An increasing amount of bacground whinging going in Formula One this year has has to do with the drivers and teams being annoyed that the FIA and the Clerks of the Course at various Grands Prix have been actually enforcing the rules with regards excdeeding track limits. Shock; horror! Those penalties have either happened in Qualifying where laps have been deleted and not been counted, or during the race where 5 second time penalties have been added. The addition of 5 seconds in a race result, when differences can be decided by hundredths of a second, is like an eternity.
Various motorsports media, have been losing their minds over this because drama drives traffic and any and all outrage leads to clicks and ad revenue. As the various motorsports media groups run from side to side like brainless sheep, it is worth looking at what the FIA Sporting Regulations actually say. In a sport where having a legal team to final and exploit the rules is useful, it is a good idea to read the relevant rules:
33.3 Drivers must make every reasonable effort to use the track at all times and may not leave the track without a justifiable reason.
- FIA Sporting Regulations 2023
It's not like this is a difficult thing to understand. Driving a motor car generally, driving a race car professionally and a Kindergarten student in colouring in class should all follow this one simple rule. Your average 6 year old child in Kindergarten knows that you should stay inside the lines. If this was the early 20th century, then failure to stay inside the lines would result in swift and painful correction. Now I am not saying that the field of Formula One drivers is like a Kindergarten class... well actually I am saying that the field of Formula One drivers is like a Kindergarten class except that the Kindergarteners are more like to behave themselves and less likely to whinge when given a talking to.
In the olden days, when men and women wore hats to go grocery shopping and to go church, the penalty for exceeding track limits was in some cases very very quick because of primitive and/or non-existent safety measures. The penalty for Antonio Ascari exceeding track limits at Montlhéry, was to have his suspension tangled up in the wire and post fencing on the inside of the track and for him to die slowly due to blood loss from an almost severed leg. The penalty for Francois Cevert exceeding track limits at Watkins Glen, was to bounce off of the armco on one side of the track and be decapitated by the armco on the other side as the car slid right across the track.
Walls, fences, earthen banking, haybales, and spectators next to tracks, with the resultant rate of death being roughly one driver per fortnight from 1950-1978 was sub-optimal. Ideally, and especially since drivers became paid professionals, the preferred rate of death per race weekend is zero. It wasn't until one of those drivers, namely Jackie Stewart lost his friend, that any meaningful action was taken in a hurry. Progress was still slowish but in the 10 years from 1977-1987, the entire realm of what was and was not acceptable right next to a Formula One Circuit was deliberately changed. Gravel traps, grass verges, sand, even entire painted areas, which were all designed to reduce the speeds of a car not on the track and hopefully reduce the speeds of a car not on the track before it hit a wall or tyre barrier.
One of the things that I keep on returning to in this blog, which I believe is one of the central qualities of the human experience, is that everyone is selfish; without exception. This also means that every race car driver, in every motor race, is constantly looking for any possible advantage that they can find. If that's the motivation, then a selfish race car driver looking for any possible advantage, is going to nudge every single possible boundary where possible; this includes track limits.
A corollary to that is, that where you have someone finding an advantage without consequence, then they will take liberties wherever possible. In a Formula One race, where you have a whole field of drivers trying to take liberties wherever possible, then they can and will do so; almost as a matter of need because if they do not then everyone else will.
Take a look at the circumstances which resulted in George Russell having a complaint at his teammate Lewis Hamilton earlier this year:
Very clearly there is a car on the outside of the track limits. This is bang to rights. What would I do in these circumstances? The answer in my mind is simple. Enforce the law, without fear or favour. In qualifying, delete the lap. In the race, give people a yellow card which lets them know that you have noticed that they have exceeded track limits and then on the second infringement, delete the lap. Just imagine the outcry if that were to happen. Deleting a lap in the race would mean that instead of mere seconds difference, there would be minutes' and miles' difference. Drivers and teams would cry "blue murder" and yet, if they knew that this was going to happen, they'd change their behaviour quick smart. As in our archaic Kindergarten colouring in class, failure to stay inside the lines would result in swift and painful correction.
The objection immediately would be that enforcing when a car has exceeded track limits would be subject to a subjective opinion. This is the lovely thing about every law ever. The authority which has the power to make law, also has the power to say what the law is, how the law is enforced, and has the discretion to do so. Very obviously a car which has exceeded track limits because they driver went too deep into a corner and messed it up royally, or was pushed by someone else, or suffered some kind of technical fault, all fall under the general remit of a "justifiable reason" per Rule 33.3. Someone on the throttle going full tilt, trying to shave 0.7 seconds off of a lap time, does not.
These drivers and teams are paid many millions of dollarpounds. Lewis Hamilton makes more money in a year than many people (including me) make in an entire lifetime. There possibly can not be any other sport in the world which is this commercial and professional. Given that, following the rules should be an obvious compliance issue. All y'all can stop whinging now.
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