Tim.Wright wrote:In my subjective opinion, black flagging a driver for transgressing track limits is the most contrived cop-out I can think of. Motorsport is an activity that takes place in the midst of the physical world. The result should be dictated by driver input, the vehicle's response (F=ma) and that's it. Every time you start adding 'administrative sanctions' like time penalties for sporting transgressions you are moving the sport away from the laws of physics and towards a contrived 'result by committee' type activity.
Think for a moment of all the administrative gotchas of black flagging a driver for track limits. What if he was pushed out by another car? Do you take into account who was at fault for that previous incident before ruling on the track limits? What if a driver was avoiding debris? What if the driver claims he had a vehicle malfunction? What if the driver claims he was letting by lapped traffic? Are you going to penalise drivers in these cases or are you going to write up the necessary 10-20 extra rules detailing all the exceptions?
IMO this post hit all the points.
Regardless if we are talking about "black flagging" or imposing more minor time penalties for overstepping track limits - it always comes down to circumstance and context. And that context will create discussion, arguments and a lot of grey in the end as pointed above by Tim.
Better to either put walls there (then if an accident happens, we'll be discussing how and why and who might be responsible for it) or if there are run-off areas, to ensure that no advantage can be gained but ends up in a disadvantage. Then the problem solves itself without additional rules or stewarding becoming an additional factor: Someone goes off, loses time and is punished at the same time.
This topic is a perfect example on how people can't disagree on an adequate form of punishment because the rate of advantage or disadvantage gained by going off track is unique to a particular corner, circumstance and situation. In one example (Monaco) it will usually result in a DNF and safety car. On other tracks with gravel or run-off areas, depending on when and how, it might vary from zero lost to a couple of places right down to a DNF. I'd prefer to leave the "punishment" down to the realm of physics and the layout of the track and leave it at the discretion of the stewards to deem if going off track in a particular situation is a punishable offense or not. If it happens to a car driving 20 seconds up ahead with no competitors, it shouldn't really matter.
As such; the explanation given by Charlie Whiting in Brazils Thursday Conference on the 2 events (Hamilton lap 1, Verstappen) in Mexico seemed sound and reasonable. We don't want too much nitpicking and interference, but every now and then, we want to see them step in and decide if an advantage was gained that resulted in either keeping or losing a position. The biggest unfortunate situation was that the track at corner 1 wasn't blocked off (with chicanes) to avoid going off-track becoming an advantage. Had that been taken care off, it would have been a non-issue to begin with and therein also lies the simple solution; Not more rules, not more stewarding - better designed tracks for less steward intervention!
I think an easy to understand and applicable rule would be that a car going off track should never result in a better sector or lap time. Similarly to a yellow zone - if a car does go quicker (measured by the telemetry data), it should result in a time penalty given automatically. With this, you cover off the eventualities of who is to blame by going off track. Go off the track, regardless of the circumstance; take care not to achieve a quicker sector/lap time delta. This will only be possible on a track where the layout enables an off-track to result in gained time (like corner 1 Mexico). All other tracks, it will usually result in a disadvantage as is, so the automatic time penalty will never be applicable anyway.
