FLOYD ON F1: The essence of racing under threat

The F1 Austrian Grand Prix last Sunday saw another victory for the Red Bull team. Max Verstappen appears to be unbeatable at present.

Not fantastic racing, but at least it is the variant we have all wished for since 2014.

Too see the latest standings in the 2021 F1 Driver’s Championship, click here.

It was an incredible weekend for the F1 race stewards, with five-second penalties and penalty points being strewn like confetti at a society wedding.

Also, flags were being waved for exceeding track limits and crossing prohibited white lines on the pit lane entry.
But it did not end there. The stewards went into overtime when they requested the presence of a group of drivers.

In hot water

Unbelievably, 11 of the 20 were summoned post-race to account for various breaches of the rules and regs. These included Daniel Ricciardo, Nikita Mazepin, Carlos Sainz, Pierre Gasley, Antonio Giovinazzi, Nicholas Latifi, Charles Leclerc and Sergio Perez – all accused of not respecting double waved yellow flags after an incident towards the end of the race.

The incident was a coming together of Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel. Raikkonen was found to be responsible for the collision and received a 20-second penalty. George Russell was investigated for moving under braking during the same incident but the stewards took no action.

Of the eight drivers facing double yellow infringements, six were found to have reduced speed accordingly. But, Latifi and Mazepin were adjudged not to have slowed enough and both received 10-second stop-and-go penalties with 30 seconds added to their times. Both also received three penalty points on their licenses and Raikkonen received two more, bringing his total for the F1 season to six.

Trigger-happy F1 stewards

An aspect of Sunday’s F1 grand prix that disturbed me was the penalties awarded after incidents involving Red Bull’s Perez, McLaren’s Lando Norris and Ferrari’s Leclerc. All concerned cars being forced off track during cornering.

First up were Norris and Perez on the fourth corner of lap four, when the Mexican attempted to overtake the McLaren of Norris on the outside. However, it was the Red Bull that lost out, as Perez ran out of road and dropped back to 10th. Norris received a five-second penalty for the incident.

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Later, Perez was involved in a similar incident, this time with the Ferrari of Leclerc, who attempted to pass on the outside at turn four. Perez held his ground, the cars touched and Leclerc ran wide. The Monegasque radioed his engineer asking, “Did he break my car?” but all was well.

They continued to fight and a similar altercation occurred when entering turn six. Once again it was the Ferrari on to the dirt and a very unhappy driver who shouted “Come on, this guy’s a ****.”

The stewards decided both incidents were the fault of Perez, who was given two five-second penalties.
One has to ask why F1 has become sanitised to such a degree that the very essence of racing is being lost.
I am all for safety within the sport and there is no doubt the new standards have proved themselves repeatedly. But, should we not allow drivers to push it to the limit?

Near impossible

I certainly do not advocate deliberate contact between cars, but why should drivers be regulated to give up position when challenged in a corner? Many times F1 drivers cannot even see where the challenging competitor is.
Try looking into mirrors the size of a DVD screen, vibrating at a harmonic of the 12 000rpm power unit at a conservative 240km/h, just before your final brake marker and turn-in point.

We are told drivers must leave the width of a car on the outside, but F1 cars at that speed do not just turn in and follow a radius. They corner in a controlled slide.

They are battling with a constantly degrading level of grip due to tyre wear and fighting a phenomenon described as “the force that is felt by an object moving in a curved path that acts outwardly away from the centre of rotation”, known to most as centrifugal force.

Give credit where it’s due

This pushes you further on to the outer edge of the bend and acts on everyone negotiating such arc simultaneously.
The amount of calculation the human brain deals with during such a cornering situation is phenomenal and attempting to provide a correct passing lane dimension for a competitor trying to usurp you, must be one of the lesser items to be processed.

So if someone attempts to overtake on the outside, you will both be subjected to very similar forces and finding the gravel trap will inevitably sometimes become the inadvertent result. It has to happen, but when it results in an exciting overtaking move, we all enjoy and praise it. To me this is what F1 racing is all about – without many of the stifling regulations.