Following a series of incidents at last year’s races involving track limits , Formula 1’s new race directors, Niels Wittich and Eduardo Freitas , have adopted a stricter philosophy for 2022, defining the edge of the track as the white line and thus sanctioning any infraction.
At the Red Bull Ring in Austria it is common for the drivers to go off the track in several corners due to its layout and its asphalt loopholes, especially in the two right turns of curve 9 and 10 to finish the lap, which makes track boundaries a point of attention.
During Sunday’s race, the stewards erased up to 43 lap times for violations other than track limits, and four drivers – Sebastian Vettel, Pierre Gasly, Lando Norris and Guanyu Zhou – were penalized five seconds for exceeding the three faults. allowed.
But as the debate over the (lack of) consistency of rule enforcement and control during races continues, several drivers expressed frustration at how track limits had been managed during the Austrian GP weekend.
“The track limits debate this weekend has been a bit of a joke, not just in F1, but in F2 and F3,” said world leader Max Verstappen.
“It’s easy to tell from the outside, yes, but you just have to stay within the white line. It looks very easy, but it’s not, because when you go through a corner so fast and some are a bit blind, you have a bit more understeer. , the tires wear out and it’s easy to go over the white line,” continued the Red Bull Racing driver.
“But do you really gain time? Maybe yes, maybe no. To be honest, there are only two or three corners where you can go a little bit wider.”
“I don’t think it should be like, ‘oh you missed a millimeter, that’s a penalty’ or anything like that. Maybe just add a wall or put some gravel in.”
Verstappen added that he believes it “would not look good” for Formula 1 to clamp down on areas where drivers would be “naturally penalized” if they went wide in corners.
Norris, like the other drivers, received his five-second penalty for exceeding track limits after already receiving a black-and-white flag warning for his third offence.
The McLaren driver said that while he can “fully understand” the reason for penalizing drivers in the final two corners, he was frustrated that the stewards also penalized them for going off at Turn 1, where they were losing time and not gaining an advantage.
“I was punished for a maneuver in turn 1, where I blocked the front tire, hit the sausage [the curb], lost like a second going up, and I was given an infringement,” he said.
“I got punished quite a bit, because I had already lost a second there. It’s a bit stupid, some infractions are. And yes, that’s life and it’s the same for everyone, but we want consistency.”
“We have discussed it, also since last year we have said that we want it to be strict, but we want it to be the same always. The drivers always want something different and something better, so we will see.”
“It’s a tough track to judge the limits so finely.”
Mick Schumacher acknowledged that track limits had been “a very big problem” during his time in Formula 2, but believes that it is “something that should be discussed” also in F1 after Austria.
“It seems a bit silly if for going one centimeter off the track you get a five-second penalty, and most of the time when you go off you don’t gain lap time, which is the worst,” said the youngster from Haas.
“It’s something that needs to be discussed, to see if we can improve it for the next event, because I think at Paul Ricard especially it will be a problem.”
Following the race, the FIA sent out a reminder about track limits, saying that using the white line as the circuit boundary “has been implemented following discussions with drivers and teams to improve consistency and clarity for competitors and drivers.” fans”.
And they added: “The number of sanctions this Sunday is proportional to the number of infractions of article 33.3 of the Sporting Regulations, imposing two strikes (warnings) on the drivers during the race the first two times they cross the white line with the four wheels, followed by a black and white flag for the third offence, and then forward to the stewards for each subsequent offence.
