[wnut]

This Adam

Originally Posted by crmalcolm

In the context of this discussion, I think it is interesting to look at what has been removed from the regulation.

Up until 2017, the F1 Sporting Regulations contained the following statement:
'Any driver defending his position on a straight, and before any braking area, may use the full width of the track during his first move, provided no significant portion of the car attempting to pass is alongside his. Whilst defending in this way the driver may not leave the track without justifiable reason.
For the avoidance of doubt, if any part of the front wing of the car attempting to pass is alongside the rear wheel of the car in front this will be deemed to be a ‘significant portion’.'

This sat alongside the ISC that included:
'Any driver moving back towards the racing line, having earlier defended his position off-line, should leave at least one car width between his own car and the edge of the track on the approach to the corner.'

So if we were to look at an incident in the 2016 season, it seems to be that a driver can use the full track width unless another car has their front wing alongside your rear wheel (or further) up until the braking zone, at which point regardless of where another car is, if you are moving back to the racing line you have to leave a full car width.

From 2018 onwards, the definition of alongside was removed from the F1 Sporting Regulations at the same time as 'causing a collision' was added to the ISC. The effect of this is that it is now the judgement of the Stewards as to whether an attacking driver is far enough alongside that the defending driver is deemed to have caused the collision (if one occurs).

So looking at the recent T2 incident at Monza - the Stewards have determined that Verstappen was not far enough alongside going into T1 (as mentioned in their decision) and therefore Hamilton was not (predominantly) at fault for the collision in T2.

I'm not saying I agree or disagree with the decision, but I can see how it was logically reached under the current regulations.


EDIT: - lifted from another thread, I wonder if this is part of why the definition of alongside was removed because it was not situation-dependent?