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There’s widespread discontent with Formula 1’s racing guidelines with multiple drivers calling for change days after their controversial impact across the Austin weekend.
Lando Norris’s penalty for passing Max Verstappen off-track spawned most of the headlines - and continues to in Mexico with McLaren's right of review petition - but there were multiple incidents in the sprint and grand prix that left both involved and observing drivers unimpressed.
Drivers are far from united on what the best solution is going forward, but from F1's Thursday media day in Mexico, it’s clear the majority feel change is necessary.
‘AI fighting’
F1 debuted overtaking rules ahead of the 2024 season - unavailable to the public but revealed by The Race in May - that are being used to inform critical decisions on incidents.
After arriving in Mexico, world champion Verstappen joked: “I think we are getting to a stage where I almost need the book in the car” owing to how the guidelines have grown in length this year.
He called F1 “definitely overregulated” but acknowledged the balancing act that has to be found: “If you take rules away, and then there's again an incident, it’s ‘ah, we need more rules, and we need to be strong on this’.”
RB driver Yuki Tsunoda cautioned that F1 racing might as well be AI racing if these judgements continue.
“I feel like they’re expecting us to drive like machines, like AI,” Tsunoda said.
“In the end, we’re doing racing. That’s why people look at it, battling between drivers is passion. We’re trying to fight each other passionately and if they remove that, it’s just going to be like AI fighting…the one in Abu Dhabi [A2RL]...it’s better to watch that.
“For sure it’s hard, it’s been a topic in motorsport for years, hopefully, one day we can be aligned closer.”
Outgoing Haas driver Kevin Magnussen said the current guidelines aren’t “great for racing right now. It’s very sort of restricted and it’s not ideal”.
He said F1 must look to other series like IndyCar as a blueprint and added: “You have to ask, do we want the drivers to race each other hard? I think so. That's my personal opinion [but] they won't be if they're at such a high risk of getting a penalty whatever they do.”
Carlos Sainz wants change but disagrees that the guidelines are changing the way drivers weigh up whether to perform an overtake.
“I’m going to be honest with you, it’s very difficult to think about the guidelines when you’re about to perform an overtake and brake 20 metres later down the inside,” Sainz said.
“You’re not thinking ‘Am I going to make it ahead at the apex?’ [Do I need to] release my brake just to make it?
“Maybe some drivers do, when I was in Austin going like hell to overtake people, I wasn’t thinking about the guidelines, I was just trying to be aggressive but fair. Or what I consider to be fair. And hope the stewards interpret my moves in a fair manner.
“I try to have that approach, rather than think about the guideline when hitting the brake pedal.”
Circuit changes?
Sainz instead felt circuit changes could curb some of the issues, following on from the much-praised introduction of gravel on the exit of Red Bull Ring’s final two corners.
“I think we can keep [talking] about guidelines, but for me until circuits don’t also give us a hand it will be very difficult to erase the problem,” Sainz said.
“I think if you put a gravel trap at the exit of Turn 12 [in Austin], Lando doesn’t think about braking so late and releasing the brake and [isn’t] happy to overtake around the outside because he will lose two seconds and get dirt on the tyres by going round the outside. And Max will think twice about braking so late, risking going in the gravel himself.
“So if you think about it the solution might be solved itself by circuit standards or circuit modifications, and we keep going around in circles with guidelines that might be easier to solve with certain slight changes to the track, which some tracks have already performed.”
Alex Albon added: "You could argue [about] every single overtake, every single defence, every single moment on the circuit but we don’t have these problems when we go to Singapore, we don’t have these problems when we go to Monaco, we don’t have these problems anywhere else we go to. We know that there’s extra track, it’s very easy in both ways.
"You can always squeeze a driver off and claim it's your corner. Likewise you can hang it around the outside and claim the person has squeezed you off. It’s what we learnt to do as drivers since we were kids, we know how to play the game and in some ways we know how complicated it is for the FIA to say who is at fault in many ways."
Grand Prix Drivers’ Association director George Russell, who admitted his penalty for passing Valtteri Bottas off-track at Turn 12 in Austin was “harsh but probably correct”, agreed that the root of the problem is the circuit layout.
“If we take Austria last year as an example, you had 300 track limit problems. They put gravel in, and there’s no problems,” Russell said.
“If you put gravel in on that corner, Max doesn’t go off and overtake, and Max doesn’t brake that late and go off as well. I think we need to tackle the root cause.”
He revealed the drivers were already going to sit down with the FIA to discuss the problem prior to Austin, and suggested permanent stewards was one solution.
“I guess between us [drivers], we’ll talk with the FIA and understand their viewpoint first and then we can judge,” Russell said.
“At the end of the day, the stewards are doing the best job they can. They’re trying their hardest, and they do have a set of guidelines which they follow. Maybe we need, we’ve spoken about consistency in the past, the only way you can have consistency is if you have the same stewards at every single race weekend. And at the moment, they are very experienced, but they are here as almost volunteers.
“It is not a professionally paid job, and if you look at football as an example, even though there is still controversy, a referee, they are professionals and that is their full-time job. That is where they make their income.
“As the sport we are at the moment, that’s probably the direction we should be heading.”
Team-mate Lewis Hamilton agreed: “As a sport, we do need to level up on all areas.
“We look at other global sports, they have full-time refs, for example. And I'm sure that wouldn’t be a bad thing for our sport.
“I mean I’ve experienced it many times with Max…you shouldn't be able to launch the car on the inside and go off and still hold the position.
“So, we need to level up a bit.”
A flawed rule?
One aspect of the 2024 racing guidelines is particularly unpopular with some drivers - the requirement that the attacking driver needs to have their front axle “level from apex to exit” for the move to be on.
Sainz warned a defending driver “can brake as late as you want and fake the fact that you’re trying to hit the apex when you’re maybe not”, and he wasn’t alone.
“In that case, it’s better to just launch it into the apex, even if you go off track, and try to be ahead [at the apex], get a priority and make the corner,” Tsunoda said of that rule.
“It’s different, what we’re trying to achieve in the corner and what they’re [the stewards are] thinking I think. It’s hard to be aligned.”
There is a stipulation that the attacking driver’s car must be driven “in a safe and controlled manner” throughout the manoeuvre, arguably there to prevent lairy divebombs.
But Tsunoda’s former team-mate Pierre Gasly - penalised in Austin for overtaking Alex Albon off-track at Turn 15 - thinks the apex rule needs to change.
“There is one rule which needs to be changed,” Gasly declared.
“That is whoever has got their front axle first at the apex gets the priority, but then [it depends] how much of car control you have at that point because otherwise typically you’re just going to end up having situations where you can just divebomb, not commit to the corner, just to make sure you’ve got your front axle at the apex. Even if you can’t make the corner, that’s going to be your corner.
“But then you might create other problems that you end up having all cars off the race track and whoever gets the priority doesn’t get penalised etc.
“I just think that specific rule, the way it’s written, I get it, that’s the way it is and at the moment we’ve got to respect it. [But] moving forwards, this needs to change to have more fairness in the way we fight.”
Not every driver believes the rules are a mess however, other than believing his Austin penalty was unfair, Norris said he had no issue with the guidelines in principle.
While Sauber's Bottas said "It's always been pretty clear. No drama there.
"It's just that some drivers are pushing the limits of the regulations more and almost like taking the p*** out of it, but the rules are clear."
