COTA - Verstappen

[rcrmike]

All are interesting arguments. However, there's not much emphasis on the consistency of the officials. Prior to the race there were several reports that many drivers were off course. Especially in qualifying. If the drivers must obey the rules, then so must the officials. Officials can't enforce rules willy nilly. In hindsight, what should have been applied is ALL driving offenses should have been penalized during qualifying. And what's this silliness about penalties not being protestable?

How many drivers improved their qualifying position by shortcutting the turns? At this point we may never know, but a five second penalty for each turn would have deleted that killer lap. A five second penalty during qualifying would have resulted in less drivers going out of bounds. The penalty would have been taken seriously by all drivers and teams.

The same during the race. If observed going beyond the lines, the officials "could have" informed the teams to expect a post race penalty. Doesn't matter if it was during a pass or not. Any driver can catch opponents ahead if they cut the corners and improve a few tenths each lap. Which is the main purpose of having this rule. A time penalty uniformly applied would prevent this abuse of the course. This has been going on before COTA.

My opinion is that the officials were equally at fault. Officials allowed, by setting a prior precedent, that the rules were loosely enforced. The officials were warned about this prior to the race. There are cameras everywhere these days. They also have the luxury of replaying the videos. The officials could have prevented the abuse of the course from being the norm. Imagine if the grid had been reset the following morning!!! I think the rules would have been respected.

I disagree with taking away today's safe runoff areas or placing dangerous curbs to keep drivers honest. Like the deadly red ones at Laguna. Do we wish to follow-up COTA's WWF driver introductions and turning this sport into walled-off stockcar type tracks? The stock car crowd doesn't go out of bounds without a self inflicted penalty! Let's not do it their way.

[dalz]

I understand the penalty, and I get the modern safety aspect of acreage of runoff pavement on the OUTSIDE of tracks, but I don't see why there is anything resembling usable hard surface on the INSIDE of any curbing! If Max wanted to put his car on grass/dirt and deal with the consequences, that's racing. No need to have that pavement on the inside of the curb.

[Jnovak]

I understand the penalty, and I get the modern safety aspect of acreage of runoff pavement on the OUTSIDE of tracks, but I don't see why there is anything resembling usable hard surface on the INSIDE of any curbing! If Max wanted to put his car on grass/dirt and deal with the consequences, that's racing. No need to have that pavement on the inside of the curb.

Agree, or sand, whatever has little grip

Pay with slower lap times.