[woodcote]

To be honest, I find it quite easy to keep my mouth shut if a marshal bungles a re-slot. There is never any excuse to yell 'MARSHAAAAAL!!!' - first names will do if someone is looking the wrong way. And then a "thank you". Unfortunately, there is a culture in some clubs of tolerating drivers who get angry and abusive - but there's nothing to say cultures can't be changed. Of course, people have to actively do something to change it - or those who don't fancy an evening of abuse just won't come back.

As for Horner, it wasn't a heat-of-the-moment remark - he repeated it word-for-word to various broadcasters and journalists on Sunday morning, the day after the incident. It was a blatant lie - he and his team had plenty of time to review the evidence. He also defended the indefensible - the bottom line is that flags have to be obeyed at all times and not seeing a flag is never an excuse. It's a fundamental principle of motorsport safety that Horner seems not to understand, despite having been a racing driver when he was younger.

He went further with the "rogue marshal" comment - a bizarre claim that makes him probably the only person on the planet to slag off and undermine marshals in a year when their importance to the sport has been universally celebrated. Horner is an important person in motorsport and is a role model - what he says has an impact and has consequences. If that "rogue marshal" comment lodges in just one young racer's mind, he's put people's lives at risk. Maybe he should be invited to spend some days 'on the bank' during 2022?

[Mitch58]

Never a good idea.

After all they didn't drive your car out of the slot.

Slow down a tad, you'll get more laps that way.

If another guy is faster than you, they either built a better car or are a better driver, trying to drive faster with what you have is never the correct answer.

[Gordon Steadman]

What's this 'slow down' expression?

[KensRedZed]

The world is filled with control freaks that want everything to go their way.

I only got into 1/32 scratch building July 2018. I just walked away from that club several weeks ago because someone in that club took the fun right out of the hobby for me.

I immediately got invited to other clubs. Yay! But the new clubs are plastic store bought cars. No more scratch builds unless I build a track and start a club. Life goes on. It's just a hobby.

I truly feel for the humble marshals that put their lives at risk working track-side.

With all the money being spent on racing. How hard would it be to add a distance sensitive yellow/red light in all the cars instead of a flag communication system that's almost a thousand years old? If a marshal waves a flag and hits a button, a signal is sent to the oncoming cars within 2,000 feet or whatever distance is required. No one can say "I didn't see the flag and light on my dash".

Racing came first. Safety came a long time after. There's no profits in safety. History reveals that some brands of car owners were known to consider drivers as expendable.

Famous racers like Richard Petty had to fight for his own safety. The good old days.

[Kevan]

Track owners saw drivers as expendable entertainment, F1 has Jackie Stewart to thank for not losing more drivers than we have, but you can't discount freak accidents and we saw one last year that thankfully Romain Grosjean escaped with his life at Bahrain.

[Kevan]

...and one of those volunteer marshals saved his life.

[Nonfractal]

The other side of this discussion often overlooked...
I don't believe that there is anyone out there who's not been guilty of failing to pay 100% attention to their corner when marshaling.

Whether it's a race where the front 3 are right on top of each other and your attention was pulled to the action
Or you're trying to cover too many corners because of a lack of numbers on the day...
Maybe you panicked and put a car in the wrong slot, 
Or maybe you're trying to ReSlot a car and the guide just won't go in.

One way or another, time always passes slower when it is your car deslotted and faster when it's someone else's car.
I've found that the better I get at this hobby, the harder I can push and the fewer deslots occur. 

It seems that all of my deslots these days are technical failure of the car (imperfect setup) or just me trying risky overtaking manoeuvres. 

In summary, forgive those who mess up as they forgive you for the same offence.

[Kevan]

Not forgetting deslots caused by others on the track.

[CMOTD]

I did find the F1 thing very strange with Horner saying that the race director had decided the section was green. I was always under the impression that the marshals at any race controlled the flag situation as they are the ones at the scene of the incident, not somebody watching it on a TV screen. In this case there was a car at the side of the track,  a marshal considered it to be in a dangerous position and put out the yellows. This was not a 'rogue' marshal but one doing the job he was trained to do. For the race director to override the decision seems a recipe for disaster.

[Johnno]

Within our group marshalling is 'the most' single thing that fails every single race every single week. As mentioned in others' posts be it inattention on your corner, anxiety, confusion, laziness, not enough marshals, watching the racing on other areas of the track, placing cars the wrong in the slot, if you can think it or have experienced it, our group has had them all. 

It has gotten to the point that I now hold the bluetooth track call button and track call while I race, I'm so sick of inattentive marshalling, hell it isn't hard, one corner, one button but even this simplicity in itself is too bloody hard. 

I've not raised my voice at the marshals, yet, however I have said things such as 'for f.. sake, really, oh come on, hello it's in front of you, wrong way, wrong colour, it isn't bloody hard etc.

I have even commented that we need to hold a 'marshalling practice session' I've even given up racing and went into practice and tuning mode for the car after my race was thrown away by simply bad marshalling even when it wasn't myself that deslotted. 

What is the answer to bad marshalling other than not deslotting? I don't know as mentioned even the innocent racers have paid the price for bad marshalling.