Formula 1 2023 Season

In reply to alfadriver :

Keep giving the penalties untill the meat sacks behind the wheel get it. ;)

In reply to Tom1200 :

I'm good with making the white line SUPER abrasive and the curbs even more so.

The delayed penalties are the problem. It's not reasonable to wait minutes or hours to find out if you are good or not. Not when they have rooms full of data scientist calculating strategy by the second. If it was a sensor that made the call instantly then I could deal with it. But it's. Not, it's another room full of people that are calling balls and strikes with a huge delay. It sucks it's stupid they expect teams and drivers to make split second calls all race long that determine the outcome of races and championships but they can't resolve this? 

In reply to kevlarcorolla :

The other problem is that the rule appears to be have some interpretation. Perez drove off enough in both 9 and 10 to at least get a warning if not 2 penalties. 
 

Whreas a physical penalty works without monitoring.  

In reply to alfadriver :

It looks like the FIA applied penalties to everyone but the top 3, likely to keep the podium set.

alfadriver said:

Keith Tanner said:

Or change the corner design so that going off track has no benefit. 

The only way to do that is to put some "penalty" outside of the curb. And I would also make the curb narrower so that they are forced to at least have one wheel on the track. 
 

Maybe the surface they put at Paul Ricard?  Something that is super abrasive and draggy. 

Or you change the shape of the corner. That's what I meant. Either widen the exit so it follows the line the drivers want to follow, or mess with the camber so that going wide pushes you wider, or move the apex. Basically, if this many drivers are trying to change the shape of the track, the shape of the track is wrong.

It's not like this is a historic track that cannot be altered.  I haven't looked at the track map to see what's most plausible in this specific case. 

In reply to Javelin :

Given the number, each could have gotten 5 and not changed anything. Lol. 

In reply to Keith Tanner :

I see your point, but the drivers will just take it farther. Turn 9-10 would end up just one massive sweeper. They would probably have track limit problems anyway. 

alfadriver said:

In reply to Keith Tanner :

I see your point, but the drivers will just take it farther. Turn 9-10 would end up just one massive sweeper. They would probably have track limit problems anyway. 

Let me reprofile the corner, I'll make it a problem if they go too wide. Our local track has that - one corner is profiled to really punish you if you apex early. Or make 9 a longer turn and move 10 a little further down the straight so it needs a late apex instead of an earlier one. Or put a wall there and call it the Wall Of Energy or something. Montreal doesn't seem to have a track limit problem.

Or just undo what happened in 1997...

What I've read says that the track is reluctant to do anything about that section - especially a gravel trap - because of the MotoGP race.

I thought this was a little bit of gold from Haas:

alfadriver said:

In reply to Keith Tanner :

I see your point, but the drivers will just take it farther. Turn 9-10 would end up just one massive sweeper. They would probably have track limit problems anyway. 

There's more to it than just "the drivers will take whatever you give them and ask for more", we don't see anywhere close to this many penalties even at other tracks with lots of paved runoff. 

The FIA has revisited the penalties and it's a clear failure of track design and stewardship. The Red Bull Ring has a real problem, and honestly F1 should skip that track until it figures things out. There are many other good tracks that are going unused - remember the 2020 season? The best part of that season were all the old tracks that came back. 

In reply to codrus (Forum Supporter) :

But that's because it's not faster to go over the line. Either because it's actually slower or the "penalty" for going off is that high. Which is either what kieth or I suggest. 

In reply to wae :

I am more amused that official team social media communicates in memes.

Keith Tanner said:

The FIA has revisited the penalties and it's a clear failure of track design and stewardship. The Red Bull Ring has a real problem, and honestly F1 should skip that track until it figures things out. There are many other good tracks that are going unused - remember the 2020 season? The best part of that season were all the old tracks that came back. 

Agreed, but . . . I read that RB Ring has signed on for more until 2030. Oh and the whole money thing.

alfadriver said:

In reply to codrus (Forum Supporter) :

But that's because it's not faster to go over the line. Either because it's actually slower or the "penalty" for going off is that high. Which is either what kieth or I suggest. 

No, that's not it.  For example, you can't look at COTA and tell me that it wouldn't be faster to take shortcuts through the acres of paved runoff they have on most corners.

In reply to codrus (Forum Supporter) :

Depends. Are you talking short cutting the course or taking more speed through a section. There is part of Cota that has real track limit problems for f1 but is totally allowed for Indycar. Like turn 17?

L5wolvesf said:

Keith Tanner said:

The FIA has revisited the penalties and it's a clear failure of track design and stewardship. The Red Bull Ring has a real problem, and honestly F1 should skip that track until it figures things out. There are many other good tracks that are going unused - remember the 2020 season? The best part of that season were all the old tracks that came back. 

Agreed, but . . . I read that RB Ring has signed on for more until 2030. Oh and the whole money thing.

Can you imagine how big a tantrum Helmut Marco would throw if his track was taken off the calendar? It would be epic.

But the stewards think something needs to change.

The stewards also added that they “very strongly recommend” that a solution be found to the track limits at the Spielberg circuit.

According to the stewards, the retrospective penalties have been applied as follows:

• For four infringements, a five-second time penalty; for five infringements, a 10-second time penalty.

• Then a “reset” has been allowed due to the excessive number of infringements. The counting of infringements restarts. After another four infringements, a five-second time penalty will apply; after five, a 10-second time penalty.

The penalties imposed after the race in full are as follows:

• Carlos Sainz – 10-second time penalty
• Lewis Hamilton – 10-second time penalty
• Pierre Gasly – 10-second time penalty
• Alex Albon – 10-second time penalty
• Esteban Ocon – 5-second time penalty
• Esteban Ocon – 10-second time penalty
• Esteban Ocon – 5-second time penalty
• Esteban Ocon – 10-second time penalty (30 seconds in total for Ocon)
• Logan Sargeant – 10-second time penalty
• Nyck de Vries – 10-second time penalty
• Nyck de Vries – 5-second time penalty (15 seconds in total for De Vries)
• Yuki Tsunoda – 5-second time penalty

8 penalized drivers out of 18, and only one of those got a single penalty.

I wouldn't hold COTA up as an example of a well designed track when it comes to self-enforcing track limits. It's basically painted lines in a parking lot.

Keith Tanner said:

I wouldn't hold COTA up as an example of a well designed track when it comes to self-enforcing track limits. It's basically painted lines in a parking lot.

What I'm getting at is that the current system basically works at COTA.  It's got a ton of paved runoff with all of the benefits that entails (much safer, plus a lot fewer instances of 'oops' moments taking a driver out of the race entirely, which nobody really wants).  Lots of tempting opportunities to push the boundaries, and we see a few track limits violations, a couple black-and-whites, maybe a penalty, but nothing like what we saw in Austria.

The system works at COTA, but something about the Austria track is causing drivers to exceed track limits even after they've been warned that they're getting a penalty.  Even after they've already gotten and served a penalty, they're still exceeding them and getting a second penalty!  This is not just drivers pushing the limits of what they're allowed to do, there's something different going on.

In reply to codrus (Forum Supporter) :

I'm not sure the drivers were being warned last weekend. And the rules seem to have changed, when did the 10 second "fifth offense" rule get added?

I agree that this track in particular seems to attract the penalties. There must be too much time to be gained by really pushing 10 - which makes sense, it's the entrance on to the straight so it's critical to lap time. But COTA has had problems as well, Max and Lewis both got  black and white flags just last year and three drivers took time penalties. While not the track limit festival from last weekend, it's still a problem.

In reply to codrus (Forum Supporter) :

Thinking out loud, the fast line at Darlington used to involve smacking the guardrail with your quarter panel on corner exit...

How about this; spray the off track area with coke syrup or some other gooey substance.

How about actual sausages instead of sausage curbs? 
Slippery as hell if you exceed the track limits. 

Tom1200 said:

How about this; spray the off track area with coke syrup or some other gooey substance.

We used to do that for rc car racing.  Makes the asphalt quite tacky!