Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike Harte
Yet another stupid regulation.
I can sort of understand that if you are delayed on the grid for the green flag lap and the whole field passes by that you should start from the pit lane; but why not from the back of the grid?
But what I cannot for the life of me comprehend is that if just one car passes you and you do not re-take your correct position in the line of cars before a certain line, then you also have to start from the pit lane.
In this case, Perez was penalised because he didn't let Hartley get past to retake his "rightful" position, and Hartley was penalised because he should have therefore driven into the pits to start from there.
All I can do is just shake my head at the crassness and pettiness of it. And they wonder what is wrong with F1 !  |
To be honest, I am not sure what is wrong with the rule as written. If you get away slowly, you are given a chance to get back into position. If you can't manage to do that within a reasonable amount of time, then don't try to use the entire circuit to carve your way through the field (significant risk for collision as nobody really expects to be overtaken during formation lap) and start from the back.
As to why the pitlane vs. back of the field. Where exactly do you go? What if more than one car has issues? Do you have to remember which side you should line up on? What if the other guy lines up incorrectly, do you take his spot, or do you continue to do the wrong thing and line up behind him? It could be a big mess by just letting them figure it out on the fly. Clearly in this incident you had two drivers who didn't know what to do.
Just have them start from pit lane with less opportunity for shenanigans and/or something that causes a false start for the entire field?
It sounds like the real problem is that Perez was probably being difficult and Hartley didn't know he could regain his position and was afraid to overtake on the formation lap. I am a bit of a Hartley fan, but I put most of the blame on him (which seems to be what they did).
Richard