Was Alonso right about Palmer’s “joke” penalty?

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At least one person at the Italian Grand Prix thought Jolyon Palmer was treated far too leniently by the stewards.

Fernando Alonso complained repeatedly on the radio that Palmer’s five-second penalty for going off the track and overtaking him was “a joke”.

Did the stewards set the bar too low on this one, or were Alonso’s complaints not valid?

For

It’s not difficult to see why Alonso was unhappy. Palmer clearly went outside the track limits while overtaking the McLaren.

By the time the stewards had handed down a penalty to Palmer he was already 4.6 seconds ahead of Alonso. It was obvious at the time a five-second penalty was not going to be sufficient.

Against

Palmer’s penalty was the same as other drivers have received for similar incidents. For instance, Sergio Perez received a five-second penalty for passing Romain Grosjean off the track at Spa.

In this case Alonso was lapping more slowly than usual due to a technical problem which meant Palmer’s penalty didn’t have the usual effect of taking back the position he had unfairly gained. That’s hard luck for Alonso, but not the fault of the stewards.

I say

Should the aim of a penalty be to remove a position advantage gained by a driver? That clearly didn’t happen in this case. So you have to ask whether it’s a worthwhile deterrent.

This case sets a problematic precedent for the future. Now any driver who gets stuck behind a rival and expects they are going to lose at least five seconds has every justification to go off the track and pass them.

Since it was introduced the five-second penalty has become very popular with race stewards. But on this occasion it’s hard to argue that it was sufficient.

The stewards don’t yet have the power to order a driver to relinquish a position they shouldn’t have gained. Perhaps it’s time they did.



You say

Did you think Palmer’s penalty was too harsh, too lenient, or correct? Cast your vote below and have your say in the comments.

Was Palmer's five-second penalty sufficient?

  • No opinion (4%)
  • It was far too lenient (23%)
  • It was slightly too lenient (30%)
  • It was fair (38%)
  • It was slightly too harsh (3%)
  • It was far too harsh (3%)

Total Voters: 224

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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81 comments on “Was Alonso right about Palmer’s “joke” penalty?”

  1. If the stewards think a driver gains a position by cutting the corner, they should order him to give back the position no matter what the time difference is.

    If this is common practice, drivers will give it back themselves right away.

    1. Agreed. That’s how it’s meant to be anyway, except in this case Palmer didn’t give it back. I’d say, if they don’t give the position back by the next corner, then they should be ordered to give it back, and get a 5 second penalty for not obliging to the rules. But just giving them a 5 second penalty by the time they’re already 6 seconds down the road is silly.
      However, I was okay with the penalty given to Palmer because it was at least consistent with other similar things, like Perez at Spa.

      1. Well, in this specific situation you could argue Alonso pushed Palmer off the track before the corner was cut.

        This is probably why the stewards needed time to investigate.

        1. Michael Brown (@)
          10th September 2017, 17:44

          @anunaki Pushing off the track is only an issue when it occurs on a straight (this was clarified after Bahrain 2012). In a corner, the driver on the racing line has the right to drive on it so they are allowed to effectively push other drivers who are alongside them in the corner, but not on the racing line.

          We’ve seen this happen commonly in recent years with Hamilton and Rosberg pushing each other off in the first corner, but no penalty or even investigation is given.

          That’s just how the rules work. Personally I think pushing anybody off the track, in a corner or on a straight, is dirty driving.

        2. @anunaki Leaving the track to avoid contact/collision doesn’t give you the right to perform an illegal overtaking move. A driver should give a position that he’s questionably gained back regardless of the reason for leaving the track limits.

      2. You cant order people to give positions back, its not an consistent penalty and would just create a mess in certain cituations. What you do is you give the driver a chance to give the position back or in any other way show he didnt gain from it and if that cant be done then you give a suitable penalty.

        In this case Palmer just avoided an collision and Alonso should stop complaining, there is Karma at work here but not the way Alonso thinks.

        1. Sure you can

          Just do it

          1. @anunaki Yeh you can if you want a mess. Was i unclear?

            What do you do with several drivers involved, some collisions and perhaps the overtaken car spun out in a corner or retired? You cant hand out penalties that depend on other cars its as simple as that.

            Maybe in football they should stop giving free kicks and have the player just return the ball.

          2. “just do it”

          3. They have always done “that”. Either you give the position back or if not you have to take a drive-through penalty. That has always been the two options available.

    2. Michael (@freelittlebirds)
      10th September 2017, 15:49

      2008 Spa – Kimi vs Lewis. 5 second penalty, fair?

      Lewis gave the position back and they still took the victory and the championship away from him…

      By comparison, they’d have to take Jolyon’s 2014 GP2 championship away and Jolyon didn’t even bother to give the position back.

      1. Well that was a situation where one steward (who happened to also work for Ferrari) with a dislike for McLaren and Hamilton in particular could hand out all the penalties on his own. He actually dismissed the other stewards and completely went solo on that one.

      2. Hamilton gave the position back but then overtook him into the next corner, which he probably wouldn’t have been able to do without having cut the corner. That’s I believe when the rule that you had to wait a corner to try reovertaking them if you cut the corner came into play. Also, they didn’t take the championship away from him as he still won it? Not sure why you said that…

      3. Hamilton still gained an advantage as he’d built up enough momentum to over-rule his token gesture of giving the place back

      4. No. Hamilton was not punished for taking gaining an advantage. He gave the position back and was well within the rules. The official reason for Hamiltons punishment was for leaving the track. As simple as that… Despite Kimi leaving the track on the next set of corners… and despite no other driver being punished for similar infringements either before (at least as far as I can remember) and since. The rules of F1 do indeed state that a car should never leave the track limits (although they do have leeway for the first corner i think). We never see anyone punished for doing so though (Apart from Hamilton in spa 2008).

    3. I agree. I do think Palmers punishment was fair in the context of current punishments for similar offences. However I also think this should be changed and the punishment should be much harsher. Personally I think that if the position is deemed to have gained an advantage and if the driver has not given the position back then they should simply be disqualified from the race or placed behind the driver that they overtook.

  2. I am surprised that the Stewards don’t have that power to tell a driver to give a place back. Having said that, I do remember a incident where the Stewards told Ferrari to tell their driver to give a place back, and before he could do so, the driver he passed unfairly then pitted. So instead, the affending driver was penalised, and he wasn’t happy about it. The driver in question was … Yes, you guessed it, Alonso. Karma has a long memory! :-D

    1. @ijw1 The driver didn’t pit, he retired. And that’s the whole point. Alonso got a drive through penalty that time around. Palmer got a penalty worth about a fourth of that.

    2. @ijw1 They have the power to penalise them if they dont give the position back which is essentially the same thing. The problem is if the penalty is to lenient or not, you shouldnt gain from breaking a rule and suffering through the penalty.

  3. I think it was fair and also it was but of karma, Alonso at spa treated him like Palmer didn’t exist when pushing him outside the track..

    1. Palmer did push Alonso off the track at Le Coms, Alonso just returned the favour, albeit more.

      1. Les Combes*

      2. The thing is @hugh11, Alonso pushed Palmer wide twice. Palmer first did indeed push Alonso wide, but this was just onto the kerb and Alonso did over react a little by going a bit wider than necessary by driving beyond the kerb. Then Alonso on the other side of the track pushed Palmer quite firmly onto the kerb and slightly onto the artificial grass too. Palmer had no choice but to drive where he was forced. Then at the next corner when Palmer was still fully alongside, Alonso forced him right off the track onto the artificial grass again. That could have gone very wrong and resulted in Palmer spinning and hitting another car. All that Palmer did was push Alonso a little wide to start with and there wasn’t even any artificial grass there. I don’t know how this didn’t get investigated. I personally think it was easily worth at leased a 5 second penalty given to Alonso.

  4. I think it was fair and also it was a bit of karma, Alonso at spa treated Palmer like he didn’t exist when pushing him outside the track..

  5. Why is this such an issue and basically none in MotoGP? Why is it that racers on the bikes race each other just as hard if not harder yet respect each other and the rules so much more?

    1. @flatsix Are you seriously comparing racing on MotoGP to F1? Bikes are so small and narrow that rarely do they have to fight for the same piece of track.

      1. @mashiat To begin with, the racing is very much alike as in both their is the ideal faster line on which the racers want to be and it requires going off that to perform an overtake.

        Second, I was talking about going off track and gaining an advantage. I’ve seen countless riders go off track and slot back in in the correct position, an issue so persistently ignored by drivers it requires the stewards to intervene.

  6. I think Alonso should have been given a 5s penalty for forcing another driver out of the track. But apparently that’s all right.

    1. Michael Brown (@)
      10th September 2017, 17:47

      @casjo It’s all right because this occurred in a corner, and Alonso was on the racing line. There is only a rule for forcing drivers off of the track when it’s on a straight.

      See, the racing line allows you to drive as if the drivers around you don’t exist, so you can force them wide with no repercussions.

  7. Just imagine if this 5 second penalty rule existed back in 2010. Then surely Alonso could’ve gotten past Petrov in Abu Dhabi by cutting a chikane, and then pull away way more than 5 seconds. Being stuck behind another car can cost so much more than 5 seconds, so I don’t like the introduction of this rule. Back in the day, the common practice was either give back the position, or face a drive through penalty. A far greater deterrent than 5 seconds.

    So yes, I agree with Alonso’s view. But obviously Perez got the same penalty in Belgium. Verstappen got it in Mexico last year. Joke or not, 5 seconds is the common practice nowadays, since the introduction of the possibilities to hand out smaller penalties, which is a shame.

    However not everything about it was perfect with the drive through deterrent, if the stewards were too slow to make a decision and the car being overtaken off track was pitted soon afterwards, the option to hand back the position would be gone and a harsh penalty would ruin the race for the driver going off track.

    But on the other hand the offender surely had to opportunity to realize he had been at fault, and could thus hand back the possition immediately, before the stewards decicion. So I think the penalty should once again be harsher, a drive through is fair in my opinion.

    1. @oel-f1 I agree entirely. I’ve long believed the 5 / 10 second time penalties work well for minor things, but overtaking off the track is not minor. It literally defeats the point of having corners and racing.

      Go back to giving drive through penalties for this. For me, it’s the fact they have to be served within 3 laps that makes them so effective, because the driver cannot wait until it suits him to take it, by which time he is already 10 seconds up the road. The time penalty actively encourages drivers to cut corners when overtaking.

  8. Alonso did to Palmer, the same thing Massa did to Max. For some weird reason, both Massa and Palmer were considered to be wrong.

    1. For some weird reason, both Massa and Palmer were considered to be wrong.

      You meant VER here instead of MAS, I assume? Otherwise I don’t understand what you are saying.

      1. @demercer Hes saying the more popular driver gets special treatment.

        1. And I wonder if Keith would have bothered to create such a fuss if it had, say, involved Palmer and Ericsson, for example, or a driver who wasn’t as popular as Alonso. Similarly, would most posters here be quite so critical if it had involved less popular drivers, or complain so much if it had been Alonso who cut the track?

  9. I don’t think that Alonso’s moaning was about the penalty specifically. I think the fact that it was Palmer who passed and pulled away from him. In my opinion, the additional moaning was because he has a low opinion of him as a driver.

    Alonso needs to get back in car that is able to show his talents. Three years in the doldrums for such a driver that is still at the height of his game is likely unprecedented in F1.

    1. That’s a very interesting point @cavman99 and extremely relevant.

    2. @cavman99 I dont know about that. From all the fanbuzz and Alonsos own comments this seems like the perfect car to showcase his talents. He has never been driving better than now.

      1. Exactly @rethla Mclaren – Honda was the best thing to ever happened to Alonso’s career

      2. I don’t know mate, people thought he was pretty fantastic in the Ferrari…

      3. Dunno, too many problems there. Top-notch drivers can do great things in second tier cars but McLaren is getting ridiculous. I would agree with you if we were talking about a car like Force India, but McLaren… meh.

  10. The stewards don’t yet have the power to order a driver to relinquish a position they shouldn’t have gained. Perhaps it’s time they did.

    This basically.

    1. Michael Brown (@)
      10th September 2017, 17:49

      @john-h I recall them having that power in Monaco 2013.

    2. @john-h @keithcollantine @mbr-9 Although it’s not officially written in the rulebook (and in my opinion it shouldn’t need to be), they effectively do have this power, and they do it regularly (or Charlie Whiting does, at least). You often hear on the radio “they have ordered driver to give back the position”. This should be enough to know that if the driver doesn’t, he will get a penalty. The simple problem is the penalty he gets isn’t big enough.

      On a separate point, many will agree the best solution is to not have such an easy asphalt route to cut a chicane. If you look at the final chicane in Spa, there is a barrier between the run-off and the circuit after the chicane. This is fantastic as it means the driver has to make their way back to the track before carrying on, as they would in any non-chicane corner.

  11. The problem is the 5s penalty is only served at the next pit stop or added to the final time if no pit stop is made after the penalty is issued. It’s so difficult to drive and track position is so important that abusing track limits and receiving a penalty becomes a viable strategy.

    The only way to solve this is to give a drive through penalty for this offense, as it has to be served within 3 laps. This way no advantage is gained by illegal overtakes and the teams will make sure they tell their drivers to give the position back before any investigation is started by the stewards.

    1. *it’s so difficult to **overtake**

    2. This is exactly spot on dusty..

  12. It was fair in that a five-second time penalty seems to have become the default for this offence, and generally when someone gets the same penalty as everyone else, that’s ‘fair’.

    But where the benefit to the driver from breaking the rules is greater than what he’ll lose by serving a penalty, something is obviously wrong. I remember a few years ago at Singapore, where Vergne (I think) went off-track to complete a pass on someone at the exit of Turn 7. The benefit to him was huge, and at the time the commentators said something along the lines of ‘well, if you know you only get a five-second penalty, but can make up more than five seconds, why not?’.

    Indeedy, why not? Palmer obviously thought the same thing.

    So I think the five-second penalty needs to be ditched as the default, as it’s not a proper deterrant. The only ‘standard’ penalty for this sort of offence should be an order to immediately give the position back. Failure to do that should result in a harsher penalty (drive-through or whatever the stewards thought up) for failing to follow the instruction of the race director.

    1. This will of course now make Monaco more intresting, because everyone can pass at the chicane now!

  13. I agree the penalty is slightly too lenient, simply because it sets a precedent where if a driver thinks they’re going to lose more than five seconds behind someone they’ll choose to cheat and take the penalty. They’re clearly already doing this, or they would give back the places as they’re supposed to. Increasing it to ten seconds or a drive-through would make drivers think twice about continuing on their way.

    Where it gets tricky is when the overtaken driver then falls further behind, say he gets overtaken by someone else, pits or retires. It should then be up to the stewards to decide what penalty (if any) is relevant. For example if the offended driver pits the next lap, then a five second penalty is probably sufficient, as the offender wouldn’t have lost more than that following them for a lap. If they retire shortly after then you could probably waive the penalty – although the offender would have effectively gained over the field – for the sake of simplifying the race.

  14. The problem with all “time” penalties is that although on the surface they look consistent, in reality they’re not. The obvious one is a drive though penalty, near the start of the race or after a safety car it would put the driver to the rear, or near, the back of the pack, if it is much later in the race the driver might only lose a place or two.

    Similar problems occur with incidents where an innocent driver sustains race ending damages, but the guilty driver can still carry on, gets a penalty but still scores points.

    1. Perhaps the penalty should scale with the lap. That would also mean that drivers that put off serving the penalty get a longer one.

      1. To clarify: I meant the number of laps. So you get a smaller penalty if you serve it on lap 10 than on lap 30.

        1. Or no time penalties, for offences involving another driver, always put the guilty party behind the innocent one.
          Therefore the quicker the guilty party moves behind the least effect there is for that driver, unless of course the innocent driver was forced out of the race, crash or damage, in which case the guilty party will also score nil points.

          In the interests of balance, if the innocent party suffers engine or gearbox damage, the same components are classified as damaged on the guilty parties car.

  15. Now any driver who gets stuck behind a rival and expects they are going to lose at least five seconds has every justification to go off the track and pass them.

    I’m wondering… if Alonso had used that trick with Petrov in Abu Dhabi 2010, what penalty would have been given that season?

    1. Drive-through

      1. A drive-through sounds more sensible to me, I don’t know why they had to change the penalty for such situations. Maybe there were a couple of incidents where the decision was not clear (Alonso on Kubica at Silverstone in 2010 as Clay says in a comment below), so instead of clarifying the rule they decided to go for a more lenient penalty.

        It seems to me that penalties and rules are shaped by the incidents happened throughout a season. For instance, I think that DRS was a consequence of Alonso-Petrov situation at Abu Dhabi 2010. I’m sure there are more examples.

        1. Michael Brown (@)
          10th September 2017, 18:25

          DRS was confirmed for next season before that race, though that race probably made a good case for it.

  16. Alonzo got a drive through for doing the same thing on Kubica at Silverstone in 2010. He was asked to give the place back but Kubica retired in the meantime. Certainly cost more than 5 seconds… so I can understand Alonso’s frustration. I certainly see the Abu Dhabi 2010 comparison. If Alonso knew it would only cost him 5 seconds I’m sure he would have simply cut a chicane and stormed off. You could make an argument that any time that you might be blocked up behind a slower car just cut a chicane and once you’re five seconds up the road, happy days. Probably not the ideal situation for F1.

    The answer is simple. If you pass off track, that is all four wheels outside of the lines deliniating the track, you have to hand the place back within 1 lap. If not, drive through. Easy…

  17. I say it’s far too lenient. A position is worth a lot more than 5 seconds. While giving the position back have the extra risk of losing more position, especially if the car passed pits or getting passed by another car, that’s the risk the passing driver should take if he overtake with questionable circumstance. In a event where penalty must be given instead, a drive through is more fair to me. You broke the rules, so you need to lose more instead of still have some advantage or about breaking even.

    I’m aware being stuck behind (much) slower car and can’t overtake is frustrating for the driver and people who watching, but it’s part of the race. I want to see proper overtake, ruthless one is not a problem but not by breaking the rules.

  18. The problem is maybe stewardship by committee. The decisions just take far too long. If a football ref has a few seconds to make key decisions that often decide a game, is it really too much to ask the appointed stewards to decide within, 30 seconds, say? Taking lap after lap to decided on an incident that was blindingly obvious like Palmer’s is, frankly, ridiculous. If multiple incidents need to be decided, then allow various stewards to work simultaneously. One or two per decision.

    1. Michael (@freelittlebirds)
      10th September 2017, 16:46

      @david-br I agree – they can’t make these decisions at their own pace. It’s almost like they have to drink 2 Freddoccinoes before they decide in a sport where milliseconds matter.

      The worst example of the delay was at Baku – at first we thought that Vettel would not even be investigated… Vettel’s transgression was one of the most egregious we’ve ever seen in F1. The stewards could have decided that during the Red Flag conditions and the penalty would have pushed Vettel to the back of the grid. The stewards followed it up with an equally egregious penalty and the timing made it a travesty of the stewards given that Lewis paid a much higher penalty for a loose headrest…

      To top it off, the FIA threw a surprise birthday party for Vettel after the race under the guise of an investigation. One can only imagine Vettel’s shock when he entered the room and the FIA all screamed “Surprise!” and Todt walked up to Seb with a birthday cake.

    2. @david-br I dont think footbal referees have controll over an 6km track with 20 spread out cars.

  19. Palmer should’ve been ordered to give the position back to Alonso straight away. I don’t understand how it can take so long to do something regarding a clear-cut driving infringement. The same as with the Verstappen-Vettel incident in Mexico last season. The 5-second time penalty he got should’ve been applied on the last lap at the very latest before they had reached the chequered flag, not after, so that their order on the timing screens would’ve changed automatically at the chequered flag.

  20. I have to disagree, that this incident sets a precedent, actually I thought he penalty was if anything harsh, Palmer got shoved out. Alonso got no penalty for shoving Palmer out, that’s the precedent. The track is the issue here, with tracks that do not deter short cuts drivers know they can push and get pushed and a debate ensues, you should rather have a track that deters and choose to determinedly penalise the drivers that shove others off track.

    1. Michael Brown (@)
      10th September 2017, 17:58

      @peartree I agree that forcing drivers off the track should be punished. After Rosberg’s moves in Bahrain 2012, the FIA clarified the rule by saying that you cannot force a driver off track if they are alongside you on the straight. But when it comes to corners, the driver on the racing line is allowed to force a driver alongside them off the track. In this case, Alonso was on the racing line, so that is why he didn’t get a penalty. Magnussen went so wide that he left the racing line in Hungary when trying to force Hülkenberg off, so he was penalized.

      This isn’t anything new. When Hamilton and Rosberg were teammates they would sometimes force the other wide in the first corner, to take the lead. Whoever was on the inside line could simply take a normal exit, forcing the driver on the outside to leave the track or back out of the move because overtaking off the track is not allowed.

      1. Its a stupid rule IMO. If you are alongside another driver, even in the corner, he cannot just force you of the track (“You need to leave some space!”)…so Alonso was to aggresive in SPA against Palmer and the same applies to many Hamilton vs Rosberg first corner accidents in previous years (COTA, Suzuka, Bahrain…)

  21. Palmer’s penalty was a joke. A joke!
    He should have received 35 lashes and banned from driving any kind of motor vehicle for the next five years.

  22. Every well-written and fairly and consistently enforced penalty will serve three purposes;
    First, it adequately punishes the driver who broke the rules.
    Second, it offers fair redress to any other drivers who suffer negative effects as a result of the offense.
    Finally, it sets a precedent for future events, which ideally will lessen or prevent repeats of the offense by all drivers.

    In this case, the five-second penalty fails on all three points. A better way to do it might be to have an increasing scale of time punishment, all with a stop-and-go component. If the offending driver enters the pits to serve his penalty on the same lap, or the immediately following lap after he’s informed by radio of the penalty, the penalty is five seconds. And if he fails to come in until later laps, each extra lap adds an additional five seconds to the stop-and-go penalty.

    This would be similar to how parking ticket fines are increased the longer the offender fails to pay or respond.

  23. I’m a bit stuck really. I think the penalty was fair enough. But I also somehow think Palmer would have made that overtake very soon anyway. I also think the advantage he gained at this corner was minimal. He clearly lifted off after he did this as Alonso pulled more than halfway alongside him. Palmer did keep the position so I guess that is the reason he got a penalty. But I doubt that he wouldn’t have managed to pass within another lap anyway. I still think the penalty was fair enough. But what I think was more unreasonable was that Alonso didn’t even get investigated for forcing Palmer to drive onto artificial grass twice in Spa last race. Fair enough Palmer started it, but he only pushed Alonso slightly wide onto the kerb and there wasn’t even any grass there. What Alonso did back to Palmer could have gone very wrong. If something like this doesn’t even get investigated, I don’t see how Palmer’s penalty could possibly be too lenient

  24. Well. Fair penalty. Only other way is forcing them to wait and give back the position.

  25. Fernando Alonso? Would that be the same Fernando Alonso who had a massive accident at Interlagos in 2003? The same Fernando Alonso who had already been penalized for ignoring yellow flags, but was still going at maximum speed despite the fact that Mark Webber’s accident happened more than a minute before he arrived on the scene?

  26. I think the penalty was fair. It’s not the stewards fault the McLaren is so woefully slow they couldn’t keep close enough for the penalty to swap them back round. Let’s be honest, if Palmer had conceded, he was just going to pass elsewhere.

    I think Alonso was just venting, it was hardly a critical result on the line. He demonstrated his prowess even entertaining a fight against a Renault. It may as well have been an on track squabble during a practice session for all it mattered.

  27. Stewards have proven time and again how inconsistent and one-eyed they can be. I don’t think they should have the ability to shuffle cars mid race by direct order.

  28. Once upon a time there was a gravel trap there & this would not even be a debate….

  29. Was the penalty consistent fo similar offences in 2017 .. Yes

    Was it fair .. Probably not but I’m OK with that as long as they’re applied consistently.

    I think the problem here is that the application of the penalty for this offence has been watered down too far 5 sec is not enough punishment for a driver refusing to redress an illegal overtake immediately. It used to be a drive through which imo is both fair and should be the correct penalty.

    However now the precedent has been set for this season, let’s move on. It should be addressed and changed at the end of the season back to what it used to be.

    In the meantime, look out for some interesting overtakes for the remainder of the season :). (Not that drivers/teams would EVER exploit a loophole of course)

    1. Was the penalty consistent fo similar offences in 2017 .. Yes
      Was it fair .. Probably not but I’m OK with that as long as they’re applied consistently.

      This creates a huge loophole. If you’re faster than the preceding car you can “overtake” it by cutting. Entire strategies can be made on top of this: wait until you have done your pit stops than cut a chicane and push to gain over 5 seconds. Sometimes you just need 3-4 laps to achieve this.

      1. Exactly what I said in my last sentences. It’s a loophole and it’ll get exploited for the rest of the year but that’s what you get if you change penalties and set a precedent. ( I did add a bit of tounge in cheek that no team of course would ever consider doing it …. Of course they will)

        I don’t have a problem with that providing the penalty is applied consistently. They can close the loophole next year. No different to oil burning – it was a loophole that has been exploited – also should have been left alone until the end of the season.

  30. I find this penalty very fair… you go offroad you loose about 5 seconds. That is way more than any time you might have gotten out of cutting a chicane. Especially when you are forced offroad by skilled defending.

    What is comparable offense? Causing a collision? Intentionally causing a collision? Jumping the start? Speeding in the pitlane?

    I view a bit of gaining an advantage one of the LEAST severe offenses around. Penalties available are 5s penalty 10s penalty, drive through, disqualification.

    If this deserves a severe penalty, what does causing a collision deserve?

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