But it’s back to the old question of whether you punish the actions or the consequences, and there’s no answer that works well in all situations. At the end of the day, you always have to accept that racing has this risk.
In the Austria collision, I think the actions were mild but the consequence was high. Max moved gradually to the left and, while he didn’t leave a car width, you only have to look back a week to see an example of Lando moving across to give Max the choice of either going off the circuit, backing out and ceding position, or having a crash. And that movement was more emphatic, with greater risk. Logically you might ask why Lando didn’t do what Max did and go off the circuit.
One thing I do think needs addressing is how time penalties are used. They make a lot of sense for track limits infringements (outside of passing) because time is precisely—and exclusively—what track limits infringements affect, but they’re questionable for things like passing off-track because they often don’t affect anything. We saw that yet again at the weekend where Max’s penalty had no consequence. If you gain a place and can build a gap, you nullify the penalty. The later in the race you get the penalty, the more spread-out the field is and the less impact it has: five seconds at the first round of stops will almost always have way more effect than adding it to the final time. Someone maybe needs to think about position penalties, eg lose one position in the final classification if you’re judged to have gained, or not lost, one by going off-track.
Posted 5 months ago
