Formula 1

Gary Anderson’s solution for F1’s repeated grid penalty mess

by Gary Anderson
3 min read

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The Italian Grand Prix grid is once again scrambled by penalties, with Charles Leclerc the only driver to start in the position in which he qualified.

Ideally, I would have liked this column to go live earlier but when it was written there was still a fair amount of confusion as to how the grid would line up, which shows how big a problem it is when even the FIA takes its time to work things out.

The way the grid penalties are currently handed out is not only confusing but also isn’t a true penalty for some and will be negligible to the points outcome for a top team. Hardly the “deterrent” Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff has suggested they are.

I’ve previously suggested a points deduction, which would ensure that if penalties are still being applied then any team making a decision to use more power unit elements of gearboxes would suffer consequences in the championship. Then it’s about more than the inconvenience of choosing a circuit where the top cars can recover easily.

But this idea doesn’t seem to have gathered much support, so what if the penalties were turned into actual grid positions? This means that if there are insufficient places to lose from where you qualify, you have a time penalty that makes up the difference. It would be served at your first pitstop, as with in-race penalties for causing collisions or pitlane speeding.

Let’s see how that would play out based on this weekend’s qualifying result in the table below.

For my system, the ‘back of the grid’ penalty would be eliminated and replaced by a 20-place penalty. That would make more sense to everyone anyway.

Qualifying Penalty Actual Grid My Grid Time penalty
1 Leclerc Leclerc Leclerc
2 Verstappen 5 place Russell Russell
3 Sainz Back of grid Norris Norris
4 Perez 10 place Ricciardo Ricciardo
5 Hamilton Back of grid Gasly Gasly
6 Russell Alonso Alonso
7 Norris Verstappen Verstappen
8 Ricciardo De Vries De Vries
9 Gasly Zhou Zhou
10 Alonso Latifi Latifi
11 Ocon 5 place Vettel Vettel
12 Bottas 15 place Stroll Stroll
13 De Vries Perez Sainz +3s
14 Zhou Ocon Perez
15 Tsunoda Back of grid Bottas Hamilton +5s
16 Latifi Magnussen Ocon
17 Vettel Schumacher Bottas +7s
18 Stroll Sainz Magnussen +14s
19 Magnussen 15-place Hamilton Tsunoda +15s
20 Schumacher 15-place Tsunoda Schumacher +15s

If you just take the qualifying position and add the penalty to that position, you end up with this for the drivers that end up outside of the top 20. That’s where the time penalty column in the table comes into play.

Theoretical grid spot Driver Time penalty
23 Sainz +3s
25 Hamilton +5s
27 Bottas +7s
33 Magnussen +14s
34 Tsunoda +15s
35 Schumacher +15s

A system like this would mean that qualifying was still critical in impacting your final grid position and in turn race prospects.

It would also allow the rest of the field to gain from another driver abusing the system to put them in a better position for later in the season in a way that isn’t simply lost among the puzzling reshuffles that currently exist.

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