Formula One drivers were irritated after the Austrian Grand Prix due to the FIA rules when it comes to track limits.
During the Sunday race, the stewards handed five-second penalties to four drivers - Zhou Guanyu, Pierre Gasly, Sebastian Vettel, and Lando Norris and they deleted many lap times. In total, they were no more than 43 separate track limit breaches, especially at Turn 9 and 10, due to the Red Bull Ring layout.
Even though stewards were pretty consistent with the officiating, drivers were frustrated with the way track limits were handled during the whole race weekend. Take Max Verstappen, for example, who called this situation a joke when he was asked about this problem.
"The track limits debate this weekend has been a bit of a joke, not only in F1 but in F2 and F3. It's easy to say from the outside, yeah, but you just have to stay within the white lines. It sounds very easy, but it's not, because when you go that quick through a corner and some of them are a bit blind, you have a bit more understeer, tyres are wearing, and it's easy to go over the white line," said the defending world champion.
"I don't think we should have this, ah you went 1mm over, that's a penalty or whatever. Then just add a wall or bring some gravel back."
Max Verstappen was not the only one to have this type of opinion. Lando Norris was one of the drivers to receive a time penalty. Even though he said he understands the officiating, he believed it was frustrating to get penalized at Turn 1, where you lose time going out of the track.
The British driver's opinion was also shared by Mick Schumacher, who thinks these things should be discussed. However, the white line's usage as the edge of the circuit was implemented after a discussion of FIA officials with drivers and team principals.
Nothing will probably change in the near future, and maybe it shouldn't, but when you go beyond the track limits without gaining any time, no penalty should be given.
Even though stewards were pretty consistent with the officiating, drivers were frustrated with the way track limits were handled during the whole race weekend. Take Max Verstappen, for example, who called this situation a joke when he was asked about this problem.
"The track limits debate this weekend has been a bit of a joke, not only in F1 but in F2 and F3. It's easy to say from the outside, yeah, but you just have to stay within the white lines. It sounds very easy, but it's not, because when you go that quick through a corner and some of them are a bit blind, you have a bit more understeer, tyres are wearing, and it's easy to go over the white line," said the defending world champion.
"I don't think we should have this, ah you went 1mm over, that's a penalty or whatever. Then just add a wall or bring some gravel back."
Max Verstappen was not the only one to have this type of opinion. Lando Norris was one of the drivers to receive a time penalty. Even though he said he understands the officiating, he believed it was frustrating to get penalized at Turn 1, where you lose time going out of the track.
The British driver's opinion was also shared by Mick Schumacher, who thinks these things should be discussed. However, the white line's usage as the edge of the circuit was implemented after a discussion of FIA officials with drivers and team principals.
Nothing will probably change in the near future, and maybe it shouldn't, but when you go beyond the track limits without gaining any time, no penalty should be given.