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Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff has said the confusion over Fernando Alonso’s penalty at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix was reminiscent of a refereeing error at the end of the final race in Abu Dhabi in 2021 .
Alonso finished last week’s race in third, but was then handed a 10-second post-race penalty for failing to enforce an earlier penalty for failing to line up incorrectly on the grid at Jeddah.
That dropped Alonso to fourth, but Aston Martin appealed and the penalty was overturned, with the Spaniard reclaiming third place replacing Mercedes driver George Russell, who briefly held the title in the interim. up the trophy.
Confusion and uncertainty about what’s going on is not a good look for Formula 1, and the FIA ​​has recently revamped race control again in an attempt to stamp out those embarrassing lapses.
For Wolff, it brought back memories of that harrowing night in 2021 when race control’s controversial handling of a delayed restart of the Abu Dhabi safety car cost Lewis Hamilton his eighth world title.
Subsequent investigations led to the sacking of then race director Michael Massey and an overhaul of the way referees work, but the result in Abu Dhabi was unaffected and Max Verstappen retained his laurels.
One change this season has brought is stricter rules about how cars line up on the grid. Esteban Ocon was fouled in Bahrain, while in Jeddah Alonso was deemed too far from his place.
This resulted in a five-second penalty for Alonso’s first pit stop under the safety car. But stewards deemed that invalid because a crew member touched the rear of the AMR23 within five seconds, resulting in a harsher post-race penalty.
This is just the latest catalog of what goes wrong with racial control, Wolf said. “First of all, the penalties are very severe,” he told channel 4 TV coverage of F1.
“In terms of pure driving performance, Fernando and Aston Martin deserved a podium finish,” he insisted. “We’ll have to look at the rules and see if there’s anything we can adjust because it won’t affect his game.
“I’d rather have the FIA ​​make the right decision than make the wrong decision too quickly,” he continued.
“In 2021 we have been victims of a situation where it all comes down to entertaining quick decisions that deprive the championship of the greatest driver.
“So in that regard, I guess I’d rather not go to the podium and then get the right result.”
Although he could have benefited from the 10-second free throw later awarded to Alonso, Russell was outspoken from the outset that it was a bad call for game control.
“I’m not so sure it just made it a little bit, I guess, frustrating for everyone,” Russell explained. “There’s been a lot of conversation this weekend about which lines you can touch and which lines you can’t.
“We’ve seen a lot of cars get canceled for touching a little bit of red paint, ending their laps. I just think it’s kind of pointless, really, so I think we all need to come together and find a common center ground.
“It’s very difficult,” he replied when asked how hard it was to see the grid markings from inside the cockpit. “We were sitting so low that from some angle we could only see four or five inches from the top of the tire.
“I can’t even see the yellow line, let alone the white line that determines your lateral position. It’s really, really hard, so I think we need to show a little more common sense in that regard.”
His views were backed up by Red Bull drivers Sergio Perez and Max Verstappen, who comfortably led Alonso and Russell in first and second.
“Visibility inside the car is really poor, and I think that’s probably the main issue where you sometimes don’t get into your box quite, properly,” Verstappen pointed out.
“I haven’t seen how far he’s gotten out of his box. It’s painful when it happens, but it’s kind of the same as a white line with a track limit. Sometimes you argue: are you gaining anything, regardless Is it going wide or not, going out of it?
“I think at some point we do need a rule. If people start taking advantage of moving left and right, it looks really stupid, but, yeah, I don’t know what we can do better.”
“It’s really hard to see where you stop,” agrees Perez. “I think, in my opinion, I just overdid it, I stopped too early, but you don’t know when you’re in the car.
“You don’t know if you’re going too far, or you’re behind, or you’re too far ahead,” he added. “We need better visibility to come up with better ideas than we currently have.
“It’s good to have rules, but at the same time, honestly, sometimes it’s like luck, where you put yourself.”
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