The Austrian Grand Prix was a bumper event for Formula 1’s controversial licence penalty points system.
Lando Norris’s headline-making pair of penalty points for his incident with Sergio Perez, nudging him uncomfortably close to a race ban, was far from an isolated case.
A total of 18 points were dished out for offences in the race itself, with Sebastian Vettel’s point for impeding Fernando Alonso in qualifying taking the weekend total to 19.
The basic reasoning for many offences may not seem too problematic: issues such as forcing drivers off, causing collisions and not respecting yellow flags.
There’s certainly no issue with clamping down on things like Kimi Raikkonen carelessly firing Sebastian Vettel into the gravel on the penultimate lap and then Nicholas Latifi and Nikita Mazepin not respecting the double-waved yellow flags that followed that incident.
In fact, the penalties for Latifi and Mazepin – and the investigation of six other drivers for doing the same – was a refreshing change of pace from the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, where FIA race director Michael Masi chose to ignore what he felt was every driver failing to respect yellow flags.
The incidents involving Norris, Perez and Leclerc were hotly debated but the licence penalty points system is a separate issue to arguing whether those were simply racing incidents or not.
Masi believes the current system is not “harsh”. His point is that the teams contribute to the scale of licence points penalties available to the stewards and have not pushed for any changes.
If teams have not taken previous opportunities to change the system then they are as much to blame as anybody.
So, this is not criticism being specifically levied at Masi, the FIA, or the stewards, who seem to be forced to pick from a specified menu.
But collectively, F1 has allowed a flawed system to develop, and it should be changed. The list of offences from Austria underlines that.
Antonio Giovinazzi receiving two licence points for pitting under the safety car and overtaking Fernando Alonso while heading into the pitlane seems an exaggerated additional punishment for something innocuous that already came with a five-second time penalty.
Especially as that’s the same number of points as Raikkonen got for his Vettel clash, and that Valtteri Bottas received one week earlier for spinning in the pitlane and endangering McLaren mechanics.
Likewise, Yuki Tsunoda crossing the white line at pitlane entry twice was careless, but he got a five-second penalty for each offence. Does it merit a pair of licence points as well?
Compare that to instances of drivers speeding in the pitlane over the weekend resulting in no such penalty points.
Lance Stroll got a five-second time penalty for fractionally overstepping the limit in the race but no penalty points, while Raikkonen was a full 8.5kph over the limit in practice and all that got was a €900 fine for his team.
That’s despite the speed limit being there explicitly for safety reasons and being the most relatable offence to the real-world drivers’ licence points system that Masi refers to.
It shows the system is unfit for purpose and an example of over-regulation, an idea that is fine in principle but has been woefully deployed and has subsequently run out of control.
Teams may have wasted opportunities to get this system reviewed before but it is past time something changes.
