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Originally Posted by Born Racer
Are things coming to a head with this, or at least is there a change in how drivers go about their racing?
We have discussed before about how the stewards are damned if they do, damned if they don't now. Twenty or so years ago, penalties for driving standards were extremely rare. They let the drivers sort it out among themselves and sometimes drivers would be hard done by and sometimes they would get away with things.
Now, stewards' interventions are par for the course and it is an integral part of the series, in the same way that refereeing is a part of football. I feel that the problem, however, in F1 is that while people have their own ideas, nobody in charge is really too sure of what lines are being drawn and how to be consistent. We see periods of huge amounts of penalties and periods of very few.
I wonder whether due to professional sport becoming increasingly competitive and the competitors increasingly pushing things to the limits to achieve an edge, this will lead to an ugly side of Formula 1. Charles Leclerc, in an interview, admitted quite rationally that the incident in Austria with Verstappen changed how he went about racing and what he did at Monza on Hamilton was one result of that. Are we now going to see the likes of Hamilton respond in kind (someone who, for all his audacious manoeuvres, I have always seen as fair and representing what I personally see as good racing)? Where will this lead us? Many drivers having accidents? With the comparative lack of danger compared to the past and the lack of consequences in terms of accidents for running wide, drivers push others to track limits more than before, it seems.
What about the presence of the black-and-white flag? The stewards have laid down a problematic precedent again. Are we now to expect drivers to always be warned of bad driving in the first instance and possibly punished in the second? They supposedly know the rules, but Monza suggested you can get away with the offence once. The drivers, being wily sorts, will exploit that if they can and push to the limits on a defence like Leclerc's in Monza protesting that they should only be given a warning. And if they aren't given a warning and get a penalty immediately? Where's the consistency there?
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Some very good points there, BR.
The inconsistency of penalties over the years means that there is always a precedent for everything. So if F1 really wants to sort the situation out, they need to start by drawing a line and saying that what happened in the past is irrelevant. Here are the new rules now.
Then produce a list of things you are not allowed to do, and a statement of the penalty for each one. There could be more than one penalty for each transgression, allowing stewards a bit of latitude depending on severity. Then apply them rigorously.
Given the ability of F1 competitors to think up ways around things, there would have to be a built-in system to adapt the new rules in the light of experience.
Wherever possible tracks should be designed to avoid the need to invoke the use of the stewards. Track limits is an obvious example. Somehow (and I'm not saying there is an easy answer) drivers have got to be penalised for putting their wheels off the track, but without causing a serious danger. One step would be to get rid of all the wide kerbs, red-and-white stripes, green paint and grasscrete. Drivers are perfectly capable of placing their car to within 100mm so giving them any more leeway than that is just an invitation to use it.