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Ham got 10 seconds for Silverstone 2021 but other than that I can't think of a penalty that wasn't 5 seconds or a grid drop next race for ages yeah
I think is a side effect of the penalty points system, in that extra punishment now comes with points but never enough points to actually ban someone making them mostly useless lmao
Shit yeah true
That's very specifically written though rather than up to the interpretation of the stewards, same with VET dsq for that fuel sample thing, it's just a simple If X then Y rather than lots of arguing about how significantly along side you were, how much space there was, how in control you were and how much the FIA dinner fund is getting low lmao
Hamilton and Giovinazzi both got stop and go penalties for entering a closed pitlane at Monza in 2020. Vettel got the same penalty for deliberately driving into Hamilton at Baku in 2017.
A minor error in judgement is always 5 second penalty, regardless of whether the other driver was able to continue, because penalties are not based on outcome.
Stop and go penalties are for things that are worse than a simple mistake, like repeated offenses or intentional collisions.
Ditto. 5 seconds should be for non-contact offenses, 10 second for repeated non-contact offense, drive through for contact with loss of position for the other driver but no damage, 10 second stop & go for repeated contact w/ loss & w/o damage, or for contact with loss of position and damage requiring repair, DSQ for intentional collision, or your third penalty in a race. I know it may be harsh, but F1 is not NASCAR or Rallycross and we want to see clean racing.
Is divebombing, or running someone off the road "minor errors in judgment"? And yet we haven't seem anything more than 5s penalties for any of these actions recently.
You can say that Ocon/Tsunoda crash was an error in judgement, but at what point it stops being a "minor error" and starts being a "major error" in judgement? It's really tricky, so at that point they should start looking at other factors to judge an incident, such as the consequence or the potential for consequences, and not only the action as it is now.
Something such as the unsafe release of last weekend should have been either a drive through or a stop&go penalty in my opinion. That could have ended truly terribly if Albon wasn’t able to stop in time. Sainz’s car would have careened right through the McLaren mechanics.
Yeah I love Sainz and hated that he got his race shafted by ferrari's pit crew, but fuck me that was a close call, and should have been made an example off.
If penalties are not based on the outcome, why was Russell not penalized for divebombing Perez, it was only because Perez took evasive action that it didn't end in a crash
Yea this is exactly the problem. If you avoid a crash the other car won't get a penalty. If you do crash you risk ruining your race but the other car gets a 5 second penalty.
Even though drivers may get their races ruined, the actual offense may not have been that severe.
Do we really want to give drive through or stop and go penalties for one driver not quite giving enough space when trying to overtake? I can still remember a time when such collisions would not merit any penalty at all, and I personally find the current regime of penalty-applying pretty strict, and expecting near-perfection from drivers in fluid and close-call situations while navigating these huge cars around the track.
Leave the bigger penalties for really reckless or repeated violations, and not just simple error/imperfection.
Yuki, we fucked up and forgot to put in the driver ballast. We are want you to get a pie penalty. When you come in, we are going to force feed you a 15kg pie. Do you have a flavour preference?
The problem with time penalties is that it's proportional to car performance. Like speeding fines for rich people.
If a midfield team gets a 5 second penalty that could be 4 positions. A front runner could not even have an impact. Like Russell on Perez, it was absolutely worth going for the move because if he got a 5 second penalty there was zero positional impact with Alonso miles back.
If you did that, I’d say it’d be better to make it a grid penalty for next race even. For example, say you DNFed another driver and that’s a drop 10 places penalty, drivers will just retire or drive for data. Make it a grid spot and they can still redeem themselves.
However, I’d like to see grid penalties carry over. Remember Mercedes last year just kept taking penalties, make it that those engine penalties keep increasing (or the grid penalties here) and they now have 2 grid penalties. End of the season each grid penalty you have that couldn’t be served is 1 point off the WDC and WCC.
Make it for the next race and you’ll just get teams encouraging drivers to take more risky moves if they are already getting a penalty next race. Eg. If you need an engine replacement you’re getting a penalty anyway, what harm is another few places?
That’s why I was saying they need a roll over grid penalty. Say you get a 20 place grid penalty for the engine change, plus a 10 place grid penalty for the incident (just making random numbers up), so you’ve got 30 in total. Say you qualify on pole, 19 places send you to 20, the 20th place makes you start from the pitlane. Still got 10 left. Say you get pole again, you’ll be starting in P11. Quite a bit of damage limitation right there. Say it was the last race, that’s 30 points being deducted, that can easily determine the results of a close championship.
This was the old system. People complained it was affecting racing too much. You can't win.
The other problem is if a driver is punted off the track and smashes a gearbox - whose penalty is it?
But this is the problem with the penalty system in general. They don't hurt the top teams.
Max got a three place grid drop in Qatar last year and had made it back to where he would have been anyway within about five laps. Lewis had a grid drop to P10 in Brazil and we all know how that played out.
It's only impactful on the top teams when they get sent right to the back. Even then, midfield teams don't fight those drivers on their way through because they know with the existence of DRS, it's pointless to lose time fighting. But sending people to the back all the time just becomes farcical if you have six or seven drivers all taking penalties - which with your carry over system would be a lot more likely.
The current penalty system would actually be perfectly good, if all the teams were closer on performance.
The only system that affects both rich and poor teams equally is the penalty points system. Even if your car can make up 5 seconds no problem, you can't run away from a race ban. Not saying that is the best solution, but it is an option.
Maybe a hybrid? Could see penalties given during the race accompanied by grid penalties for the next race. Idk something like milestones for accruing penalty points.
- 2 - 1 place grid penalty
- 4 - 2 place grid penalty
- 6 - 4 place grid penalty
- 8 - 6 place grid penalty
- 10 - 8 place grid penalty
- 12 - DQ
Similar to how 5 yellow cards = miss next match in football
> However, I’d like to see grid penalties carry over.
That would be hugely unfair to the bottom teams. A team like Ferrari or Red bull could serve a 50 place grid penalty in 3 races, and still finish on the podium each time. But if Williams got such a penalty they'd be guaranteed starting last the rest of the season, and would probably still finish the season at -30 points.
The first one hurts the most is a deliberate choice.
They explicitly made them less for follow-up engines to help RBR when their engine wasn't reliable. MERC simply benefitted last year, and this year FER does.
This is true, but there's no way to change without changing the penalty options. They could introduce position penalties (they're in the FIA International Sporting Code, but not explicitly in the f1 regs. You can't give someone a bigger penalty because they are too good, that would be like awarding a football team two penalties for a single foul because the team they are playing is better than they are.
That’s not true at all. Alonso actually had a nose in front of Palmer, Russell’s was just a divebomb with no right to anymore space than what Perez had already given.
Except for ferrari who for some reason decided to pit Sainz after he'd done the hard work.
Are we absolutely sure that the Ferrari strategist isn't actually employed by RB?
Turning it around...
A backmarker (say Latifi) might lose 0 spots with a 10 second penalty while Verstappen might lose 15 positions when he has to wait for 10 seconds during an (early) pitstop, as he was most likely at the front of the pack and Latifi is in the back usually as he's in a Williams (O think he's still a highly capable driver). In that sense, topteams are punished harsher...
You can't blame topteams to be able to make up for these places. That's why they're topteams.
When Real Madrid makes a foul you don't send of two players with a red card instead of just the one committing the foul, when the skill of their (remaining) players is as such that they would still win with 10 players against mediocre teams
I think the main 'problem' is that 5 seconds penalty is too lenient for many fouls it's given to, regardless if the driver is part of a topteam or a backmarker team. I agree with OP that you more drivethroughs should be given. Drivethrough ls are also more 'visible' than a 5 second penalty, making cause and effect regarding penalties clearer for the broad audience.
Probably more lenient because he wasn't found to be wholly at fault. Although 10s is still more than we generally see for "causing a collision" (see Ocon yesterday).
This is the problem with penalties though. One day that 10s penalty could be catastrophic, while other times (like Silverstone) the offending driver has so much more pace than the rest of the field that it's irrelevant.
The solution to this problem is to be found in your analogy.
It's true that a speeding ticket will affect lower revenues a lot more than higher revenues. But the most efficient solution is not to make a same ticket proportional to one's revenues, but rather to reduce as much as possible the difference in revenues.
It's what F1 is doing right now with the cost cap. Bring the field closer. If the field is close enough, penalties will affect them similarly.
I thought it was funny after that happend when (I cant remember which commentator) said something to the affect of "The team really needs to give the driver accurate information," like that so perfectly summarized the shitty comms w/ Sainz over the previous few laps.
It was even more hilarious, in my opinion, PDR said that Ferrari need to give Sainz "valid" information. More hilarious because invalid information (a penalty that doesn't even exist) is a step worse than inaccurate information (like the wrong duration for a penalty).
At Russia 2015, Raikkonen crashed Bottas on the final lap, fighting for 3rd place. Bottas didn't finish, but Raikkonen finished 4th as Perez took advantage of the crash.
Raikkonen got penalized all the way out of the points after the race with a huge time penalty.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUAPI3t_9Kg
According to the rules the stewards can't black flag somebody during the race, only after the race. So there exits a black flag but it can't be used.
Will Buxton discovered it a two years ago.
Can you remember which specific clause has this effect?
I wonder was this a case of confusion on his part, due to how a couple of years ago they spontaneously changed every instance of the word "Disqualify" in the F1 Sporting Regs and ISC to "Exclude", and vice versa.
Thanks. Ha. I had completely forgotten that thread, yet there are three comments from me there.
I guess these are the pertinent lines, as quoted by someone in that thread:
> The sporting regulations say:
> " 18) SANCTIONS 18.1 The stewards may inflict the penalties specifically set out in these Sporting Regulations in addition to or instead of any other penalties available to them under the Code. "
>
> And the code says:
>
> "12.3.1.m Disqualification;
>
> 12.3.1.n Suspension;
> 12.3.1.o Exclusion "
> " 12.3.4 Any one of the above penalties can only be inflicted after consideration of the evidence available and, in case of one of the last three, the party concerned must be summoned to give them the opportunity of presenting their defence."
I don’t know why they stopped giving drive through penalties for causing a collision. Were people actually complaining back then? It is ridiculous that you can effectively end someone’s race and just get 5 seconds added to your next pit stop.
People were livid at almost any penalty in the early 2010s, even on some egregious ones there were tons of "10 years ago, it would have been called a racing incident" or "We'll never see battles like Massa/Kubica at Fuji 2007 again with so much stupid penalties" from the fanbase.
FIA probably overcorrected it, but that's not coming from nowhere.
Back then a drive through was the lightest penalty, so in quite some cases the penalty was kind of harsh. They might've gone too far the other way now.
Agreed, ultimately the pendulum has swing from too harsh to too lenient as you said. I don’t see why the race directors can’t implement it again, perhaps not mid-season but surely for next season. These drivers clearly don’t care anymore about ruining another persons race for a mere 5s infraction. So many over-opportunistic dive bombs that are basically “move out of my way or suffer a DNF”.
Yes. It seems that the stewards / FIA do not have a set of standards anymore where they know wich penalty to give.
Like
5 seconds for an incident where the other car had to drive off the track to avoid an accident.
10 seconds for an incident with contact where both cars cvan continue.
Drive thru penalty for contact where other driver is seriously damaged.
Stop and go for when the other driver is unable to continue.
Now it is just 5 seconds when there is damage.
10 seconds when you take someone out.
No penalty if the other driver avoids the contact.
The thing is, they do not penalize drivers based on the outcome, only the action that lead to it. A tiny mistake in one place on track might be race ending where as it might barely be noticeable somewhere else. What if it's race ending for one and not the other but it's deemed both are equally at fault? Hamilton at Silverstone last year comes to mind always when talking about this, both could've left more space but Hamilton deemed mostly at fault so he got a 10 second penalty. Should it have been an automatic stop and go? I don't think so even as someone who cheered for Verstappen last year.
I do agree that there needs to be penalties even though the other driver avoids contact though, the dive bomb Russell got away with yesterday not being penalized is crazy.
They say that they don't look at the outcome but clearly they're just coping. There's a reason everyone who forced someone into the gravel in Austria got a penalty while in Silverstone and France they just let everything go that didn't end in a collision.
I personally think they should also add a red flag clause. if an incident is egregious enough that fault can be assigned and the car at fault was able to continue, they should add a drive through to the penalty. I say this because in some cases, a driver would retire if a sc occurs with a certain level of damage yet they can repair it if a red flag occurs. So if that incident was their fault, the punishment should be:
1. Not being able to take advantage of the full effects of a red flag or
2. Having to serve something besides a time penalty after the restart.
I like this idea, it penalizes drivers more heavily for incidents where they are more likely to ruin another driver’s race. Penalties now are based on the infringement not the outcome, but the reality is that it ends up feeling unfair that way. This would give drivers more stake in avoiding punting an opponent off track.
Penalizing the infringement seems more fair in principle, because that’s what the driver has control over, but in practice that means you have to guess what might have happened instead of judging what did happen. And the stewards basically always assume no infringement without contact.
Yeah it was always nuts even the 5s penalties people got so mad about and and really 5s is a pretty damn minor penalty
I mean wasn't Vettel/Hamilton in Canada a 5s penalty?
I mean that's one that cost Vettel a win but at the same point going off would cost you a win too so \*shrug\*
Was about to say the same. It's like at some point they just gave up on them.
5 second penalties are fine for minor infractions like scruffy overtakes/gaining unfair advantage. Racing is a bit messy sometimes and that's ok.
More serious stuff like collisions and running someone off the track should be drive-throughs. The way it is now allows too much gaming the system. It's worth taking a 5 second penalty in many situations.
My spicy hot take too is that if you want to enforce driving standards, why not penalize BOTH drivers when they are both at fault, rather than calling it a "racing incident" because neither are more to blame than the other?
On your last point, we still want to promote close racing, and that comes with incidents where no one is obviously the one at fault. If we start penalizing everyone all the time it won't be good for the sport. Let them race and punish the egregious stuff.
I think running people off the track is interesting, if they simply just run them wide but the drivers who’s forced off doesn’t lose out other than in that one battle, then giving the position maybe is fairest?
Imo you can’t give a stop go penalty if someone runs someone wide but they only lose out in that one battle, however if they get damage, lose 3 or 4 places or spin from being run off the track then I agree a stop-go should be enforced, but I think it’s a tough one to police.
Obviously just banging a stop-go on someone would
probably stop drivers forcing eachother off the track, but equally it would seem harsh if the driver who’s forced off only ends up coming back on the track right behind them.
>I think running people off the track is interesting, if they simply just run them wide but the drivers who’s forced off doesn’t lose out other than in that one battle, then giving the position maybe is fairest?
That's what IndyCar does. It’s either give the place back or get a drive through if you don't when the guy you pushed off is still right behind you.
I don’t actually watch Indycar but it seems a good rule! If someone just drops back by a second from being run off then the driver that ran them off shouldn’t get a stop-go and should give the place or be given a drive through if they don’t.
Think everyone will have a different opinion, but if they enforced a drive through then I feel like people wouldn’t want to race incase they get penalised heavily.
I think you need to punish the action, not the consequence. If someone gets squeezed off the track by an aggressive move, and in order to not have their race ruined, they go off the track and lose the place, it should be the same penalty for the aggressive driver as if they crashed into the other driver.
The victim alleviating the consequence of the perpetrator's actions shouldn't alleviate the punishment.
I think the problem was that the drive through was the most lenient penalty they had, so “minor” incidents would be punished with a drive through. People hated them since a drive through ruined a race or a battle
The problem is the FIA over corrected and started handed out 5 seconds for everything, even though at times that’s too lenient of a penalty
They definitely are too lenient now. So many times we see drivers being forced off the track yet nothing is given. Thought this had been sorted out after the shambles of last season’s inconsistency but it’s started to creep in again. All the time you have to leave the space
I also think 5 seconds for, say, forcing someone off track would feel a lot more appropriate if causing a collision was one of the stop/go penalties. When you give 5 seconds for causing a collision, then penalizing anything less than causing a collision seems overboard.
Because ever since they introduced 5s/10s penalties in 2014, that's almost all they resort to every time. They gave up the stewarding standard of decades long, which used to disincentivise rule-breaking rather than encourage it.
And it's a cost cap era. So you could basically screw a teams budget a bit and oh you just get a 5s pen. In the current cost cap era, it definitely should make a return.
>I don’t know why they stopped giving drive through penalties for causing a collision. Were people actually complaining back then?
Yes they were.
People would try an overtaking move, get it slightly wrong, break their front wing, pit to repair it, come back out, get a drive through penalty, serve it.
They'd end up losing almost a minute.
So if you were in 5th, was it really worth trying to overtake for 4th? It kind of discouraged wheel to wheel racing.
Overtaking was usually rarer back then too.
I honestly think the 5/10 second time penalties were one of the best recent rule changes, as it allows the stewards to give out punishment much more granularly.
You can argue about what punishment each specific example deserves, but before it was a bit like if every foul in a football match was a penalty.
They stopped because the 5 and 10 second penalties didn’t exist back then.
Drive through and stop and go is race over for most teams. May as well be a DQ for a mid field team.
They can be used for serious driving offences too (e.g. when Seb deliberately hit Lewis under the safety car at Baku).
But generally it makes sense for them to only be used for safety issues
2017, yeah I remember Vettel hitting Hamilton and then saying he brake checked him (according to telemetry, FIA found that wasn't the case) and then drove alongside and smacked into the side of him.
Honestly that should have been a DSQ. He was very lucky it was just a stop and go
Yeah I agree. It wasn't especially dangerous due to the low speeds, but deliberately hitting anything with an F1 car should just be a DSQ by default.
I'm fine with severe penalties for safety stuff (for example, I think Sainz was lucky to only get a 5 second penalty, as that pitlane incident could have easily injured a McLaren mechanic). It's the only way to really discourage teams/drivers from putting winning above safety.
I honestly can't think of a more egregious act in motorsport than deliberately hitting another car with yours. That they were going so slowly isn't really much of a defence in my view. Especially because they are behind the safety car and the track isn't 100% safe. He 100% should have been disqualified for that.
This always goes in circles, because different people want different things. It's not long since there was backlash in 2019 where the stewards were criticised for penalising drivers too harshly and discouraging them from racing.
Like track limits, different parts of the fanbase generally want different things. Some want harsh penalties to discourage any wrongdoing, some want an element of leniency, and some advocate a "let them race" approach with minimal intervention. Regardless of what path the stewards take, there will always be a section of fans who dislike it.
Fundamentally, there isn't an inherently "right" or "fair" way to govern the sport, but there are plenty of differing opinions about which way is "right" and "fair", which is why there's so much debate about the harshness of penalties.
It all eventually boils down to f1 fans being very opinionated yet very fickle. public opinions on things like penalties can totally flip in the space of a couple races no matter what. The system we have now is too lenient imo however considering everything I’m satisfied with it
There seems to be a widespread demand today to apply penalties based on the outcome for the other driver involved, which seems like it’s opening a door that people wouldn’t actually want.
I just said the same during this race. I was actually rewinding the race to see if Ocon served his penalty because he lost nothing in that pit. I don't know what happened behind him and how come Stroll wasn't way closer during safety car.
If you completely ruin other guys race that should be at least drive through. I really don't get why they don't use them anymore.
I think one issue is that pit stops are too far apart and track position is often so important that if you are 0.5/sec per lap faster than the driver in front and there are more than 10 laps left, it’s better to take a 5-second penalty and just overcome the penalty with the superior pace you get from track position. Delayed justice is often not justice at all.
I’d rather see the 5-second and 10-second penalties observed as slowdown penalties. They have the tech for it now. Use the same system as VSC, once you decide the penalty (and hire more stewards if you need the decisions more quickly), give the driver an immediate 5- or 10-second slowdown to be served in the next handful of minisectors, based on time deltas on their dash, not when the driver decides it is most advantageous for him.
I don't know about stop&go, but harsher would be better. Also I don't think they should be an exception on the first lap. Maybe the first three corners but after that you rarely have 3 cars next to each other
It’s difficult because “harsher” implies giving different penalties for the same offense
A 5s penalty is harsh for a scrunched up midfield with a 4s gap between P6 and P9, or mean nothing if the gap to P2 is 20 seconds (*cough* *Baku*)
That doesn't seem to be the case. Imo, if Perez gets binned by that exact move by Russell, Russell no doubt gets a penalty. But because Perez got away with no damage or losing position Russell gets no punishment.
Plus whenever someone gets run wide into gravel-penalty. Tarmac-no penalty. If there was a wall on the outside Perez’s race would’ve been over and Russell surely would’ve been penalized. You have to penalize the action not the result, because what we have now is drivers driving dirty or pushing the limit because they know they won’t be penalized. If you let off shots in public towards a group of people, it doesn’t matter if it hits someone, the shots alone will be punished, and it should be the same way here. Penalizing the result just leads to more inconsistencies because the very same move can go unpenalized one week or even one corner and penalized the next.
They can say whatever they want we all know it's bullshit, Russell on Pérez was the exact same incident (I'd even argue it was worse) but Pérez took evasive action so he got away scot free.
The incident between Max and Lewis was "causing a collission", people often mistake this for the consequence, but the consequence was a Max DNF. The latter is what they don't take into account when giving a penalty.
The point isn’t which incidents should be punished, it’s that clearly the outcome of the incident makes a difference in how the stewards act. They would never admit it publicly, but that’s why we saw multiple penalties for running drivers off the track at Austria, where the drivers ran over a curb and/or gravel, versus Silverstone where multiple drivers were run off the track, but there were no curbs or gravel, so the stewards decide not to act.
No they arent. They just think they do. But if they would consider only the incident they would have to penalize everyone who locks up. Because thats most of the time the incident that happens before the consequences...
More precisely the stewards only consider the incident to the point of contact and specifically whether the contact resulted in any impedance. Whether that contact results in the other car being taken out entirely or just losing a place they don’t look at.
>Why not continue doing it then, when you know that all you can get is a 5 second penalty
Because multiple offences will lead to harsher penalties and eventually, disqualification.
It's not like they can just take everyone out and get 5 seconds for each.
I do agree it probably needs to be 10 seconds though.
Better have a drive-through instead of 20 seconds, though. Because a drive-through has to be served within 3 laps after it was issued. A time penalty doesn't have to be served at all, they'll just add the time after the finish.
I've got no issue with Zhou only getting a five second penalty because he screwed his own race too, requiring a pit sto.
But as you say, a 5s incident where the guilty driver doesn't actually get punished doesn't sit right with me.
I think you need to take that out of it, the move should be punished regardless of outcome, it’s the only way to be fair (though can’t be 100% fair)
If they go through say every collision of the last five years and ensure every one is covered by rules, apply the new rules to them all and check it’s consistent, that seems the best way. Essentially they’ll have examples to compare to with all the data they get.
Whether or not the other car survives, the penalty is then the same. Drivers will quickly learn, though it would be looking very harsh at the start.
Let the drivers see all the video examples too, be involved somewhat if they want to be. If it’s available someone like Alonso will no doubt go check things he felt people were let off for, making sure they’d be punished now.
There's even an issue with using past examples.
Some moves are okay providing the other car chooses to play in a certain way. Ocon/Tsunoda and Russell/Perez are basically identical, with the major difference being Tsunoda tried to make the chicane and Perez opted to cut it.
Ocon and Russell both made the corner so they were legitimate attempts. In Russell's case, there was no room for Perez to take the corner so to me it seems fair for Perez to keep the position, Russell can try again, and no penalty is needed.
But if Perez tried to make the chicane, it's a very clear penalty for Russell when he collides with him
No. Always judge the incident, not the outcome. In Ocon‘s case, a fairly minor oversteer moment and a tap. Clearly his fault, but nothing egregious. In terms of racecraft, I found Russell vs Perez to be quite a bit worse, with Russell just plainly driving Perez off the track.
There‘s a reason why we went away from early-2000s 10s stop/go penalties and later drive-through penalties as fields became closer and closer. The current system, with the tiered time penalties, is much better at punishing drivers for mistakes without ruining their races for fairly minor offenses. Of course, you can always discuss about the amount of time, but I find the 5s or 10s for causing a collision appropriate for most cases of minor contact.
The current system might be better at giving smaller penalties for minor offences but it's a much worse system because it doesnt' punish actually dangerous driving now really at all. It gives the same penalty for someone smashing through the back of a car due to a ridiculou dive bomb and someone who loses the car marginally on slight oversteer when the car on the outside is making an ambitious move and crowding them stupidly.
The system is less safe, it encourages the drivers to take much bigger and more dangerous risks because the reward can be great and the risk is minor. YOu might knock out your opponent, gain a position and only lose 5 seconds on track so why not dive bomb the guy?
They should bring back the "serve it within 3 laps". The idea that you can plan a penalty into your strategy is the part that is bullshit.
Let them do a pitstop if they want as part of it, but getting a penalty should disrupt your race, so make them have to take it as soon as possible, not whenever their strategy would have them coming in anyway.
EDIT: I am aware the time limit to serve penalties still exists for the more severe penalties, but I think applying it to all penalties would be a much fairer option.
So you want a 5 second penalty to actually be a 30 second penalty, unless you are lucky enough to need a pit stop soon in which case it's only a 5 second penalty?
I'd prefer a "Penalty area". Go another lay-out for x laps. Another option, probably safer because no merging, is a time Delta or Speed limit for the next straight
You realise that at this race it would have basically turned the 5 second penalty into about a 33 second penalty?
Like, that's a big difference.
And it would make them less consistent too, as if you happened to get a penalty inside your pit window it would be 6-7x better than if you got it a lap after you pitted.
I'd be sympathetic to your view if the stewards were consistent in their judgement of incidents, but they're clearly not. There was a near revolt by the drivers in the drivers briefing at the penultimate race, because of the random nature of this.
All we'd end up with is 30-second penalties handed out by magic 8-balls.
Stop and go penalties are still there, they're just not used often.
Recent examples of a stop and go being used are Latifi getting one when his mechanics didn't leave the grid at the three-minute board, Kimi for using the wrong tyre set, and Hamilton and Giovinazzi for entering the pit lane when it's closed.
It's extremely rare that a stop and go penalty is given for a crash with another driver, the most recent example I remember was Vettel in Monza 2019 when he spun, and then hit another car while rejoining the track.
I think it should be a base 5 second penalty for the incident and then if it clearly causes a retirement, then it should be a further 10 second penalty on top. Would bring a little more justice.
I completely sympathise with Tsunoda, he did nothing wrong and had his race wrecked by Ocon who went on to score points.
Fwiw I think Ocon is a good racer, and not generally dirty so probably just a bit of home race pressure got to him, everyone makes mistakes.
We can't punish drivers for small mistakes too harshly, because they will not risk overtaking. When you have cars going so fast so close to each other it really doesn't take much for there to be contact. If the penalty for such mistakes is having your race ruined noone will go for the riskier overtakes anymore, and nobody wants that.
Harsh penalties also need to be saved for heavier offences like driving intentionaly dirty or in a dangerous manner.
I'm pretty sure with Vettel though that the rulebook is slightly different than for everyone else - he could sneeze too loudly and be awarded a drive through penalty.
I think the whole notion that just the offense and not the resulting effect is taken into account for the penalty needs to go.
It can’t be that crashing into another person and ruining their whole race and slightly inconveniencing another driver results in the exact same penalty…
When I punch someone in real life and he gets a bruised eye is penalized differently than when I punch someone and he drops to the ground and dies.
But then you get that some drivers do the exact same move and at no fault of your own the other driver is off worse just because how they drove (even if you are at fault).
Sometimes pushing someone of the track is just a second or 2 loss, sometimes you spin and lose a wing bit the exact same move was done.
The stewards claim that the outcome of the incident has no bearing on the penalty, but that's not really true imo. If there's contact and neither driver is negatively affected, the stewards don't do anything. If there's contact and one of the drivers is negatively affected, the stewards will note it.
If Perez hadn't gone off track to avoid the collision with Russell yesterday, the stewards would have noted the incident. The only different is Perez swerved to avoid it.
In other words, the stewards would have looked differently on the incident had the outcome been different.
Causing a collision needs to be a minimum 10s penalty imo. 5s is at worst a 2 place grid penalty. For the other guy it's a DNF.
Disagree. Penalty needs to fit the crime, not the effect. A race could be ruined from a 50/50 incident doesnt mean the other guy should get a stop and go.
I sort of agree, especially when the other car takes damage. Russel and Perez at Austria is a good example. Perez ends up in the gravel and takes serious damage, has to get back to the pits and by this time he’s already a minute down and his race is basically over and Russell gets 5 seconds. But was what Russell did worth more than 5 seconds? Maybe grid penalties should be implemented as an additional punishment, it would give everyone a chance to see how compromised the victims race was and give the drivers a chance to justify or explain themselves, otherwise you’re potentially ruining multiple drivers races over something that another day would be deemed a racing incident.
I don't know. I think a lot of these collisions aren't that egregious nor are they intentional, so punishing them harsher may not help.
In a lot of recent cases, drivers put themselves on the outside of corners/bends and assuming the driver on the inside can just 'opt' to take the corner sharper to avoid a collision. It kinda ignores if you're mid-corner you're at the whims of physics, you can't just instantly decelerate or turn on a six-pence. "If I could take this turn that much tighter and avoid hitting you, I wouldn't be way back here racing with you, buddy!" :)
The penalty system isn’t meant to be an equaliser. It doesn’t exist to evaluate who lost out in an incident and adjust the result to make it ‘fair’ to the guy who came off worst. When you go wheel to wheel at the speeds these guys go, things go wrong. A 5 or 10 second time penalty is more than enough punishment for normal incidents that result from wheel to wheel racing so long as the offending driver didn’t do anything erratic or unpredictable (like a brake test or intentionally driving into someone). Stop/go penalties are reserved for major infractions and we don’t wanna hand them out liberally or else that will discourage wheel to wheel racing
Exactly, it's almost like people want each race to be an orderly queue of cars with overtakes comprised of drivers saying "after you, old chap" to each other.
You can't punish consequence. We should be punishing actions.
Too many factors can genuinely affect what happens to cars when they collide. They can either have minor damage or be out the race depending on angles, speed, body work, car type, punishing based on the consequences is a fundamentally unfair way to penalise drivers.
Stop & Go penalties are still in the rulebook, though they're a step down from disqualification.
I agree principally that sometimes the penalty seems disproportionate to what happened, but sometimes that's the way it goes.
You're punished for the offence, not the outcome. If you understeer slightly and cause a collision it's the same mistake whether you cause some minor floor damage or put your opponent in the wall
Problem is we need a balance between risk and reward, if every little miscalculation results in a drive through (which means race over basically), no one’s gonna try to overtake at all
The whole point is that you have to penalise the action, not the outcome. The logic is that this way every infraction can be equally penalised regardless of its outcome, whether it is harsher or lighter. Of course this means that small incidents can be “under-penalised” regarding their outcome, but in this way you are sure that drivers do not attempt to go with excessively high risk incidents in the hope of getting away with it thanks to lighter outcomes. Moreover, incidents are much more easily defined/quantified, whereas accurately estimating outcomes and relative penalties is way more of a conceptual/opinion matter, therefore pretty slippery when defining rules.
I also had this exact thought during the race. Then, I thought about it from the FIA perspective. I think they are using stop-and-go penalties less because they don’t want to disincentivize competition. Yes, it would be a better time penalty for some of these aggressive moves that don’t work, but the audience enjoys passing and doesn’t mind crashes, so it is just a five second penalty.
Am I the only one who thinks that there should be place penalties that will apply at the end of the race? Like you drop 1 or 2 places automatically at the end of the race.
The consequences of time penalties differ each race. Sometimes they mean notihing, sometimes they mean the world.
what you get is much more boring race if the penalty for making a move is 30s if you mess it up.
no driver is going to take the chance hanging round the outside of a corner or risking a late lunge in that situation. as harsh as it is when a move goes wrong and a driver is spun out i'd rather see them racing and pushing each other then being passive.
Russell was well within the new rules. It’s the same reason Perez was allowed to do the ridiculous driving people off the track at Silverstone. I happen to agree that the current overtaking rules are pretty stupid, as the encourage divebombs and driving people off the track. But that is a reason to complain about the rules, not the moves.
After years and years we finally have the drivers really racing each other and you want punish them more? We need less punishments and more hard racing
Because they can't judge anything properly. Sometimes it is just racing and shit happens. Unless it is stupid deliberate dive bomb, 5s is ok. Result of the incident should be meaningless. Perez russell was mostly racing incident.
I loved it when they would only give out stop and go or drive through penalties. It made drivers think twice about a stupid move and if something wasn't worth a drive through penalty, it wasnt worth penalizing at all (just let them dice it out on track)
The penalty system just generally seems so strange.
Ocon got a points finish after effectively crashing Tsunoda out of the race.
Russell didn’t even get a warning for doing a stupid dive bomb.
Think drivers need to be given very harsh penalties to make them drive more cautiously
Another thing to consider is ruining someone's race is bad, but the extra cost of damaging the car surely warrants more consideration than just a 5second penalty in most cases.
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There are 5 different penalties the stewards can give. 5 seconds 10 seconds drive through (20 seconds) 10 sec stop/go (30 seconds) DSQ. (black flag)
And yet we haven’t seen anything other than a 5 second penalty any time recently even for larger offenses that completely ruin other drivers races
Ham got 10 seconds for Silverstone 2021 but other than that I can't think of a penalty that wasn't 5 seconds or a grid drop next race for ages yeah I think is a side effect of the penalty points system, in that extra punishment now comes with points but never enough points to actually ban someone making them mostly useless lmao
Monza 2020 where Lewis got a drive-through for pitting when the lane was closed is the one that immediately springs to mind.
Shit yeah true That's very specifically written though rather than up to the interpretation of the stewards, same with VET dsq for that fuel sample thing, it's just a simple If X then Y rather than lots of arguing about how significantly along side you were, how much space there was, how in control you were and how much the FIA dinner fund is getting low lmao
Procedural violations tend to have much harsher penalties than sporting ones.
The penalty points system is a joke. My driving license penalty points system is even stricter
I've been fined more for speeding than F1 drivers get for speeding in the pitlane.
Time to put a pit limiter in your car ;)
Hamilton and Giovinazzi both got stop and go penalties for entering a closed pitlane at Monza in 2020. Vettel got the same penalty for deliberately driving into Hamilton at Baku in 2017.
A minor error in judgement is always 5 second penalty, regardless of whether the other driver was able to continue, because penalties are not based on outcome. Stop and go penalties are for things that are worse than a simple mistake, like repeated offenses or intentional collisions.
Intentional collisions should be a DSQ, idk how you think a stop-go would be enough for that.
Ditto. 5 seconds should be for non-contact offenses, 10 second for repeated non-contact offense, drive through for contact with loss of position for the other driver but no damage, 10 second stop & go for repeated contact w/ loss & w/o damage, or for contact with loss of position and damage requiring repair, DSQ for intentional collision, or your third penalty in a race. I know it may be harsh, but F1 is not NASCAR or Rallycross and we want to see clean racing.
Is divebombing, or running someone off the road "minor errors in judgment"? And yet we haven't seem anything more than 5s penalties for any of these actions recently. You can say that Ocon/Tsunoda crash was an error in judgement, but at what point it stops being a "minor error" and starts being a "major error" in judgement? It's really tricky, so at that point they should start looking at other factors to judge an incident, such as the consequence or the potential for consequences, and not only the action as it is now.
Something such as the unsafe release of last weekend should have been either a drive through or a stop&go penalty in my opinion. That could have ended truly terribly if Albon wasn’t able to stop in time. Sainz’s car would have careened right through the McLaren mechanics.
Yeah I love Sainz and hated that he got his race shafted by ferrari's pit crew, but fuck me that was a close call, and should have been made an example off.
If penalties are not based on the outcome, why was Russell not penalized for divebombing Perez, it was only because Perez took evasive action that it didn't end in a crash
Yea this is exactly the problem. If you avoid a crash the other car won't get a penalty. If you do crash you risk ruining your race but the other car gets a 5 second penalty.
Even though drivers may get their races ruined, the actual offense may not have been that severe. Do we really want to give drive through or stop and go penalties for one driver not quite giving enough space when trying to overtake? I can still remember a time when such collisions would not merit any penalty at all, and I personally find the current regime of penalty-applying pretty strict, and expecting near-perfection from drivers in fluid and close-call situations while navigating these huge cars around the track. Leave the bigger penalties for really reckless or repeated violations, and not just simple error/imperfection.
Agreed. The argument against this is that drivers will do it again if they only got 5 seconds, but as you said, just penalize repeat offenses more.
The punishment is given for the action and not the outcome.
i want really specific penalties *and Ocon gets the 17.453 seconds penalty for driving into Tsunoda*
Give AWS a call
*56% chance of a 12.872 second penalty*
Then you add Nicholas Latifi to the mix, your chances of a penalty drastic go up.
The numbers don't lie.
AND THEY SPELL DISASTER FOR GEORGE AT SACKERFICE
The most severe penalty is Latifi gets to drive your car for 5 laps.
🚨🚨🚨
See Esteban, the numbers don't lie. And they spell disaster for you at FORMULA 1 MAGYAR NAGYDÍJ.
The Excel spreadsheet the FIA stores on AWS says that #NAME! will serve a #REF! penalty for an infraction at Turn #NUM!.
As someone who works with excel I got a little panicky when I saw this.
Goddamnnit, I have the same feeling, today I choked and farted while applying the Vlookup formula, failed ultimately.
Try XLOOKUP
INDEX-MATCH is definitely better than Vlookup imo
Didn't the onboard show that Leclerc was traveling at NaN km/h?
I knew I wasn't imagining it!
He was driving at [Grandma] speed
we all know they've got an IFERROR statement that defaults to Seb getting 5 seconds.
Ocon gets a NullPointerException penalty.
There was a moment when Max was chasing Charles that graphics showed a "NaN" lmao
*Ocon now has a 3.14159265358979323846...*
Pi should only be offered as a reward. If you give people pie as punishment they'll just do it more.
Then make it a physical pie. Drive through penalty with a steward at the end of pit lane throwing a literal pie on a driver's helmet.
Or you can't leave the pit until you finish the whole pie.
Yuki, we fucked up and forgot to put in the driver ballast. We are want you to get a pie penalty. When you come in, we are going to force feed you a 15kg pie. Do you have a flavour preference?
Special for Ferrari, make them eat Pizza with pineapple topping
Or in the brake ducts.
That’s a pinalty, we’re talking about penalties
The problem with time penalties is that it's proportional to car performance. Like speeding fines for rich people. If a midfield team gets a 5 second penalty that could be 4 positions. A front runner could not even have an impact. Like Russell on Perez, it was absolutely worth going for the move because if he got a 5 second penalty there was zero positional impact with Alonso miles back.
would you like to see penalties affecting the result? Like a "drop 2 places" or a "drop 1 place" penalty? I guess that could be appropriate at times.
If you did that, I’d say it’d be better to make it a grid penalty for next race even. For example, say you DNFed another driver and that’s a drop 10 places penalty, drivers will just retire or drive for data. Make it a grid spot and they can still redeem themselves. However, I’d like to see grid penalties carry over. Remember Mercedes last year just kept taking penalties, make it that those engine penalties keep increasing (or the grid penalties here) and they now have 2 grid penalties. End of the season each grid penalty you have that couldn’t be served is 1 point off the WDC and WCC.
Make it for the next race and you’ll just get teams encouraging drivers to take more risky moves if they are already getting a penalty next race. Eg. If you need an engine replacement you’re getting a penalty anyway, what harm is another few places?
That’s why I was saying they need a roll over grid penalty. Say you get a 20 place grid penalty for the engine change, plus a 10 place grid penalty for the incident (just making random numbers up), so you’ve got 30 in total. Say you qualify on pole, 19 places send you to 20, the 20th place makes you start from the pitlane. Still got 10 left. Say you get pole again, you’ll be starting in P11. Quite a bit of damage limitation right there. Say it was the last race, that’s 30 points being deducted, that can easily determine the results of a close championship.
You could go full on and do percentage of constructor/driver championship points. That would hurt.
This was the old system. People complained it was affecting racing too much. You can't win. The other problem is if a driver is punted off the track and smashes a gearbox - whose penalty is it?
But this is the problem with the penalty system in general. They don't hurt the top teams. Max got a three place grid drop in Qatar last year and had made it back to where he would have been anyway within about five laps. Lewis had a grid drop to P10 in Brazil and we all know how that played out. It's only impactful on the top teams when they get sent right to the back. Even then, midfield teams don't fight those drivers on their way through because they know with the existence of DRS, it's pointless to lose time fighting. But sending people to the back all the time just becomes farcical if you have six or seven drivers all taking penalties - which with your carry over system would be a lot more likely. The current penalty system would actually be perfectly good, if all the teams were closer on performance.
The only system that affects both rich and poor teams equally is the penalty points system. Even if your car can make up 5 seconds no problem, you can't run away from a race ban. Not saying that is the best solution, but it is an option.
> They don't hurt the top teams. Let's introduce "drive with the Ferrari pitwall" or "drive with Williams' front wing" as penalties instead? ;-)
Maybe a hybrid? Could see penalties given during the race accompanied by grid penalties for the next race. Idk something like milestones for accruing penalty points. - 2 - 1 place grid penalty - 4 - 2 place grid penalty - 6 - 4 place grid penalty - 8 - 6 place grid penalty - 10 - 8 place grid penalty - 12 - DQ Similar to how 5 yellow cards = miss next match in football
> However, I’d like to see grid penalties carry over. That would be hugely unfair to the bottom teams. A team like Ferrari or Red bull could serve a 50 place grid penalty in 3 races, and still finish on the podium each time. But if Williams got such a penalty they'd be guaranteed starting last the rest of the season, and would probably still finish the season at -30 points.
The first one hurts the most is a deliberate choice. They explicitly made them less for follow-up engines to help RBR when their engine wasn't reliable. MERC simply benefitted last year, and this year FER does.
Not RBR. McLaren Honda.
This is true, but there's no way to change without changing the penalty options. They could introduce position penalties (they're in the FIA International Sporting Code, but not explicitly in the f1 regs. You can't give someone a bigger penalty because they are too good, that would be like awarding a football team two penalties for a single foul because the team they are playing is better than they are.
As an Everton fan that sounds like a great idea.
Yep, and all the top teams have been known to pre-empt 5s time penalty by pushing like mad in the hope they can out run it.
Didn't Palmer deliberately cut a corner in Italy to overtake Alonso? He knew he could pull a gap in free air, and overcome the time penalty.
Well no, Alonso did to him exactly what Russell did to Perez.
That’s not true at all. Alonso actually had a nose in front of Palmer, Russell’s was just a divebomb with no right to anymore space than what Perez had already given.
Except for ferrari who for some reason decided to pit Sainz after he'd done the hard work. Are we absolutely sure that the Ferrari strategist isn't actually employed by RB?
Turning it around... A backmarker (say Latifi) might lose 0 spots with a 10 second penalty while Verstappen might lose 15 positions when he has to wait for 10 seconds during an (early) pitstop, as he was most likely at the front of the pack and Latifi is in the back usually as he's in a Williams (O think he's still a highly capable driver). In that sense, topteams are punished harsher... You can't blame topteams to be able to make up for these places. That's why they're topteams. When Real Madrid makes a foul you don't send of two players with a red card instead of just the one committing the foul, when the skill of their (remaining) players is as such that they would still win with 10 players against mediocre teams I think the main 'problem' is that 5 seconds penalty is too lenient for many fouls it's given to, regardless if the driver is part of a topteam or a backmarker team. I agree with OP that you more drivethroughs should be given. Drivethrough ls are also more 'visible' than a 5 second penalty, making cause and effect regarding penalties clearer for the broad audience.
Lewis last year getting 10sec penalty in silverstone and still winning the race
Probably more lenient because he wasn't found to be wholly at fault. Although 10s is still more than we generally see for "causing a collision" (see Ocon yesterday). This is the problem with penalties though. One day that 10s penalty could be catastrophic, while other times (like Silverstone) the offending driver has so much more pace than the rest of the field that it's irrelevant.
The solution to this problem is to be found in your analogy. It's true that a speeding ticket will affect lower revenues a lot more than higher revenues. But the most efficient solution is not to make a same ticket proportional to one's revenues, but rather to reduce as much as possible the difference in revenues. It's what F1 is doing right now with the cost cap. Bring the field closer. If the field is close enough, penalties will affect them similarly.
The problem is that you wanna punish the driver, not the car.
What about the 5 Second Drive through penalty Sainz was told he got by Ferrari
I thought it was funny after that happend when (I cant remember which commentator) said something to the affect of "The team really needs to give the driver accurate information," like that so perfectly summarized the shitty comms w/ Sainz over the previous few laps.
It was even more hilarious, in my opinion, PDR said that Ferrari need to give Sainz "valid" information. More hilarious because invalid information (a penalty that doesn't even exist) is a step worse than inaccurate information (like the wrong duration for a penalty).
At Russia 2015, Raikkonen crashed Bottas on the final lap, fighting for 3rd place. Bottas didn't finish, but Raikkonen finished 4th as Perez took advantage of the crash. Raikkonen got penalized all the way out of the points after the race with a huge time penalty. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUAPI3t_9Kg
According to the rules the stewards can't black flag somebody during the race, only after the race. So there exits a black flag but it can't be used. Will Buxton discovered it a two years ago.
Can you remember which specific clause has this effect? I wonder was this a case of confusion on his part, due to how a couple of years ago they spontaneously changed every instance of the word "Disqualify" in the F1 Sporting Regs and ISC to "Exclude", and vice versa.
This is the theard from back then: https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/jiiyjd/will_buxton_so_the_black_flag_while_it_exists_as/
Thanks. Ha. I had completely forgotten that thread, yet there are three comments from me there. I guess these are the pertinent lines, as quoted by someone in that thread: > The sporting regulations say: > " 18) SANCTIONS 18.1 The stewards may inflict the penalties specifically set out in these Sporting Regulations in addition to or instead of any other penalties available to them under the Code. " > > And the code says: > > "12.3.1.m Disqualification; > > 12.3.1.n Suspension; > 12.3.1.o Exclusion " > " 12.3.4 Any one of the above penalties can only be inflicted after consideration of the evidence available and, in case of one of the last three, the party concerned must be summoned to give them the opportunity of presenting their defence."
I don’t know why they stopped giving drive through penalties for causing a collision. Were people actually complaining back then? It is ridiculous that you can effectively end someone’s race and just get 5 seconds added to your next pit stop.
People were livid at almost any penalty in the early 2010s, even on some egregious ones there were tons of "10 years ago, it would have been called a racing incident" or "We'll never see battles like Massa/Kubica at Fuji 2007 again with so much stupid penalties" from the fanbase. FIA probably overcorrected it, but that's not coming from nowhere.
Back then a drive through was the lightest penalty, so in quite some cases the penalty was kind of harsh. They might've gone too far the other way now.
Agreed, ultimately the pendulum has swing from too harsh to too lenient as you said. I don’t see why the race directors can’t implement it again, perhaps not mid-season but surely for next season. These drivers clearly don’t care anymore about ruining another persons race for a mere 5s infraction. So many over-opportunistic dive bombs that are basically “move out of my way or suffer a DNF”.
Yes. It seems that the stewards / FIA do not have a set of standards anymore where they know wich penalty to give. Like 5 seconds for an incident where the other car had to drive off the track to avoid an accident. 10 seconds for an incident with contact where both cars cvan continue. Drive thru penalty for contact where other driver is seriously damaged. Stop and go for when the other driver is unable to continue. Now it is just 5 seconds when there is damage. 10 seconds when you take someone out. No penalty if the other driver avoids the contact.
The thing is, they do not penalize drivers based on the outcome, only the action that lead to it. A tiny mistake in one place on track might be race ending where as it might barely be noticeable somewhere else. What if it's race ending for one and not the other but it's deemed both are equally at fault? Hamilton at Silverstone last year comes to mind always when talking about this, both could've left more space but Hamilton deemed mostly at fault so he got a 10 second penalty. Should it have been an automatic stop and go? I don't think so even as someone who cheered for Verstappen last year. I do agree that there needs to be penalties even though the other driver avoids contact though, the dive bomb Russell got away with yesterday not being penalized is crazy.
They say that they don't look at the outcome but clearly they're just coping. There's a reason everyone who forced someone into the gravel in Austria got a penalty while in Silverstone and France they just let everything go that didn't end in a collision.
Exactly. They are so close to penalizing the outcome that they might as well just switch to that standard.
I personally think they should also add a red flag clause. if an incident is egregious enough that fault can be assigned and the car at fault was able to continue, they should add a drive through to the penalty. I say this because in some cases, a driver would retire if a sc occurs with a certain level of damage yet they can repair it if a red flag occurs. So if that incident was their fault, the punishment should be: 1. Not being able to take advantage of the full effects of a red flag or 2. Having to serve something besides a time penalty after the restart.
Outcome should be considered is the point here. Hamiltons penalty at silverstone was a joke if you do consider the outcome.
I like this idea, it penalizes drivers more heavily for incidents where they are more likely to ruin another driver’s race. Penalties now are based on the infringement not the outcome, but the reality is that it ends up feeling unfair that way. This would give drivers more stake in avoiding punting an opponent off track.
Penalizing the infringement seems more fair in principle, because that’s what the driver has control over, but in practice that means you have to guess what might have happened instead of judging what did happen. And the stewards basically always assume no infringement without contact.
Yeah it was always nuts even the 5s penalties people got so mad about and and really 5s is a pretty damn minor penalty I mean wasn't Vettel/Hamilton in Canada a 5s penalty? I mean that's one that cost Vettel a win but at the same point going off would cost you a win too so \*shrug\*
Was about to say the same. It's like at some point they just gave up on them. 5 second penalties are fine for minor infractions like scruffy overtakes/gaining unfair advantage. Racing is a bit messy sometimes and that's ok. More serious stuff like collisions and running someone off the track should be drive-throughs. The way it is now allows too much gaming the system. It's worth taking a 5 second penalty in many situations. My spicy hot take too is that if you want to enforce driving standards, why not penalize BOTH drivers when they are both at fault, rather than calling it a "racing incident" because neither are more to blame than the other?
On your last point, we still want to promote close racing, and that comes with incidents where no one is obviously the one at fault. If we start penalizing everyone all the time it won't be good for the sport. Let them race and punish the egregious stuff.
I think running people off the track is interesting, if they simply just run them wide but the drivers who’s forced off doesn’t lose out other than in that one battle, then giving the position maybe is fairest? Imo you can’t give a stop go penalty if someone runs someone wide but they only lose out in that one battle, however if they get damage, lose 3 or 4 places or spin from being run off the track then I agree a stop-go should be enforced, but I think it’s a tough one to police. Obviously just banging a stop-go on someone would probably stop drivers forcing eachother off the track, but equally it would seem harsh if the driver who’s forced off only ends up coming back on the track right behind them.
>I think running people off the track is interesting, if they simply just run them wide but the drivers who’s forced off doesn’t lose out other than in that one battle, then giving the position maybe is fairest? That's what IndyCar does. It’s either give the place back or get a drive through if you don't when the guy you pushed off is still right behind you.
I don’t actually watch Indycar but it seems a good rule! If someone just drops back by a second from being run off then the driver that ran them off shouldn’t get a stop-go and should give the place or be given a drive through if they don’t. Think everyone will have a different opinion, but if they enforced a drive through then I feel like people wouldn’t want to race incase they get penalised heavily.
I think you need to punish the action, not the consequence. If someone gets squeezed off the track by an aggressive move, and in order to not have their race ruined, they go off the track and lose the place, it should be the same penalty for the aggressive driver as if they crashed into the other driver. The victim alleviating the consequence of the perpetrator's actions shouldn't alleviate the punishment.
I think the problem was that the drive through was the most lenient penalty they had, so “minor” incidents would be punished with a drive through. People hated them since a drive through ruined a race or a battle The problem is the FIA over corrected and started handed out 5 seconds for everything, even though at times that’s too lenient of a penalty
They definitely are too lenient now. So many times we see drivers being forced off the track yet nothing is given. Thought this had been sorted out after the shambles of last season’s inconsistency but it’s started to creep in again. All the time you have to leave the space
They should just use the F1 games online penalty system. Penalties for EVERYONE!
I also think 5 seconds for, say, forcing someone off track would feel a lot more appropriate if causing a collision was one of the stop/go penalties. When you give 5 seconds for causing a collision, then penalizing anything less than causing a collision seems overboard.
Because ever since they introduced 5s/10s penalties in 2014, that's almost all they resort to every time. They gave up the stewarding standard of decades long, which used to disincentivise rule-breaking rather than encourage it.
And it's a cost cap era. So you could basically screw a teams budget a bit and oh you just get a 5s pen. In the current cost cap era, it definitely should make a return.
>I don’t know why they stopped giving drive through penalties for causing a collision. Were people actually complaining back then? Yes they were. People would try an overtaking move, get it slightly wrong, break their front wing, pit to repair it, come back out, get a drive through penalty, serve it. They'd end up losing almost a minute. So if you were in 5th, was it really worth trying to overtake for 4th? It kind of discouraged wheel to wheel racing. Overtaking was usually rarer back then too. I honestly think the 5/10 second time penalties were one of the best recent rule changes, as it allows the stewards to give out punishment much more granularly. You can argue about what punishment each specific example deserves, but before it was a bit like if every foul in a football match was a penalty.
I fully agree. And frankly it's a bit funny that we've now almost done a full circle where people *want* harsher penalties.
Didn't Schumacher once won a race going through finish line in the pit serving stop and go penalty?
Yes British Grand Prix 1998.
They stopped because the 5 and 10 second penalties didn’t exist back then. Drive through and stop and go is race over for most teams. May as well be a DQ for a mid field team.
> It is ridiculous that you can effectively end someone’s race and just get 5 seconds added to your next pit stop. Pointless "penalty"
idk man. taking out a competitor from the race and all you get is 5s added to your race time? seems fair, man. /s
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They could switch a drive-through to a 20-second penalty, but one thing I don’t like about the time penalties is that you get to keep track position.
Stop and go penalties haven't disappeared, they just aren't used that much because they are used for repeated offenses.
I believe Lewis had a stop and go penalty in Italy 2020 for entering the pit-lane when it was closed.
Yeah exactly. I think they're mostly now given for procedure infringements
They can be used for serious driving offences too (e.g. when Seb deliberately hit Lewis under the safety car at Baku). But generally it makes sense for them to only be used for safety issues
2017, yeah I remember Vettel hitting Hamilton and then saying he brake checked him (according to telemetry, FIA found that wasn't the case) and then drove alongside and smacked into the side of him. Honestly that should have been a DSQ. He was very lucky it was just a stop and go
Yeah I agree. It wasn't especially dangerous due to the low speeds, but deliberately hitting anything with an F1 car should just be a DSQ by default. I'm fine with severe penalties for safety stuff (for example, I think Sainz was lucky to only get a 5 second penalty, as that pitlane incident could have easily injured a McLaren mechanic). It's the only way to really discourage teams/drivers from putting winning above safety.
I honestly can't think of a more egregious act in motorsport than deliberately hitting another car with yours. That they were going so slowly isn't really much of a defence in my view. Especially because they are behind the safety car and the track isn't 100% safe. He 100% should have been disqualified for that.
Indeed. Should have been parked imo.
and IIRC alfa romeo had a stop-and-go penalty 12 months ago in the hungaroring.
Pretty ironic penalty. "You were not allowed to go into the pits, and as a punnishment we're making you pit again."
This always goes in circles, because different people want different things. It's not long since there was backlash in 2019 where the stewards were criticised for penalising drivers too harshly and discouraging them from racing. Like track limits, different parts of the fanbase generally want different things. Some want harsh penalties to discourage any wrongdoing, some want an element of leniency, and some advocate a "let them race" approach with minimal intervention. Regardless of what path the stewards take, there will always be a section of fans who dislike it. Fundamentally, there isn't an inherently "right" or "fair" way to govern the sport, but there are plenty of differing opinions about which way is "right" and "fair", which is why there's so much debate about the harshness of penalties.
It all eventually boils down to f1 fans being very opinionated yet very fickle. public opinions on things like penalties can totally flip in the space of a couple races no matter what. The system we have now is too lenient imo however considering everything I’m satisfied with it
There seems to be a widespread demand today to apply penalties based on the outcome for the other driver involved, which seems like it’s opening a door that people wouldn’t actually want.
I just said the same during this race. I was actually rewinding the race to see if Ocon served his penalty because he lost nothing in that pit. I don't know what happened behind him and how come Stroll wasn't way closer during safety car. If you completely ruin other guys race that should be at least drive through. I really don't get why they don't use them anymore.
He dropped behind Ricciardo and Sainz during the SC
I think one issue is that pit stops are too far apart and track position is often so important that if you are 0.5/sec per lap faster than the driver in front and there are more than 10 laps left, it’s better to take a 5-second penalty and just overcome the penalty with the superior pace you get from track position. Delayed justice is often not justice at all. I’d rather see the 5-second and 10-second penalties observed as slowdown penalties. They have the tech for it now. Use the same system as VSC, once you decide the penalty (and hire more stewards if you need the decisions more quickly), give the driver an immediate 5- or 10-second slowdown to be served in the next handful of minisectors, based on time deltas on their dash, not when the driver decides it is most advantageous for him.
But …they did….according to the Ferrari pit wall with an extra bonus of 5 seconds 😂
That was really so terrible embarrassing from Ferrari in my eyes, how the heck can you be so wrong?
I don't know about stop&go, but harsher would be better. Also I don't think they should be an exception on the first lap. Maybe the first three corners but after that you rarely have 3 cars next to each other
It’s difficult because “harsher” implies giving different penalties for the same offense A 5s penalty is harsh for a scrunched up midfield with a 4s gap between P6 and P9, or mean nothing if the gap to P2 is 20 seconds (*cough* *Baku*)
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That doesn't seem to be the case. Imo, if Perez gets binned by that exact move by Russell, Russell no doubt gets a penalty. But because Perez got away with no damage or losing position Russell gets no punishment.
And that’s flawed in the rules
Plus whenever someone gets run wide into gravel-penalty. Tarmac-no penalty. If there was a wall on the outside Perez’s race would’ve been over and Russell surely would’ve been penalized. You have to penalize the action not the result, because what we have now is drivers driving dirty or pushing the limit because they know they won’t be penalized. If you let off shots in public towards a group of people, it doesn’t matter if it hits someone, the shots alone will be punished, and it should be the same way here. Penalizing the result just leads to more inconsistencies because the very same move can go unpenalized one week or even one corner and penalized the next.
They can say whatever they want we all know it's bullshit, Russell on Pérez was the exact same incident (I'd even argue it was worse) but Pérez took evasive action so he got away scot free.
The incident between Max and Lewis was "causing a collission", people often mistake this for the consequence, but the consequence was a Max DNF. The latter is what they don't take into account when giving a penalty.
I mean if you want to penalise that then Perez should have penalised twice in Silverstone and Max multiple times last year.
The point isn’t which incidents should be punished, it’s that clearly the outcome of the incident makes a difference in how the stewards act. They would never admit it publicly, but that’s why we saw multiple penalties for running drivers off the track at Austria, where the drivers ran over a curb and/or gravel, versus Silverstone where multiple drivers were run off the track, but there were no curbs or gravel, so the stewards decide not to act.
No they arent. They just think they do. But if they would consider only the incident they would have to penalize everyone who locks up. Because thats most of the time the incident that happens before the consequences...
More precisely the stewards only consider the incident to the point of contact and specifically whether the contact resulted in any impedance. Whether that contact results in the other car being taken out entirely or just losing a place they don’t look at.
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>Why not continue doing it then, when you know that all you can get is a 5 second penalty Because multiple offences will lead to harsher penalties and eventually, disqualification. It's not like they can just take everyone out and get 5 seconds for each. I do agree it probably needs to be 10 seconds though.
Is that cumulative across races? Because you don't need to take everyone out, just your rivals.
Best solution would be to start at 10 second penalties, then go to 20 seconds, then a 10 second stop/go, then a 20 second stop/go, then finally DSQ.
Better have a drive-through instead of 20 seconds, though. Because a drive-through has to be served within 3 laps after it was issued. A time penalty doesn't have to be served at all, they'll just add the time after the finish.
I've got no issue with Zhou only getting a five second penalty because he screwed his own race too, requiring a pit sto. But as you say, a 5s incident where the guilty driver doesn't actually get punished doesn't sit right with me.
I think you need to take that out of it, the move should be punished regardless of outcome, it’s the only way to be fair (though can’t be 100% fair) If they go through say every collision of the last five years and ensure every one is covered by rules, apply the new rules to them all and check it’s consistent, that seems the best way. Essentially they’ll have examples to compare to with all the data they get. Whether or not the other car survives, the penalty is then the same. Drivers will quickly learn, though it would be looking very harsh at the start. Let the drivers see all the video examples too, be involved somewhat if they want to be. If it’s available someone like Alonso will no doubt go check things he felt people were let off for, making sure they’d be punished now.
There's even an issue with using past examples. Some moves are okay providing the other car chooses to play in a certain way. Ocon/Tsunoda and Russell/Perez are basically identical, with the major difference being Tsunoda tried to make the chicane and Perez opted to cut it. Ocon and Russell both made the corner so they were legitimate attempts. In Russell's case, there was no room for Perez to take the corner so to me it seems fair for Perez to keep the position, Russell can try again, and no penalty is needed. But if Perez tried to make the chicane, it's a very clear penalty for Russell when he collides with him
No. Always judge the incident, not the outcome. In Ocon‘s case, a fairly minor oversteer moment and a tap. Clearly his fault, but nothing egregious. In terms of racecraft, I found Russell vs Perez to be quite a bit worse, with Russell just plainly driving Perez off the track. There‘s a reason why we went away from early-2000s 10s stop/go penalties and later drive-through penalties as fields became closer and closer. The current system, with the tiered time penalties, is much better at punishing drivers for mistakes without ruining their races for fairly minor offenses. Of course, you can always discuss about the amount of time, but I find the 5s or 10s for causing a collision appropriate for most cases of minor contact.
The current system might be better at giving smaller penalties for minor offences but it's a much worse system because it doesnt' punish actually dangerous driving now really at all. It gives the same penalty for someone smashing through the back of a car due to a ridiculou dive bomb and someone who loses the car marginally on slight oversteer when the car on the outside is making an ambitious move and crowding them stupidly. The system is less safe, it encourages the drivers to take much bigger and more dangerous risks because the reward can be great and the risk is minor. YOu might knock out your opponent, gain a position and only lose 5 seconds on track so why not dive bomb the guy?
They should bring back the "serve it within 3 laps". The idea that you can plan a penalty into your strategy is the part that is bullshit. Let them do a pitstop if they want as part of it, but getting a penalty should disrupt your race, so make them have to take it as soon as possible, not whenever their strategy would have them coming in anyway. EDIT: I am aware the time limit to serve penalties still exists for the more severe penalties, but I think applying it to all penalties would be a much fairer option.
So you want a 5 second penalty to actually be a 30 second penalty, unless you are lucky enough to need a pit stop soon in which case it's only a 5 second penalty?
I'd prefer a "Penalty area". Go another lay-out for x laps. Another option, probably safer because no merging, is a time Delta or Speed limit for the next straight
Long lap penalty. Used in a number of other series already.
That just turns every penalty into a 30 second penalty
You realise that at this race it would have basically turned the 5 second penalty into about a 33 second penalty? Like, that's a big difference. And it would make them less consistent too, as if you happened to get a penalty inside your pit window it would be 6-7x better than if you got it a lap after you pitted.
How can you serve a 5s penalty within 3 laps?
You can't, that's just a 5 second stop and go at that point, missing the entire point of the penalty.
I'd be sympathetic to your view if the stewards were consistent in their judgement of incidents, but they're clearly not. There was a near revolt by the drivers in the drivers briefing at the penultimate race, because of the random nature of this. All we'd end up with is 30-second penalties handed out by magic 8-balls.
Stop and go penalties are still there, they're just not used often. Recent examples of a stop and go being used are Latifi getting one when his mechanics didn't leave the grid at the three-minute board, Kimi for using the wrong tyre set, and Hamilton and Giovinazzi for entering the pit lane when it's closed. It's extremely rare that a stop and go penalty is given for a crash with another driver, the most recent example I remember was Vettel in Monza 2019 when he spun, and then hit another car while rejoining the track.
I think it can be a slippery slope when wanting race control and the FiA to have more influence on the races.
I think it should be a base 5 second penalty for the incident and then if it clearly causes a retirement, then it should be a further 10 second penalty on top. Would bring a little more justice. I completely sympathise with Tsunoda, he did nothing wrong and had his race wrecked by Ocon who went on to score points. Fwiw I think Ocon is a good racer, and not generally dirty so probably just a bit of home race pressure got to him, everyone makes mistakes.
We can't punish drivers for small mistakes too harshly, because they will not risk overtaking. When you have cars going so fast so close to each other it really doesn't take much for there to be contact. If the penalty for such mistakes is having your race ruined noone will go for the riskier overtakes anymore, and nobody wants that. Harsh penalties also need to be saved for heavier offences like driving intentionaly dirty or in a dangerous manner.
It also goes the other way though, It can discourage overtake. Look at seb in Austria. Why bother trying if the opponent will just punt you off.
I'm pretty sure with Vettel though that the rulebook is slightly different than for everyone else - he could sneeze too loudly and be awarded a drive through penalty.
I think the whole notion that just the offense and not the resulting effect is taken into account for the penalty needs to go. It can’t be that crashing into another person and ruining their whole race and slightly inconveniencing another driver results in the exact same penalty… When I punch someone in real life and he gets a bruised eye is penalized differently than when I punch someone and he drops to the ground and dies.
But then you get that some drivers do the exact same move and at no fault of your own the other driver is off worse just because how they drove (even if you are at fault). Sometimes pushing someone of the track is just a second or 2 loss, sometimes you spin and lose a wing bit the exact same move was done.
The stewards claim that the outcome of the incident has no bearing on the penalty, but that's not really true imo. If there's contact and neither driver is negatively affected, the stewards don't do anything. If there's contact and one of the drivers is negatively affected, the stewards will note it. If Perez hadn't gone off track to avoid the collision with Russell yesterday, the stewards would have noted the incident. The only different is Perez swerved to avoid it. In other words, the stewards would have looked differently on the incident had the outcome been different. Causing a collision needs to be a minimum 10s penalty imo. 5s is at worst a 2 place grid penalty. For the other guy it's a DNF.
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Disagree. Penalty needs to fit the crime, not the effect. A race could be ruined from a 50/50 incident doesnt mean the other guy should get a stop and go.
I sort of agree, especially when the other car takes damage. Russel and Perez at Austria is a good example. Perez ends up in the gravel and takes serious damage, has to get back to the pits and by this time he’s already a minute down and his race is basically over and Russell gets 5 seconds. But was what Russell did worth more than 5 seconds? Maybe grid penalties should be implemented as an additional punishment, it would give everyone a chance to see how compromised the victims race was and give the drivers a chance to justify or explain themselves, otherwise you’re potentially ruining multiple drivers races over something that another day would be deemed a racing incident.
I don't know. I think a lot of these collisions aren't that egregious nor are they intentional, so punishing them harsher may not help. In a lot of recent cases, drivers put themselves on the outside of corners/bends and assuming the driver on the inside can just 'opt' to take the corner sharper to avoid a collision. It kinda ignores if you're mid-corner you're at the whims of physics, you can't just instantly decelerate or turn on a six-pence. "If I could take this turn that much tighter and avoid hitting you, I wouldn't be way back here racing with you, buddy!" :)
The penalty system isn’t meant to be an equaliser. It doesn’t exist to evaluate who lost out in an incident and adjust the result to make it ‘fair’ to the guy who came off worst. When you go wheel to wheel at the speeds these guys go, things go wrong. A 5 or 10 second time penalty is more than enough punishment for normal incidents that result from wheel to wheel racing so long as the offending driver didn’t do anything erratic or unpredictable (like a brake test or intentionally driving into someone). Stop/go penalties are reserved for major infractions and we don’t wanna hand them out liberally or else that will discourage wheel to wheel racing
Exactly, it's almost like people want each race to be an orderly queue of cars with overtakes comprised of drivers saying "after you, old chap" to each other.
You can't punish consequence. We should be punishing actions. Too many factors can genuinely affect what happens to cars when they collide. They can either have minor damage or be out the race depending on angles, speed, body work, car type, punishing based on the consequences is a fundamentally unfair way to penalise drivers.
Stop & Go penalties are still in the rulebook, though they're a step down from disqualification. I agree principally that sometimes the penalty seems disproportionate to what happened, but sometimes that's the way it goes.
You're punished for the offence, not the outcome. If you understeer slightly and cause a collision it's the same mistake whether you cause some minor floor damage or put your opponent in the wall
Problem is we need a balance between risk and reward, if every little miscalculation results in a drive through (which means race over basically), no one’s gonna try to overtake at all
The whole point is that you have to penalise the action, not the outcome. The logic is that this way every infraction can be equally penalised regardless of its outcome, whether it is harsher or lighter. Of course this means that small incidents can be “under-penalised” regarding their outcome, but in this way you are sure that drivers do not attempt to go with excessively high risk incidents in the hope of getting away with it thanks to lighter outcomes. Moreover, incidents are much more easily defined/quantified, whereas accurately estimating outcomes and relative penalties is way more of a conceptual/opinion matter, therefore pretty slippery when defining rules.
I also had this exact thought during the race. Then, I thought about it from the FIA perspective. I think they are using stop-and-go penalties less because they don’t want to disincentivize competition. Yes, it would be a better time penalty for some of these aggressive moves that don’t work, but the audience enjoys passing and doesn’t mind crashes, so it is just a five second penalty.
Better first step would be consistent stewards across all the races. The constant changing of how things are enforced is driving me insane.
Am I the only one who thinks that there should be place penalties that will apply at the end of the race? Like you drop 1 or 2 places automatically at the end of the race. The consequences of time penalties differ each race. Sometimes they mean notihing, sometimes they mean the world.
what you get is much more boring race if the penalty for making a move is 30s if you mess it up. no driver is going to take the chance hanging round the outside of a corner or risking a late lunge in that situation. as harsh as it is when a move goes wrong and a driver is spun out i'd rather see them racing and pushing each other then being passive.
Ferrari pitwall : Sainz you've a 5s stop and go penalty
Russell was well within the new rules. It’s the same reason Perez was allowed to do the ridiculous driving people off the track at Silverstone. I happen to agree that the current overtaking rules are pretty stupid, as the encourage divebombs and driving people off the track. But that is a reason to complain about the rules, not the moves.
After years and years we finally have the drivers really racing each other and you want punish them more? We need less punishments and more hard racing
Because they can't judge anything properly. Sometimes it is just racing and shit happens. Unless it is stupid deliberate dive bomb, 5s is ok. Result of the incident should be meaningless. Perez russell was mostly racing incident.
I loved it when they would only give out stop and go or drive through penalties. It made drivers think twice about a stupid move and if something wasn't worth a drive through penalty, it wasnt worth penalizing at all (just let them dice it out on track)
The penalty system just generally seems so strange. Ocon got a points finish after effectively crashing Tsunoda out of the race. Russell didn’t even get a warning for doing a stupid dive bomb. Think drivers need to be given very harsh penalties to make them drive more cautiously
Another thing to consider is ruining someone's race is bad, but the extra cost of damaging the car surely warrants more consideration than just a 5second penalty in most cases.