1 Million Place Grid Penalty

[Peter Mallett]

As with all things there are more facets to this than an uncut diamond.

If we were to consider the whole thing as a sport then as long as the regs are implemented, who cares how many engines or gearboxes a team uses in a weekend? The trouble comes due to the manufacturers. If it costs a zillion dollars to lose an engine, the manufacturer doesn't care, he just pulls another off the line. A team like Williams however, will feel every financial pinch, thus a failed engine means more than just a penalty it means big bucks.

It's a problem with the make up of the sport as a whole. Accepting that technology is important it does mean that the manufacturers need to feel some kind of penalty when they get something wrong. As a sporting solution grid penalties don't work because they make a mockery of the grid/race/event.

It all comes back to getting real and dropping the technology. We will have e racing soon enough, but as we are still trying to run on oil then why not make it a simple V8/V10/V12 formula of a certain swept volume? Any unreliability will carry a financial and sporting penalty simply because the team won't score points and/or won't start in a good position. Natural justice if you will.

Also, both manufacturers and their customers should run the same version of the specific engine.