FLOYD ON F1: Track limit circus in Austria not good for sport

The Austrian F1 Grand Prix must rate as one of the most unusual events the majority of us have seen in many a year. It was not the racing per se, but rather the implementation of regulations, specifically track limits.

Problems regarding these limits began during Friday afternoon’s qualifying sessions for the grand prix on Sunday. This was a sprint weekend, one of those motorsport “feasts”, albeit with a rather strange menu.

Almost everyone in the field fell afoul of track limits in turns nine and 10 and had their times deleted. This required further runs on an already foreshortened qualifying session. Sadly Red Bull F1’s Sergio Perez had all his quick times deleted and finished up 15th on Sunday’s grid.

It was not much better during Saturday’s Sprint Shootout, but the real farce was Sunday’s Grand Prix. From the start it looked as though we were possibly going to see the Red Bull domination challenged. But it was not to be, as Max Verstappen showed again he is in a league of his own.

‘Let’s tell teacher’

Unfortunately the race was filled with radio messages from engineers to drivers warning of the track limits being exceeded. Black and white flags were being shown to offenders after three warnings, which meant a five-second penalty if they broke the regulation again.

ALSO READ: FLOYD ON F1: Expansions efforts face a red flag

It was a very “unhappy” Lewis Hamilton who received the first-time penalty. He spent several laps informing his engineer how many times his opposition were exceeding the limits without penalty. This was infectious as McLaren F1’s Lando Norris joined the “let’s tell teacher” brigade. Many others followed and all were ultimately found to be correct as the eventual “final” result proved.

I have to say I was very surprised to learn a post race protest from Aston Martin was upheld by the stewards. It showed that many drivers had exceeded track limits and were not punished. It was very noticeable during the race that such warnings were taking many minutes before teams were aware of the infringement.

ALSO READ: Trio of Hollywood’s elite buys stake in Alpine F1 team

Eight F1 drivers pay the price

The FIA stated more than 1200 infringements were recorded during the race. The protest confirmed the provisional result was issued before a number of violations had been included, The delays were due to the fact that these were violations picked up by the FIA’s control room in Geneva.

Many hours later the final result showed that eight drivers had dropped position. They including Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz, Hamilton and his Mercedes team-mate George Russell

FOM and FIA may have “improved” the entertainment value of F1. But ridiculous scenarios as seen last weekend must make us all, including the “new” fans, wonder if they could even organise the proverbial p**s up in a brewery!

This weekend it’s off to Silverstone in the UK for the next round of the F1 championship.