Ahead of last weekend’s Bahrain GP, new FIA race director Niels Wittich laid out the ground rules for how he and team-mate Eduardo Freitas are going to work this season.
Wittich made it clear that the edge of the track is marked by white lines, while insisting that when drivers race wheel-to-wheel through a corner, space must be given to the car on the outside.
With the new philosophy of the FIA , there will also be less exchange of messages by radio between race control and the team managers.
An example of that, as Wittich explained, is that the race director will no longer tell the teams that a driver has to give back a position if they are considered to have gone off the track and thus gained an advantage to overtake, something that happened often before.
In theory, any such proposal was always advisory, as the final decision to apply a penalty always rested with the stewards.
However, if former race director Michael Masi or his predecessor Charlie Whiting sent that message, it meant that there was a risk of a penalty and therefore teams were forcing and convincing their drivers to return position.
Sometimes any discussion of this would go on for several laps, at which point the driver in question might already have overtaken other rivals, making returning a position to the car he had illegally passed that much more difficult.
If the place was not returned, that would result in a five second penalty, and a penalty point on the license, for the offense of “running off the track and gaining an advantage”.
The new directive is quite simple. From now on, the race director will not tell the teams to warn the driver, nor will they enter into any debate about it: it is up to the driver to know if he is wrong and return position.
He also has to do it before a lap has passed since the infringement, and if he doesn’t, the stewards will investigate and he is likely to end up with a penalty.
In many cases, drivers will know that they have made an overtake that will be considered unfair. Inevitably there will be other less clear cases, and the team will have to decide.
However, as any decision whether or not to let the car you overtake pass has to be made in less than one lap, there will be no room for manoeuvre.
In the event that an internal decision is made not to return position, the only thing a team manager/sporting director can do is tell race control, via the FIA member who is filtering their messages to the race director Why was that decision made?
Thus they would be exposing their defense. Whether or not his views will be relayed to the stewards as they consider any penalties is another question.
There is also a time advantage to be gained by doing a corner on the outside without overtaking anyone, and the drivers will also have to judge those situations for themselves.
Drivers and teams are now in a difficult situation.
While in many cases it will be clear, in others not so much, and if a driver is fighting for points, a podium, a victory or even a world championship, will he voluntarily return a position when he is not sure if the stewards would have imposed a most painful penalty?
“I think it’s the right thing to do, because it’s a more real race,” said Carlos Sainz.
“There won’t be a five-second penalty and more can happen immediately, but it has to be immediately, otherwise you can’t lose three or four laps to recover or get back a position.”
“That’s why the rule book exists, it needs to be very clear and it needs to be applied at a time when there is an infraction, you have to give up the position and then see.”
Others believe that in very borderline situations, for example when both drivers go off track and the one behind finishes in front, there could be a race control directive on one or the other driver being forced off the track.
“I think we already had this discussion with Niels in the first race,” said Charles Leclerc. “And I think in some cases it’s very clear what the drivers are going to do. But there are also quite a few situations where it’s not clear.
“If you look at, for example, my start last year in Mexico, I think it’s a good example that things are very clear, because you’re gaining position but you don’t really know what you have to do.
“So in those cases, I hope we continue to have the support of the race director, because it’s important, especially in difficult situations.”
“So I agree that sometimes it’s a very easy situation to read and understand, and in those cases the driver will be smart enough to return the position on his own.”
Kevin Magnussen is also hopeful that the race director will continue to weigh in.
“I still think they will tell the drivers to give back position,” the Haas F1 Team driver wished. “I think they expect more from the drivers in terms of giving back a position if they have gained an advantage.”
“But there will be cases where someone will think they got off the trail, and the other will say he had the trail. And there will be debate there.”
It remains to be seen if that will be the case, because the team, given the little time they will have, risks directly asking the race management, because when the answer arrives it could already be too late.
The complex of turns 1 and 2 of the Jeddah circuit was a point of much action in last year’s race, not least because of the famous incident in which Max Verstappen passed Lewis Hamilton off the track just before a flag. red. As Esteban Ocon had also passed the Mercedes driver, on the restart Verstappen moved into third, behind Ocon and Hamilton.
Masi was negotiating with Red Bull, since a new grid had to be formed, and in similar cases in the future, race management will obviously have to clarify and decide in which position each one starts.
However, the teams involved will no longer be able to engage in a debate about the rights and wrongs of that decision.
