The sport that just keeps on giving...

[Scott]

Ricciardo has now received a 10 place grid penalty in Bahrain for an unsafe pit release!!! 

http://www.formula1.com/news/headlines/2014/3/15640.html

This is the kind of penalty that really annoys me.  The whole episode destroyed his race, and he didn't even finish.  Why bother?  The correct thing would have been to give him a stop and go immediately in the race.  What was there to think about until the end of the race?  It was clear as soon as it happened.  Penalize him during the race when it happened, not the next one.  F1 stewarding is still pitiful IMO.

[Wizzo]

Penalize him during the race when it happened, not the next one.

Agreed every race should be a clean slate.

[vintly]

The FIA need as much leverage against Red Bull as possible, to try and make them retract their fuel-gate appeal.

The FIA are stuck on fuel-gate - they can't effectively rule against ignoring a directive, and it looks like Red Bull haven't broken any rules. So from purely a legal perspective they might have to rule in favour of Red Bull - which would create pandemonium. So I wouldn't be surprised if they say 'We'll reduce the grid penalty to three places if you drop your appeal'. Or even more, no grid penalty.

There'll be some serious bargaining going on behind the scenes I bet.

[Scott]

Really?  You think that penalty came from the top, and not the race stewards?  I somewhat agree with you that penalizing them for ignoring a race directive is on thin ice, but they have been known for writing rules as they go along.  If I was the FIA, I would be much more nervous about Dieter's threat to leave the sport than anything to do with the appeal, and it seems a 10 place grid penalty is just going to get him going again, not the opposite.

[vintly]

Agreed it came from the race stewards - it's the designated penalty, however harsh it seems. It just happens to have fallen into FIA's lap and may help de-fuse the fuel-gate situation - possibly.

[cosworth151]

This really does smell of the FIA. Everybody knew that they would get an unsafe release penalty for the incident. There was no legitimate reason to delay the call until after the race. The call should have been made on the spot, with the penalty served during the race.

[Jericoke]

I would have thought they had standard penalties for something like 'unsafe pit release'.  This seems made up and arbitrary.

I agree with the FIA that is something that needs to be taken seriously, and if this is the rule going forward I can live with it.  Just maybe put the rules on paper (or PDF) ahead of time.

[Scott]

If it was during the race, sure, throw a 10sec stop n go penalty, but this trend of screwing the NEXT race for drivers is really annoying, especially when it wasn't a driver error.

[vintly]

I blame Webber for letting that wheel ping off and hit the cameraman. 

[Scott]

You're probably right 

I blame the cameraman for not keeping his eye on the ball wheel

[Scott]

I didn't realize there is a double penalty of both a drive through AND a 10 place grid penalty for the next race.

http://www.planetf1.com/driver/18227/9242332/Horner-Ricciardo-s-penalty-is-harsh

I don't like it.  I think the best thing they could do for pit safety is to somehow slow down the stops.  I think the best way would be NASCAR's version, to only have two guys on the front, and two on the rear (one with a tire and the other with air gun), and make them run around the car to do the change.  As an added benefit, the could remove the hanging air lines.  Plus longer stops affect strategy more...if a stop took 11-12sec, there would be more teams opting for two stops instead of three.  I miss the days when the leader could actually lose his 10 second lead by taking an extra stop to keep his tires fresh.

[lkjohnson1950]

I say put the penalty where it belongs, on the team. How about 100,000 euros for a first offense, doubling thereafter and no manufacturer points for that race. As far as fuelgate is concerned, R/B will lose. The teams were informed before the season the the FIA flow meter was the standard and R/B choose to ignore it. If Daniel's meter had failed completely they might have an argument, otherwise rules is rules. As for Dieter, he will someday move on, he always does. He's stayed with F1 longer than just about anything else he's started.

[Scott]

I agree.  Enough about this being a team sport and whatever goes wrong it should affect everyone.  There ARE after all two separate championships.  Penalties should be laid against whichever committed them, team and/or driver, but not necessarily both.

[John S]

The problem with just awarding a stop and go in the race is that the driver has probably dropped well down the order anyway so it almost becomes meaningless. The car could also be pulled out of the race by the team before any penalty could apply, so a belt and braces penalty both in the race and at the subsequent race was adopted.

This may seem overly harsh but with the lightening pit stops that have become the norm the potential for error is greater. Big fines don't matter to the top teams, a few tenths costs them millions in development anyway. It seems he only way to get the teams to slow fractionally - just enough to reduce error margins - is to hand out severe penalties.

IMO the separation of driver and team responsibility is a real no go, the stewards have to look at enough 'on track' action without having to also pick apart just what happened during the pit stop whilst the race is running. Sure the reason for the unsafe release can be looked at after the racing, which I'm sure it is, and recommendations can be made to the team to help prevent future incidents. However on present form over FIA recommendations some teams may treat them more seriously then others. 

 

[Scott]

There are occasions where a stop and go for an unsafe release drastically changes a driver's race.  An unsafe release after all is not only called that when a wheel isn't properly fixed, it can also be when a driver cuts off another coming down the pit lane.  In that case the driver can have his race completely thrown off the rails by a stop and go since he perhaps didn't lose any time in the pit lane incident.

I don't see the stewards room as a frantic place with 20TV's and the stewards constantly scribbling notes to look at incidents afterwards.  I see it as a desk with a couple screens, one of which shows the race, the other one they can call up replays from the director as they choose.

Most of the time incidents are pointed out to the stewards by other complaining teams (through race control), and they are certainly pointed out right away.  To have been half asleep watching the race, you would have seen immediately that it was an unsafe release and the human brain is well equipped to come up with a guilty decision and have them immediately apply the penalty.  Dishing out another one at the end of the race stinks of politics.

Why is it so unreasonable to penalize the team for team infractions and the driver for driver infractions?  In some cases both need to be combined, but giving the driver grid penalties for something the TEAM did in the previous race is far too harsh.  If you think that the driver needs to take one for the team, then why stop at just one driver having a stop n go penalty.  After all, they had nothing to do with it.  Bring both drivers in for stop n go's.  Stands to reason.  One driver had as much to do with it as the other.

How about this?  If you want the teams to take pit stop safety and unsafe releases seriously, then restructure the penalty so that if a team causes a pit stop penalty, then they lose all their WCC points for that race...for BOTH cars.  That will get their attention, even the smaller teams who are fighting for one point at a time.  Maybe they simply need to come up with another rule for unsafely mounted wheels and not bundle it all together in one rule.  Releasing a car so another car must react with braking or turning is an unsafe release.  Releasing a car with a wheel not attached is an unfinished pit stop.  Give it a different rule.

Grid penalties are another rule that the casual fan doesn't understand.  Why bother?  The penalty point system seems like a great idea, where a driver will be banned from a GP if he reaches 12 points.  That will be really interesting to see who will get the first one, and even more fun, who the reserve driver is at the time.