Why F1 and FIA must resolve farcical penalties

Austrian Grand Prix

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Why F1 and FIA must resolve farcical penalties

Austrian GP was overshadowed by multiple penalties that left drivers, teams and viewers confused

Ewan Gale

Tuesday 6 July 2021 09:28

Qualifying blocking

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If you are going to publish updated race event briefing notes ahead of qualifying, then at least punish people who don't follow the directives.

It was plain and simple. Drivers slowing to create a gap between turns nine and 10 would be punished.

What happens in qualifying? A group of cars stack up between turns nine and 10 and poor old Fernando Alonso, on his flying lap, finds an equally unfortunate Sebastian Vettel trundling at the back of that queue, so ruining his chances of reaching Q3.

In accordance, with the regulations, Aston Martin driver Vettel was suitably punished, aided by the fact there appeared to be little communication from his team.

The others ahead of Vettel in the train escaped a penalty as there were too many cars contributing to the situation, or so the stewards' report said.

If that was the case then surely all who contributed should have been penalised, and not just Vettel. If you lay down the law then adhere to it.

Tsunoda and Latifi - crossing the white line on pit entry

In fairness, Yuki Tsunoda's two penalties for twice dawdling across the white line on pit entry were absolute slam dunks, no questions asked.

But Nicholas Latifi, as Masi explained post-race, was only warned for crossing the white line because of a moment of rear-end instability. Now, that is usually caused by driving too fast for your corner trajectory and therefore he should be penalised.

If you lock up braking for the speed limiter in the pit lane and fail to slow to the limited speed, you will be penalised in spite of an obvious mistake being committed.

Why is that different at the pit entry line, especially on a circuit notorious for its borderline dangerous merging between pit entry and racing line?

Russell - moving under braking

For clarity, I don't believe Russell should have been penalised for moving in the turn four braking zone as he had to take a line to actually be able to make it around the corner.

I would, however, query why he wasn't punished when every other decision that was seemingly made across the weekend was taken to the nth degree of the law.

If you are going to be picky about every minor incident, then consistency has to be applied. You cannot pick and choose when and where the hammer comes down otherwise you create what we have ended up with - confusion.

Add this weekend's decision making to a similarly baffling penalty for Alfa Romeo and Kimi Raikkonen at Imola for not overtaking behind the safety car [yes, it is still irritating] and it is clear something must be done to ensure rules are applied logically.