The results of the Brazil Grand Prix might have been inked into the record books but that hasn't prevented the events of that weekend remaining a hotly debated topic in Formula 1.
For the majority of F1's drivers, the most contentious element was Oscar Piastri's 10-second penalty for his part in triggering a collision which eliminated Ferrari's Charles Leclerc from the race. Leclerc's retirement was just one outcome: Piastri's penalty consigned him to fifth place at the flag, while the driver he was trying to overtake – Mercedes' Andrea Kimi Antonelli – finished second, ahead of Max Verstappen.
As such, the penalty had a significant bearing on the championship mathematics: Lando Norris extended his points lead, while Piastri not only lost ground to his team-mate, his margin to Verstappen was eroded.
But this isn't why the drivers themselves are debating the rights and wrongs of the penalty. Rather it raises important questions about how the racing is policed. As Antonelli himself said this weekend: "If you stand by the drivers' guidelines, Oscar is wrong.
"The stewards stand by the guidelines and that's why the penalty was given. In Zandvoort, I was penalised. Obviously, it was a bit different, but the dynamic was kind of the same: I was not fully alongside in Zandvoort and I collided with Charles and I got my penalty."
While Antonelli was understandably on the defensive, his instinct to compare Piastri's penalty with one of his own is part of a pattern which has developed over the season. There is a growing body of incidents – some minor, some not – resulting in penalties which have left the drivers baffled and increasingly agitated, to the point where F1's driving guidelines will be discussed again in an official meeting ahead of next weekend's Qatar GP.
"I think we need urgently a catch-up and try and solve it because for me the fact that Oscar got a penalty there in Brazil is unacceptable," said Carlos Sainz. "Honestly, for the category that we are in and being the pinnacle of motorsport… I think everyone that's seen racing knows that is not Oscar's fault at all, and everyone that's really raced a race car knows he could have done nothing to avoid an accident there.
"So it is something that I don't understand. I didn't understand my Zandvoort penalty [for contact with Liam Lawson]. I didn't understand why Ollie [Bearman] got a penalty when we both collided in Monza. Like he was not deserving of that penalty, and I told him straight after the race.
"I didn't understand how I caught a 10-second in Austin [for a collision with Antonelli, converted to a five-place grid drop in Mexico because Sainz retired from the race without serving the penalty]. And then the Brazil situation. So there's been not one but multiple incidents this year that, for me, are far from where the sport should be."
The reason for Piastri being in the "wrong" in Brazil, but right so far as most of his peers are concerned (including Leclerc), lies in the phrasing of the driving guidelines, which the FIA published this year for the sake of full transparency.
For a driver to be considered entitled to ‘racing room', their car must have its front axle "at least alongside the mirror of the other car prior to and at the apex". This proviso in itself has been the focus of much debate, since it is open to exploitation: what was to stop a driver over-committing to a corner and leaving their opponent no choice but to give way, even if there was no possibility of them making the corner safely under other circumstances?
After several contentious moments on track last season, principally between Norris and Verstappen during the championship run-in, the phrasing of the guidelines was amended to include another key test. The overtaking car must "be driven in a fully controlled manner particularly from entry to apex, and not have 'dived in'".
These are the tests Piastri failed. Although he was alongside on the pitstraight, this was not the case at the crucial moment, so the stewards determined he "did not establish the required overlap [i.e. front axle ahead of mirror] prior to and at the apex", and that he "locked the brakes as he attempted to avoid contact by slowing, but was unable to do so [i.e. his car was not fully under control] and made contact".
For the drivers, the problem lies in the guidelines being very prescriptive, and – as Sainz means when he talks about "everyone that's really raced a race car" – not taking into account the nuances and dynamics of racing. The collision in Brazil between Piastri and Antonelli, and then between Antonelli and Leclerc, is a prime example of this: regardless of whether the driver on the inside has established the necessary overlap on the approach to the corner, in the braking zone they are likely to lose some of that because the laws of physics dictate they must brake earlier because their trajectory through the corner is sharper (especially if, as in Brazil, the surface is damp).
Thus Piastri's defenders, including his own team of course, pointed out that he "couldn't just disappear" and that Antonelli ought to have allowed for this inevitability in choosing his own line. But there are other complicating factors, including visibility from the cockpit.
"In the braking, I didn't even see him anymore because he braked so much earlier than me," said Antonelli. "But then he locked up and, obviously, I closed a bit the corner and we collided. I think it was an unlucky situation.
"But if we stand by the guidelines, the penalty is fair because it wasn't at my mirror, at the level of my mirror. And that's how it is, of course. Maybe it can be a bit unfair, maybe it was a racing incident because the situation was tricky. But the rules are these and that's why in Qatar we will discuss about it for the future to try to make it better."
While the drivers want clarity, there is also an argument against adding further layers of qualifications to the driving guidelines. There would come a point where they grow to the point of becoming unwieldy and time-consuming to implement in the fast-moving environment of a race.
"I think it's very difficult," said George Russell, the Grand Prix Drivers Association chairman as well as Antonelli's team-mate. "The guidelines have to be guidelines. There's a bit of a wording, or a view, that if a car is locking up, it's deemed to be out of control.
"This corner in Brazil [Turn 1] is totally cambered into the corner, the inside of the car is always going to be unloaded, and that tyre is not even on the ground. So that tyre is locking, but you're totally in control.
"So that's why it has to be guidelines. And you have to treat every single corner, every circuit, every incident totally differently.
"And it goes back to the same point of if we have the same stewards week, race after race, we can have these conversations. And we can also explain to them some uniqueness in driving a Formula 1 car at a circuit like Brazil, in a corner like Turn 1, where the tyre is going to be sort of locking up, but it doesn't mean you're out of control.
"It's very difficult for the stewards. They do their absolute best. And the majority of the time they get it right. There's always going to be the odd incident they get wrong."
Read and post comments