bahrain, Red Bull …). Christian Prudhomme had also promised to discuss this subject in an interview with Midi-Libre at the start of the week. “Having big sponsors is perhaps what the French teams are missing too,” he noted. “There is a reflection carried out by the UCI, with the organizers, the teams, on the fact of perhaps having a maximum budget. Because in fact, with the capital which comes in particular from Arab countries, the match is a bit unbalanced, to put it mildly.”