When the FIA announced the replacement of Formula 1 race director Michael Massi and the role split between two new appointees, it was clear that the sport’s brave new era would coincide with changes in coaching during car design.
The appointment of former DTM race director Nils Wittich and World Endurance Championship and Le Mans 24 Hours race director Eduardo Freitas was supposed to bring back some much-needed credibility to the role – and F1 itself – after last year’s highly controversial finale in Abu Dhabi pitted it between two established men. By sharing, the idea was to lighten the burden on those who were responsible for carrying out the tasks throughout the season.
In motorsport, only race stewards can issue penalties to competitors – but it is the race director who decides how to interpret the race each weekend. The new regime introduced one of the changes in the first race of the year.
In recent seasons the rules on Formula 1 track restrictions have varied from circuit to circuit, corner to corner and even session to session. But from earlier this year, there was an announcement that the track limits would simply be defined by the white lines outside the racing surface. There is no ambiguity. There are no exceptions.
This no-nonsense approach to track restrictions was warmly welcomed by many fans of the sport, who hoped it would end the seemingly endless debate over this particular race rule every weekend. The impact of this new approach has certainly been felt so far in 2022.
In the first 11 races of the championship, exactly halfway through the season, the FIA stewards’ panels canceled a total of 233 lap times from competitive sessions – qualifying, sprint races and the Grand Prix – after 196 track limit offences. The most regular offender is Williams driver Alexander Albon, who has committed 16 track limit violations this season. Lewis Hamilton is second with 14 infringements.
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It will limit violations in the first half of the 2022 Formula 1 season:
RankDriverTeamTrack limits infringementsTotal lap times deletedTime penalties1Alex AlbonWilliams161712Lewis HamiltonMercedes141703Pierre GaslyAlphaTauri13161=Kevin MagnussenHaas13160=Sergio PerezRed Bull131306Sebastian VettelAston Martin121617Lando NorrisMcLaren11141=Carlos Sainz JnrFerrari11130=Yuki TsunodaAlphaTauri11130=Zhou GuanyuAlfa Romeo11131=Fernando AlonsoAlpine1111012Mick SchumacherHaas10130=Nicholas LatifiWilliams1011014Max VerstappenRed Bull912015Lance StrollAston Martin812016Charles LeclercFerrari780=George RussellMercedes77018Daniel RicciardoMcLaren68019Esteban OconAlpine22020Valtteri BottasAlfa Romeo11021Nico HulkenbergAston Martin000
The results of this zero tolerance approach culminated in the final round at the Red Bull Ring. Under Massey, last year’s Austrian and Austrian Grands Prix at the track saw a total of 31 violations of track restrictions in qualifying sessions and the race over both weekends. No time is canceled for those who run outside the white line one, seven or eight times in a row.
Yet this season, between Friday’s qualifying session and Sunday’s grand race, drivers have committed 64 total track limit offenses – more than double the previous two race days at the Red Bull Ring.
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Limit violations over the past three Red Bull Ring weekends:
Year Round 1 Turn 7 Turn 8 Turn 9 Turn 10 Total Violations 2021 Sterian Grand Prix00046102021 Australian Grand Prix000714212022 Australian Grand Prix*1111173464
* Numbers do not include sprint races.
At the checkered flag at the end of the race, four drivers – Pierre Gasly, Lando Norris, Zhou Guanyu and Sebastian Vettel – were all given five-second time penalties by the stewards for crossing the track boundary four times. Three others – Lewis Hamilton, Carlos Sainz Jnr and Sergio Perez – were also given official warnings with black and white flags for race control after committing three offences.
After the race, Norris questioned the need to apply the rules equally to all corners on the circuit.
“The last two corners I fully understand,” Norris explained. “You run there, you get a lot of use.
“I had one in turn, or where I got the penalty, I locked the front tire, I hit the sausage. [keeb], I lost like a second to the hill and then I get the track limits for that? I was punished enough for missing a second. So it’s a little silly, some of them.”
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The McLaren driver admitted that his complaints were fully in line with what he and the other drivers had asked the directors for the new race before the season.
“We said from last year we want it to be tight and we always want it to be the same,” Norris admitted. “We riders are always looking for something different and better and so on. It’s always a difficult way to judge the limit well.
Norris team principal Andreas Seidl said he was pleased the rules appeared to be being enforced as stated at the start of the race – although one of the drivers was handed a penalty.
“Given the track’s limitations, all the teams and drivers have been clamoring for consistency or more consistency in the past,” Seid said.
“Ultimately, that’s why we ended up with the black and white rule, ‘You must stay within the track limits anywhere on the track,’ which means you need to stay within the white line. To be honest, even if I have a penalty, I’m very happy with it for us because it’s easy for everyone to understand.”
The number of cancellations at the Austrian race weekend was impressive, but by no means did the entire field struggle to stay on the edge. Counting all three racing sessions – Friday’s qualifying, Saturday’s race and Sunday’s Grand Race – there were two drivers who successfully completed the weekend without laps: Esteban Ocon and Valtteri Bottas.
With Ocon finishing a strong fifth and Bottas missing points from the back of the grid after being overtaken by Ocon’s team-mate Fernando Alonso in the final lap, it is clear that staying on the line will not slow down Ocon or Bottas. It is enough to spoil their race in a very negative way. This could be proof that drivers have no excuse not to respect the track’s boundaries, especially in the high stakes of motorsport.
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But if Formula 1 and the FIA insist on this strict approach to limit monitoring, the least drivers can expect is for the rules to apply on every track, at every corner. But, for some drivers, that clearly hasn’t happened.
The closing laps of the British Grand Prix at Silverstone sparked debates about how the track limit rules apply to tire-to-tire races, with Charles Leclerc, Sergio Perez, Max Verstappen and Mick Schumacher involved in various incidents by stewards. Drivers were once again confused as to what was acceptable as they used the perimeter of the circuit to attack and defend. Ahead of the Red Bull Ring weekend, Alonso was the most critical in the field.
“We were told the white lines were clear to the police,” Alonso explained. “Other things – the decision of the stewards – can change between race tracks, opponents or whatever. But the white lines will be very clear this year – and it wasn’t at Silverstone.
Alonso’s concerns over the haphazard way the rules were being applied didn’t help when he spent the opening 12 laps of the race stuck behind Nicolas Latifi’s Williams during the Austrian Grand Prix. Laffy finally got out in front of him. Latifi was deemed to have breached track limits three times during the race but did not receive a black and white flag from race control.
But with track restrictions a major talking point in Formula 1’s hopeful final weekend, Paul Ricard is perhaps the worst circuit to follow on the schedule.
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More than the painted lines along the asphalt at the Le Castel track, there are few natural barriers to discourage drivers from taking liberties with the corner exit limit. More than any other calendar around the circuit, asphalt racing drivers are encouraged to keep their foot firmly on the throttle rather than lifting early to avoid running on grass or gravel. And you lose a lot of time in the process.
At last year’s French Grand Prix, one driver, Antonio Giovinazzi, was forced out of the race six laps into the race after exceeding the track’s limit. . This weekend, it seems like a safe bet that the numbers will be much higher.
Whether Formula 1 and the FIA agree to continue with this new ‘one size fits all’ approach to enforce the track’s limitations, the drivers themselves appear to have a greater influence on the stewards’ eye or on a free-for-all race. The threat of time penalties hanging over them. But while the drivers themselves may have no excuse to stay on the road, it is now imperative to find a way to ensure that the current system is consistently enforced.
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