The Fia penalty monitor is located in Spielberg right next to a gigantic panoramic window through which a wonderful view of the racetrack and the lush green Alpine panorama can be thrown. The Red Bull Ring looks like a carrera track for giants that has been slammed onto a slope, nowhere else in the world do Formula 1 reporters have such a good view of almost the entire track. In Monaco, the penalty monitor is a small television, in Spielberg it is as big as the screen of an arthouse cinema, and anyone who has always wondered why it has to be so huge was presented with an explanation this race weekend: It’s worth it!
From Friday to Sunday, a message popped up at what felt like every minute during the race, according to which a driver’s lap time had been canceled again because he had crossed the track barrier. Sometimes it was turns 1, 4, 6 and 9 – but above all it was always: turn 10! This final bend of each lap follows a long downhill descent, there is no gravel trap just a paved run-off area with a huge Austrian flag painted on it.
Max Verstappen had already warned on Friday after qualifying, in which the rule enforcers denied 47 (!) race laps for violating Article 33.3, that it was nowhere as difficult to stay within the piste boundaries as at this point. “At the end of a lap, the tires get too hot, your car slips more, and then a small bump or compression is enough to push you off the racing line,” he lamented: “We looked like idiots, like amateurs. Unbelievable! “
Once the overwhelmed commissioners warned Nico Hülkenberg. But he was long gone
Little did he know that they would look the same over the next two days. Those who had fun could look out of the panorama window and watch live how the 20 best drivers in the world were driven too far out on the red-white-red surface, one after the other, before the art house cinema a short time later the punishment reported: Zack! Round canceled! It was clear…
At some point during the race, the commissioners were so overburdened with logging violations that an offense was lit up that caused wonder and laughter. Lo and behold: Nico Hulkenberg was also warned? But he was already eliminated! He was already in his box and happily giving interviews.
A Fia spokesman said hours after the end of the race that an “unprecedented situation” had arisen. It was impossible to check all potential offenses during the competition. Even without the protest of the Aston Martin racing team, which took action against the race classification, all controversial scenes would have been looked at again, assured the Fia. According to their own statement, the law enforcement officers viewed an incredible 1200 moving image sequences when they had to work overtime, and the amazed observer caught himself wondering whether at least Francis Ford Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now” came up with the same epic number? Probably only in the Director’s Cut.
At least that’s how it happened that the stewards had to pronounce such an outrageous flood of penalties on Sunday that the spectators were at least as confused as the race judges. Six drivers were already slowed down with time penalties during operation with the engine running – five hours (!) after crossing the finish line there was certainty: Eight (!!) drivers had to be sanctioned retrospectively in the confusion of rules, for a further twelve (!! !) offense. There has never been such mass punishment in Formula 1 in 73 years. A farce, of course.
In addition to the violations already punished in the race by Lewis Hamilton, Carlos Sainz, Kevin Magnussen, Pierre Gasly, Yuki Tsunoda, Alex Albon and Logan Sargeant, there was also: five more seconds for Tsunoda. Ten for Sainz, Gasly, Hamilton, Albon and Sargeant. Nyck De Vries received an additional 15 seconds and Esteban Ocon an additional 30 seconds. The three fastest Verstappen, Charles Leclerc and Sergio Perez were not affected; Record world champions Hamilton or Sainz lost valuable championship points.
Now, for those who are interested in the arithmetic: in order to gain five seconds, you have to go off the track four times. If this also happens the fifth time, there is an additional ten seconds. After that, the register of sins is reset to zero, and the driver has finally served his sentence. However, if he then relapses like Ocon, the game starts all over again: there are another five seconds for four violations, then again ten seconds for the fifth time. And so forth…
So Ocon alone has failed at least ten times to comply with Article 33.3, which states: “Drivers must make every reasonable effort to use the track at all times and must not leave the track without a valid reason.”
Toto Wolff calls for the use of sausage curbs. But these are life-threatening
Now, of course, one wonders what actually goes wrong in a sport when its world’s best representatives violate the guidelines in rows. There are only two possible explanations. Either: They not only look like idiots, as Verstappen noted, but are idiots. Or else: The rules are cocolores.
Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff settled on an explanation that, interestingly enough, merged both explanations: “It doesn’t work that way,” Wolff complained. Instead, he suggested the use of higher limits: the so-called “sausage curbs”. Curbs that lead to “you really damaging the car. Then there’s no discussion at all.” Basically, he was saying that the drivers only darted around the track because they thought they could do it without consequence. Which wasn’t right. And he received argumentative support from one of his employees. “You look at the white line but you can’t feel it,” said driver George Russell. “You feel gravel and grass, but not the white line. You just have to be disciplined.”
The problem with sausage kerbs is that they are also very dangerous for drivers. Last year one became a ski jump for the Norwegian Dennis Hauger at the Formula 2 race in Silverstone: his racing car took off and landed on that of Roy Nissany, whose life was probably only saved by the Halo head protection. Such incidents have also been documented in other racing series.
A more obvious solution for the difficult curves in Spielberg would therefore be to create a gravel bed. By slowing down the cars, the round stones would have a disciplining effect without endangering people and material excessively. The FIA said on Sunday that they had suggested the stone pits to the operators of the Red Bull Ring after last year’s race. At Monza, a similar curve was defused in exactly this way. Unlike in Italy, however, motorbikes will also be circling the route in Spielberg. And for two-wheelers, it is said, gravel is too dangerous, especially in turns 9 and 10.
“MotoGP is always the argument, but I think you have to have something that’s flexible and useful for Formula 1,” complained Christian Horner, Red Bull’s team principal. He thinks “a gravel strip or something else” is it Least. After all, Formula 1 looked “amateurish” all weekend. This, in turn, was exceptionally undisputed.