Quote:
Originally Posted by Goat Boy
Hmmm, it's a fine line though - if the line that isn't the racing line is faster even if it's longer then it should be a penalty I would have thought. As you say though, no protest from anyone...
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Yeah, I can see where you coming from. The issue at that corner with people running around the outside of the kerb comes from the position and size of the kerb I suspect.
In this instance, both cars were side-by-side (Whincup just a hair in front) as Winterbottom ran wide in the middle of the turn (most likely due to his narrow entry line).
It appeared as though Winterbottom was going to force Whincup on or past the kerb regardless of where Whincup wanted to go (although, as it happened, just as Whincup committed to going around the kerb, Winterbottom straightened up and left a sufficient gap). This had potential to be even further confused by D'Alberto's car just ahead which pitted just in front of Frosty.
From what I saw, it was not the only time someone who ran outside the kerb re-entered the track in that manner, and as with the other drivers, the driver who 'squeezed' moved over to allow the re-entering car room to resume on the traditional track surface. If drivers didn't feel using that 'runoff' was legitimate, I don't see why they would always feel the need to leave their competitor that space (apart from to avoid a potential accident - but when they are racing side-by-side they don't necessarily leave sufficient space either :-P)
If Winterbottom was clearly ahead when Whincup ran wide I might feel differently, and if Whincup had been behind and made a pass while being squeezed out wide while doing so I also might feel differently. Not necessarily enough to say it was wrong without having a specific set of circumstances, but probably.
However, had Whincup had been behind and made a pass having clearly always committed to running outside the kerb, that I would definitely consider to be wrong.
As I see it, the track outside the kerb is there as a safety net and not to be used to gain speed, unlike recent years in DTM where I have seen at several tracks all cars with all four wheels well outside the white lines for the boundary of the track 'surface', even at tracks used by F1 (where the F1 drivers would not be afforded the same leniency by the officials)
(the way I see it, if there was a wall there and Winterbottom had squeezed Whincup into that wall, then that would have been Winterbottom's fault (though as the same time, it would probably not have necessarily been wise of Whincup to have stayed there). As it was, Winterbottom did leave a gap and in a situation with a wall there Whincup possibly wouldn't have tried to hang around the outside (as the track would probably be dirty due to no-one else running there, but at Barbagallo it seemed to be clean enough due to other cars having run out wide also) and/or Winterbottom probably would've tried to leave a little bit more space. It would be different if the cars had been less side by side than they were at the point of divergence of exit lines on that lap)